What I did...
This project promised to be a big learning opportunity for me, from both the technology and metadata aspects. I feel I was fairly successful with my results and I definitely learned a lot along the way.
I decided to work with a selection of similar items, ladies' handkerchiefs. I believed that working with a group of similar items would force me to be more specific in my metadata efforts. I first read through much of the information on the Cataloging Cultural Objects (CC), 2008) website, particularly Parts 1 and 2 under the "CCO Selections" tab to gain a better understanding of what my goals might be.
I first started working in EmbARK and made the decision not to enter my own Accession Numbers, believing the program-generated numbers would provide some sort of chronological history of when each item was entered. Some of the fields were helpful in providing prompts for how the data should be entered, but because I knew so little about my items, it was difficult to make many entries. I did not want to make up information about my items, to more closely resemble what I might encounter in cataloging a real collection. My four entries can be found here (note that just as in your posted example, only page 1 appears even though information is entered on pages 2 and 3):
Open Collection certainly feels more user friendly right from the start, much more intuitive than EmbARK, with tabs which seem to make more sense and fields which allow for text entry. My four entries can be found by searching for "sarg" or, at the time of this writing, by
"handkerchief".
Problems I encountered...
My biggest problem with EmbARK is that many of the fields only accept pre-defined terms. While this is advantageous to ensure standardization, the limitations sometimes did not meet my needs. For instance, the "Medium" for my items is the pre-defined "fabric" which I find acceptable, yet I am unable to add "cotton" as a support word. I chose to include this information on the "Notes & Histories" tab under the "Object Description" field as follows: "Ladies cotton handkerchief...". I do not feel this information should be buried so far into the records yet, similarly, I have objections to including it in the title description where it would be immediately visible merely because I think that would become cumbersome.
Interestingly, my biggest problem in OpenCollection is the lack of standardization. While the free-text mode allows for easy entries and perhaps more thorough descriptions, this ability allows that metadata considered standard in one record might be forgotten in the next or similar record.
What I learned...
First I learned, after EmbARK did not number my records consecutively, that deciding upon a numbering system for Accession Numbers is critical. I learned how important it is to have a good idea of the breadth of a current collection to adequately divide and describe it, and to allow for future growth. I remain concerned that metadata is far too dependent on the person making the entries, with their accuracy, their selection of vocabulary for description, and their knowledge of the scope of the collection. Finally, I learned that when so much information is unknown about an item, it makes it of questionable value to make this information available online to the public. As you noted, if we cannot make this information "engaging to the public" (Marty, 2008), and my "collection" is certainly not engaging, it seems of little value that it should be digitized other than for inventory purposes.
References:
Cataloging Cultural Objects (2008). COO selections. Retrieved September 18, 2008, from: http://vraweb.org/ccoweb/cco/selections.html
Marty, P. (2008, September 16). Elluminate class session.
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