Note: This guide is now deprecated and is not being maintained regularly. For more up-to-date information on the IDHH project, please see the IDHH website.

Do collections and records have to be in CARLI Digital or the Illinois Digital Archive (IDA) before they can be provided to the IDHH?

No. CARLI and IDA are just a couple of pathways by which records can get to the DPLA. They can also come directly from your institution.

What if I change the metadata in my collections?

Please feel free to make any changes necessary to your collections at any time. DPLA reharvests on a quarterly schedule, so any changes to your metadata will be captured at that time. It is recommended that metadata changes be made by the week before harvest in order to ensure that revised records are ingested appear in the DPLA's catalog.

What documentation is available for metadata in the IDHH?

You can find all documentation on this LibGuide and on the IDHH website.

Should metadata records describe the original or the digitized object?

Metadata contributed to the DPLA should always describe the original object as opposed to the digitization.

For metadata fields that are not displayed in the DPLA portal, will they be ignored or removed?

No, all fields that DPLA ingests and maps to its Metadata Application Profile are searchable in the DPLA portal through text searches, even if they are not displayed in the DPLA user interface.

What if the items in my institution's collection have watermarks? Will DPLA still take them?

Yes, DPLA will still take them, and the items will be fully searchable in the DPLA portal. However, DPLA is unable to highlight items with watermarks, banding, or branding on social media and in digital exhibitions.

Can I include numbers in the Spatial field?

Coordinates can be used in the Spatial field, as long as longitude and latitude are separated by a comma and in a single <dcterms:spatial>. Numbers that are not longitude and latitude coordinates should not be in this field.

Additionally, it is recommended that a controlled vocabulary be used instead of coordinates because written information will be more understandable to the user. For more information on describing geographic information, please see the IDHH Metadata Best Practices, Place and Geographic Enrichment sections.

I am a CONTENTdm user. Can I enable page-level metadata in my OAI?

No, DPLA cannot take page-level metadata. Make sure that in your OAI settings you have "Enable compound object pages" set to "No" so that only record-level metadata will be included in the OAI.

Can the IDHH Metadata Manager help with general questions about CONTENTdm or another content management system (CMS)?

Probably not. General questions related to your institution's CMS or CMS metadata entry that do not relate to IDHH or DPLA standards are best directed to your institution's IT or the CMS service provider, such as OCLC. If you contribute to the IDA and your question relates to the IDA CONTENTdm service, contact the Illinois State Library.

Is use of RightsStatements.org statements a requirement?

At the moment, the DPLA is not requiring the use of RightsStatements.org, however DPLA has stated that this will eventually be a requirement. If you have questions about this, please contact the IDHH Metadata Services Specialist.

Should there be a contact person in in the rights field values?

Contact information is not required. Because people change jobs, titles, and responsibilities, it is not recommended to include the name and contact information for a particular staff member in the rights information. Consider instead a general, department phone number or email.

What happened to the DPLA's timeline and map features?

They’ve been removed; DPLA is working on new uses for the geographic and creation date metadata so it’s still important to maintain dc:date and dcterms:spatial metadata.