Metadata Quality Evaluation: UTEP Library's Casasola Photograph Collection

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Jason Moore
SLIS 5223
Spring 2013
Metadata Quality Evaluation:
UTEP Library's Casasola Photograph Collection
1. About the Collection
The UTEP Library Casasola Photograph Collection consists of digitally scanned photographic prints and
negatives originally taken at the Casasola Photography Studio in El Paso, Texas. The studio was in operation
from the 1920s through the 1990s and was owned and operated by local photographer, Alfonso Casasola. When
the studio closed in 1992, the contractors tasked with cleaning out the space found several boxes full of
neglected prints and negatives spanning several decades of the studio's operation. The boxes were taken to a
pawn shop and subsequently purchased by a local artist, who sold them to the UTEP Library (Simon, 2008). The
initial collection consisted of 50,000 physical items, many of which are of unknown subjects. As of 2013, 2500 of
these items have been digitized and made available to the public across two separate repositories.
The bulk of the collection is currently stored in UTEP's digital repository DigitalCommons@UTEP. Most of these
photos have not yet been identified. Since 2002, the El Paso Times has been assisting the university in the
process of identification by publishing one photograph weekly, allowing the public to provide information. A
selection of these identified photos have been migrated to the library's new image database by utilizing OCLC's
CONTENTdm product. This report will focus on the latter collection, since it contains the most complete
metadata currently available. This collection currently only contains 344 items, but as the migration process is
still currently underway, more are added regularly. These items are divided into the following categories for
browsing purposes: Niños (children), Damas (women), Señores (men), Grupos (groups), Soldados (soldiers),
Graduados (graduates), Primeras Comuniones (first communion), Bodas (brides), Pasaportes (passport photos),
Varios y Copias (miscellaneous).
The collection is intended to serve as both a publicly available historical archive as well as a research tool for
teachers, genealogists and researchers in the fields of history, art, and anthropology-- among others (Rivers,
Personal Interview, 2013). The items in this collection have also been the basis of two public exhibitions and
have served the needs of local journalists who have used some of the images to illustrate stories on immigration
history (Renteria, 2011). This photograph collection along with the other image collections stored in UTEP's
CONTENTdm database provide a near-complete visual history of El Paso and the rest of the Trans-Pecos
region.
Claudia Rivers, head of the C.L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department at UTEP Library, currently
administers the collection along with UTEP Library Manuscripts Librarian and Archivist, Laura Hollingsed.
Interdepartmental discussions are currently underway concerning broad metadata enhancements and increased
incorporation of all local digital collections into the primary OPAC. (Rivers, Personal Interview, 2013).
2.1. Metadata Application
Software
This collection, along with the other UTEP Library image collections, are stored, managed, and delivered by
OCLC's CONTENTdm system. This digital collection tool provides a framework for digital objects and their
associated metadata to be prepared and loaded in large batches. It also supplies a server, a configurable public-
facing web interface, and a self-service tool for uploading metadata to WorldCat (OCLC). The system also

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provides support for a range of metadata content, encoding, and transmission standards including Unicode,
Z39.50, VRA, XML, and METS/ALTO. The system also allows for open harvesting of metadata records through
OAI-PHM (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting). The flexibility and scalability of the system
provide a hearty framework for rich indexing metadata and interoperability. The UTEP Library has plans
underway to enrich current metadata to optimize search-ability by taking advantage of various CONTENTdm
features that are currently unused.
Metadata Format and Structure
All of the elements present in the metadata records for this collection are locally defined but compatible with
Simple Dublin Core analogues. Most of the metadata for the collection is descriptive, though there are some
examples of administrative and preservation metadata in most of the records. The descriptive-- locally defined--
elements are as follows: Name(s), Creator, Category, Date of original, and Comments. The Administrative and
Preservation-related fields are: Identifier, Date digital, Format use, Format creation, Format original, Rights,
Relation, and Holdings. It should be noted that not all of these elements are used in the current batch of records.
See Table 1 for an overview of the locally defined elements and their Simple DC equivalents:
All records for the collection are at the item level. There are some collection-level records for the image
collections available in the library's OPAC but these are not currently represented in any way within the
repositories themselves. The collection-level records that do exist are created according to traditional library
cataloging procedures and, as such utilize AACR2 for their content and are encoded in MARC21. Currently, no
such collection-level record exists for the Casasola Photograph Collection. As such, this report will focus on only
the item-level records for analysis rather than any of the collection-level records for other collections.

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The metadata scheme used in the collection is locally defined and not strictly standards-based. It is however
compatible with Simple Dublin Core and metadata crosswalks have been established to map all locally defined
CONTENTdm fields to their analogous Simple Dublin Core elements that can be exported in various encoding
schemes including XML and SGML. As the UTEP Library currently has no librarians on staff with extensive
Figure 1: Example of Collection-Level Metadata Record for an Analogous
Image Collection
Figure 2: Example of Public-Facing Item-Level Metadata Record

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training in metadata standards outside of those used in traditional library cataloging, the decision to bypass
standards was not necessarily made intentionally, but rather out of necessity (Rivers, Personal Interview, 2013).
Many of the initial records were also created by students when the decision was made to digitize the collection. A
department outside of the library was responsible for this effort and was, at the time, creating a database of
historical images for the university. These students were given no specific details on how to record metadata for
the items and were left to make many decisions on their own. This resulted in wildly differing records from item-
to-item. Quite a bit of remediation has been done to standardize the records internally. There are plans to map
the records over to Qualified Dublin Core at an indeterminate point in the future. (Rivers, Personal Interview,
2013).
The collection has 7 required fields: Identifier, Name(s), Creator, Category, Date digital, Rights, and Holdings.
The rest of the fields are optional, as not all of the necessary information for them is currently available. These
fields include: Date of original, Format use, Format creation, Format original, Relation, and Comments. As shown
in Table 1, all of these fields map to Simple Dublin Core elements, though this is done without qualifiers.
Definitions of Required Fields
The Name(s) field, or Title in DC, denotes the name of the individual pictured in the photograph, uniformly. The
Creator field, a valid DC element, has the value “Casasola Studio” across the entire collection. Category, the
only field under the authority of a locally-defined controlled vocabulary, denotes one of the categories mentioned
previously and equates to the DC subject element. Date digital equates to the Qualified Dublin Core element
“date.modified.” This field contains the year in which the item was digitized, though it is not under the authority of
any specific date format standard. The Rights field, another valid DC element, has the value “The C. L.
Sonnichsen Special Collections Department – University of Texas at El Paso Library” across the entire collection.
The Holdings field, which equates roughly to the DC element Source, also has “The C. L. Sonnichsen Special
Collections Department – University of Texas at El Paso Library” as its value, collection-wide.
Definitions of Optional Fields
The field, Date of original, represents the specific or estimated year in which the original photograph was taken.
This field is analogous to the Qualified Dublin Core element “date.created.” The field, Format use, is a hybrid of
the input values for the Qualified Dublin Core elements “format.extent” and “format.medium” an example value
for this field is “250 x 400 pixels, 72dpi, jpeg,” this includes the optical size of the image (in pixels), its resolution
(in digital pixels per inch), and the file type/extension. Format creation, which could also be represented by the
Qualified DC element “format.medium,” expresses the equipment used for digitization. An example value for this
field is: “Windows 2k, Microtek Scanmaker 9600XL.” Format original can also be expressed by the Qualified DC
element “format.medium,” as it expresses the original format of the item, pre-digitization. An example value for
this field is “Negative Nitrate.” The valid DC element Relation is available as an optional field, though no records
were found to contain this field. The Comments field can be expressed by the DC element Description.
Controlled Vocabularies
The only controlled vocabulary currently in-use for the collection governs the Category field. This controlled
vocabulary is locally-defined and repository-specific. It is not, in any way, derived from an existing controlled
vocabulary of subject headings. The possible values for this field are the categories previously mentioned:
Niños, Damas, Señores, Grupos, Soldados, Graduados, Primeras Comuniones, Bodas, Pasaportes, and Varios
y Copias. There are plans to review and update records across all image collections to make use of LCSH
approved lists at some point but, so far no work has been completed on this project (Rivers, Personal Interview,
2013).
Harvesting
The Casasola Photograph Collection does not currently have harvesting via the Open Archives Initiative Protocol
enabled. There are, however, plans to utilize this function of CONTENTdm in the future. There are issues with

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the availability of staff that are familiar and comfortable with this standard (Rivers, Personal Interview, 2013).
2.2. Metadata Quality Evaluation
Sampling Method
A sample of fifteen records was selected with the use of a random integer generator. The entire range of
metadata record identifiers was exported from CONTENTdm as a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet. The randomly
generated integers, who's range matched the range of records, were then made to correspond to rows in the
spreadsheet. The identifiers from each of these rows was used to retrieve their corresponding record. Since
there appears to be no outstanding difference in record structure and content between the different categories,
no effort was made to present an accurate subject cross-section of the collection.
The evaluation criteria for this analysis was derived from Zeng & Qin's book Metadata, Bruce & Hillmann's
quality assessment frameworks from their article The Continuum of Metadata Quality: Defining, Expressing,
Exploiting, and Greenberg's framework for image collections from the article A Quantitative Categorical Analysis
of Metadata Elements in Image Applicable Metadata Schemas. These criteria include: Completeness, Accuracy,
Consistency, and Conformance to Expectations (Bruce & Hillmann, 2004).
Completeness
Completeness of the metadata in this collection will be measured against Greenberg's framework, which
includes the following sub-criteria: Discovery, Use, Authentication, and Administration. These criteria give a good
overview of the effectiveness of the metadata as it applies to both users and administrators.
Discovery- Good discovery metadata should “assist in the identification and retrieval of an object.” (Greenberg,
2001). The metadata in this collection only moderately addresses discovery in that there are only three fields that
are currently indexed for searching. These fields include the following: Identifier, Category, and Comments. The
Identifier field has a low probability of ever being utilized for retrieval by the end user and serves a purely
administrative function. The Category field is useful for browsing but provides little detail in terms of recognizable
subject headings. The Comments field can be used for phrase searching but since it is not under the authority of
a controlled vocabulary, the accuracy of searching against this field is questionable.
Use- Sufficient use metadata should determine for the user “the who, can, what, where, when, and how of object
use.” (Greenberg, 2001). In other words, it should give the user a broad understanding of the various factors
governing the use of the item that is being described. This collection suffers from a lack of use metadata. There
are no specific statements regarding system requirements or rights and restrictions. There is a Rights field, but it
goes no further than making a broad and vague copyright claim for the UTEP Library-- it doesn't include anything
regarding terms of use. Format related metadata is not sufficient across the collection. Some records include the
extent and medium of the item's format, but this isn't consistent.
Authentication- There should be some metadata that provides information about an item's “integrity, legitimacy,
and overall genuine quality.” (Greenberg, 2001). The Holdings field, as well as the Rights field, make an attempt
at addressing this issue. By stating that The C. L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department of the UTEP
Library is the source of both the item itself and its associated metadata, the institutional brand is utilized to
provide validation of the item's authenticity. This, however could be more robust and specific.
Administration- Metadata should support management and preservation functions (Greenberg, 2001). This
collection has only sparse administrative metadata. Some good, actionable preservation-related metadata is
included in fields that are optional and are not widely used. Much of this is contained in the various Format fields.
It could be helpful, from a preservation standpoint, to know the details how how and when an item was digitized.
Very few records contain this information. There is no metadata regarding the provenance of items or how they
were acquired. There is also no metadata regarding any preservation actions that have already been
undertaken.

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Accuracy
This collection meets the minimum requirement of accuracy as defined by Bruce & Hillmann, in that all
information provided is “correct and factual.” (Bruce & Hillmann, 2004). The records sampled for this evaluation
appear to be free of typographical errors and the expression of personal names is uniform. There does appear to
be some lack of consistency in abbreviations and the lack of a specific standardized date format reduces the
level of accuracy. The Date fields in the system only display the year, this could become problematic if a user
required more detail regarding when an item was scanned.
Consistency
Consistency was analyzed based on the following criteria provided by Zeng & Qin: Consistent Data Recording,
Consistent Source Links, Consistent Identification and Identifiers, and Consistent Description of Source. (Zeng &
Qin, 2008).
Consistency of data recording- Most of the metadata for this collection, especially the descriptive metadata,
had to be interpreted by the creator. This has the possibility to lend itself to inconsistency, especially since only
one field utilizes a controlled vocabulary. However, based on the analysis of the sample, most of the fields
appear to be consistent. However, the fact that most of the administrative fields are applied unevenly across the
collection should count as a mark against its consistency. For example, some records have nearly all of the
possible fields (see record 14 in the Appendix) while others contained only the bare minimum (see record 4 in
the Appendix). Most of the input values are relatively short and concise and terminology appears consistent
despite this.
Consistency of source links- Since the URLs and URIs are created automatically by the system, they appear
to be uniformly consistent across the collection.
Consistency of identification and identifiers- The identifiers for this collection were created locally. They
appear to be consistently applied and in-sequence. There are no duplicate identifiers and they all appear to
adhere to the locally-created scheme.
Consistency of description- There appears to be very little consistency in this area. The only field that
corresponds to the DC Description field is Comments. This field does not appear to be utilized in every record
and when it is, it is not used consistently. Some “See also” comments are utilized in this field that would have
been better placed in a Relation field. They also vary widely in length and content.
Conformance to Expectations
It is important for metadata to represent what is expected by the community-- both the local users of a system,
and the information community at-large. The content standards chosen should “contain those elements that the
community would reasonably expect to find” (Bruce and Hillmann, 2004). This collection, in its failure to adhere
to any specific metadata standard, does not conform to expectations. It would be beneficial to the collection if the
administrators would consider polling the community and working with the library's cataloging department to
standardize these records and bring them into conformance with community norms. It would also be beneficial to
refer to existing controlled vocabularies like the LCSH in order to bring more recognizable subject metadata to
the collection to maximize searching and retrieval.
3. Conclusion
The metadata for the Casasola Photograph Collection is well suited for the basic intentions initially laid out, but
much work needs to be done if the goal is to scale it into a proper digital library. Many problems were identified in
every criterion outlined in this report outside of accuracy of input values. The care shown to the physical
collection's preservation and to the actual digitization of the items is not reflected in the metadata. The staff at

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the UTEP Library Special Collections department have shown themselves to be dedicated and perseverant
regarding the stewardship of this collection. If additional staff could be utilized to standardize and extend the
metadata, there is no doubt that it would be done effectively.

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References
Bruce, Thomas R., Hillman, Diane I. (2004). The continuum of metadata quality: defining,
expressing, exploiting. Metadata in Practice, 238-256.
Greenberg, J. (2001). A quantitative categorical analysis of metadata elements in image-
applicable metadata schemas. Journal Of The American Society For Information Science
And Technology, 52(11), 917-924.
OCLC. (2012). Contentdm. Retrieved from http://www.oclc.org/contentdm/.
Renteria, R. (2011, February 22). The face of immigration: Exhibit beginning march 1 will
showcase vintage casasola photos. The El Paso Times. Retrieved from
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_17445279
Rivers, Claudia. (2013, April 5). Personal Interview.
Simon, S. (2008, October 22). In old el paso, this detective story is written in pictures. The
Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1224621208633555
Zeng, M. L., & Qin, J. (2008). Metadata. New York, NY: Neal-Schuman.

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Appendix
Full sample of metadata records analyzed-- exported directly from CONTENTdm as XML
encoded Dublin Core records with empty elements redacted:
RECORD 1:
<dc:identifier>PH041-07-00074</dc:identifier>
<dc:source>The C. L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department - University of Texas at
El Paso Library</dc:source>
<dc:rights>The C. L. Sonnichsen Special Collections Department - University of Texas at El
Paso Library</dc:rights>
</rdf:Description>
<rdf:Description about="http://server15823.contentdm.oclc.org/u?/p15823coll2,439">
<dc:title>Sonya Hansard</dc:title>
<dc:creator>Casasola Studio</dc:creator>
<dc:subject>Graduados</dc:subject>
<dc:description>Loretto Academy Graduate</dc:description>
<dc:date>1962
2001</dc:date>
<dc:format>250 x 400 pixels, 72dpi, jpeg
Windows 2k, Microtek Scanmaker 9600XL
4" x 5" Print</dc:format>
RECORD 2:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Enrique Aguirre and unidentified woman</dc:title>
<dc:subject>Grupos</dc:subject>
<dc:date>1939
2001</dc:date>
<dc:type></dc:type>
2" x 3" Negative Nitrate</dc:format>
RECORD 3:

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</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Sylvia Bueno</dc:title>
<dc:date>1963
2001</dc:date>
<dc:type></dc:type>
RECORD 4:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Irma Escandon</dc:title>
<dc:subject>Primeras Comuniones</dc:subject>
<dc:date>c. 1960's
2001</dc:date>
RECORD 5:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Gregorio (Gregory) Macias</dc:title>
<dc:subject>Señores</dc:subject>
<dc:description>El Paso Technical High School graduate; See also PH041-07-
00058</dc:description>

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<dc:date>1963
2001</dc:date>
1" x 1.5" Negative Nitrate</dc:format>
RECORD 6:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Sister Rose Elene Olivas, CSJ (Rose Brown)</dc:title>
<dc:subject>Damas</dc:subject>
<dc:date>1963
2001</dc:date>
RECORD 7:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Molly, Blanche, Lillian, Lazar, Florence Kopilowitz</dc:title>
<dc:date>
2001</dc:date>
RECORD 8:
</rdf:Description>

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<dc:title>Elma Cervantes</dc:title>
<dc:description>El Paso Technical High School graduate; See also PH041-07-
00040</dc:description>
<dc:date>1963
2001</dc:date>
RECORD 9:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Fernando Miranda and Ester Tarin</dc:title>
<dc:subject>Bodas</dc:subject>
<dc:description>Wedding party</dc:description>
<dc:date>c. 1948
2001</dc:date>
1.7" x 1.3" Negative</dc:format>
RECORD 10:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Hermenejilda Salvidar and Manuela Lujan</dc:title>
<dc:date>1939
2001</dc:date>

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RECORD 11:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Rose Romero (Bremer)</dc:title>
<dc:date>1941
2001</dc:date>
RECORD 12:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Jose Cruz Burciaga</dc:title>
<dc:date>1937
2001</dc:date>
RECORD 13:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Sister Gonzalez (Casavantes)</dc:title>

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<dc:date>1940
2001</dc:date>
RECORD 14:
<dc:description>See also PH041-03-00157</dc:description>
<dc:date>
2001</dc:date>
<dc:type></dc:type>
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Ivan E. Scotten</dc:title>
<dc:date>
2001</dc:date>
RECORD 15:
</rdf:Description>
<dc:title>Sister Gonzalez (Casavantes)</dc:title>
<dc:date>1940
2001</dc:date>

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