Provide metadata in a CSV file
Overview
If you do not currently have a spreadsheet for your metadata, we encourage you to use one of the templates to help you get started.
For each item to uploaded, you should fill in one or more rows with metadata describing the item. Each row should contain a unique item id, title, description and metadata describing its digitizations. Some fields are required, while others are recommended or optional.
Here's a simple example of how metadata for 3 items would look in a spreadsheet:
itemid |
title |
description |
creator |
filetype |
filespec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| p1 | George Washington | The first president of the United States | Sam Jones | image | george1.jpg |
| p2 | John Adams | The second president of the United States | Jeff Ross | image | john1.jpg |
| p3 | Thomas Jefferson | The third president of the United States | A. Richardson | image | thomas1.jpg |
If you have multiple digitizations for the same item, then you should include these as subitems.
Each item and subitem must be identified by a unique and long lived identifier (ID). Once an item or subitem is assigned an ID, it must not change. We recommend you set the ID to an original unique identifier from your own system, or a URI uniquely representing the item.
Templates & Examples
To help get you started, below are templates and pre-filled examples of spreadsheets.
| Templates |
| General CSV |
| Art CSV |
| Fashion CSV |
| Inventions and Discoveries CSV |
Open a template and edit as a CSV
- Choose the template most suitable for your needs, it will open in Google Sheets
- In Google Sheets, select File > Download as > Comma Separated Values (.csv, current sheet) to download the metadata or template to your computer as a CSV file.
- Open the CSV file in your preferred spreadsheet application
- Following the guidelines in the header row of your spreadsheet, complete one row of information per item you have uploaded
- Once your file is complete, save or export the data in CSV format
- Proceed to import your metadata file(s)