Rights Metadata in a Community Archive: Implementing Standardized Rights Statements

Rights metadata in digital collections play an important role in indicating the copyright status of digitized objects and providing users with information in terms of reuse. Describing the copyright of archival materials can be complicated because of limited information about authorship and date of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of library metadata 2021-07, Vol.21 (1-2), p.27-44
Main Authors: Matusiak, Krystyna K., Werling, Sarah, Donovan, Lisa, Carlson, Sam
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archives & records
community archives
Copyright
Copyright for digitized objects
Digital archives
Digitization
Local materials
Metadata
rights metadata
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Description
Summary:Rights metadata in digital collections play an important role in indicating the copyright status of digitized objects and providing users with information in terms of reuse. Describing the copyright of archival materials can be complicated because of limited information about authorship and date of creation. The process of assessing copyright and selecting rights statements is particularly challenging in community archives, often organized by volunteers. This paper presents a case of evaluating copyright and implementing standardized rights statements in the Park County Local History Archive, a community archive in Colorado. The archival collections include a mix of historical materials and recent digital donations. The rights statements from RightsStatements.org were assigned to each digitized object in the digital archive. An assessment study reviewing the accuracy of the assigned statements was conducted. The analysis revealed some inaccuracies and provided an opportunity to revise the rights metadata.
ISSN:1938-6389
1937-5034
DOI:10.1080/19386389.2021.1955586