Metaterms Documentation
*Required metaterms are marked as
Required. All other terms are
optional.
<classCode> (Required): Each document requires a broad
genre term. This field may be repeated to include more than one term per
document. Choose from the following terms:
<classCode>Prose</classCode>
Each of the following keyword types appear
as the value of the 'type' attribute within an <item> element:
mode | form | chronological | geographic | subject
<keywords>
<list>
<item type=
"chronological">1550-1600</item>
<item type=
"geographic">Massachusetts</item>
<item type=
"subject">Religion</item>
</list>
</keywords>
mode: Choose one
or more terms from the list to describe the manner of expression used in the
document. For example, if the author is writing a fictional story, use
Fiction; if the work is in the form of a sermon or speech, use
Oratorical; if the work is a legal brief, use Legal; if the
author is parodying another work, use Parody.
- Autobiography/Memoir
- Biography/Hagiography
- Comedy
- Commentary
- Commercial
- Critical
- Descriptive
- Elegy
- Epic
- Georgic
- Fiction
- History
- Legal
- Lyrical
- Maxims
- Myth/Sacred
- Oratorical
- Parody
- Pastoral
- Satire
- Scientific
- Tragedy
form: Choose one
or more terms from the following list to describe the format of the document.
For example, diary entries are in the form of Diary; a retelling of
events after they have happened would likely be in the form of an
Account/Relation.
If you cannot find the appropriate term in
this list, please consult: Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book
and Special Collections Cataloguing, Lib Sch Z
695.74.G46. (Take care to choose terms that describe the physical form
of the document, and not the intellectual or literary mode. Genre Terms
includes both.)
- Account/Relation
- Chronicle
- Diary
- Essay
- Eulogy
- Journal
- Letters
- Notes
- Pamphlets
- Record
- Sermon
- Verse
chronological
(Required): Choose one time period (in
50-year increments) from the following list. The time period should indicate
the approximate time the document was first written or published.
- 1400-1450
- 1450-1500
- 1500-1550
- 1550-1600
- 1600-1650
- 1650-1700
- 1700-1750
- 1750-1800
- 1800-1850
- 1850-1900
geographic
(Required): Choose the narrowest
geographic term that is relevant to the document from the following list. For
example, if a document is generally about British America, and not more
specifically about New England, choose British America.
British_America
Caribbean (includes Barbados, Jamaica)
New_England (includes Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island)
Canada (includes Nova Scotia, Newfoundland)
British_American_Middle_Colonies (includes New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware)
Chesapeake (includes Maryland and Virginia)
British_American_South (includes North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida)
British_American_Western_Frontier
French_America
Luso_America
New Netherlands
New Sweden
Spanish_America
California
Spanish_borderlands_in_North_America
New_Spain (includes Mexico, Guatemala, New Mexico, La Florida, Caribbean, Philippines)
New_Granada (includes Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador)
Peru (includes Peru and Bolivia)
La_Plata (includes Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay)
Chile
subject
(Required): Choose one or more
subjects to describe the content of the document from the list below. If no
subject headings exist that adequately describe the subject matter of your
document, please consult the Creating New Subject
Headings.
A note on using personal names as
subjects: If a substantial portion of a work is about a person, or if a
well-known person figures prominently in a work and is not the author, add
their name as a keyword, type=subject. Use the
Library of Congress Name Authority to
enter their name and birth/death dates correctly. Enter the name as: first name
first, last name last. For example, <item type="subject">Thomas
Jefferson, 1743-1826</item>.
- Agriculture
- Authorship
- Calvinism
- Colonial_Society_and_Life
- Death
- Discovery_and_Exploration_of_America
- Early_National_Society_and_Life
- Ethnicity
- Family_Life
- Farming
- Frontier_and_Pioneer_Life
- Illness
- Indian_Captivities
- Love
- Native_Americans
- Philosophy
- Plantation_Life
- Puritans
- Quakers
- Race
- Religion
- Slavery
- Sugar
- Theology
- Tobacco
- Travel
- Women
- Documents may be assigned more than one
subject heading.
- If at all possible, select subject headings listed above that correspond closely to your document type.
If no subject headings exist that adequately describe the subject matter of
your document, proceed to the next step. (An online database would be the most
convenient place to locate existing terms.)
- Consult the Library of Congress subject
authority online to compare the subject heading you wish to create with
existing subject headings at LOC: http://authorities.loc.gov (This doesn't
mean the term has to exactly conform, rather it helps to clarify and streamline
the terms against the yardstick of an existing controlled vocabulary.)
- Subject headings should consist of
one-word or short phrases. Here are a few examples: Tobacco; Native Americans;
Frontier and Pioneer Life. They should not be compound headings that
incorporate geographic locations and time periods such as:
Tobacco--Virginia--1890-1900.
- Once the subject heading has been
clarified, it will need to be approved by the EADA administrators. Please email your subject heading and explanations to Ralph Baur, rb227@umail.umd.edu. If the
subject heading is approved, it will be assigned to your document and to the
list of approved subject headings for EADA documents. If a subject heading is
not approved, the appropriate existing subject headings will be assigned to
your document.
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Any questions about this description
should be sent to Tanya Clement, MITH Program Associate, at
tclement@wam.umd.edu. |
