THL Toolbox > Essays > Creating an XML Essay for THL > Metadata Table for THL Essays
Adding and Filling out the Metadata Table
Contributor(s): THL Staff.
The metadata table needs to be inserted at the very top of the document and filled out appropriately. The downloaded converter document initially contains a blank version of the metadata table. Also included in the same .zip file is another document that contains a spare copy of the metadata table as a back up. The explanation of its various fields is as follows:
| E-Text Title: | This is for the title of the electronic essay as it is to appear online. | |
| E-Text Title Original: | This is to be used for essays that are translations. It should contain the title in the original language. | |
| Language of text: | This is the language of the e-text. It must have some value that is a three-letter language code. Generally, the first three letters of the language’s name, all in lowercase. | |
| Original Language: | This is the original language of the essay. It must have some value as in the language field above. So, if the essay is not a translation, then put the value “eng” in this field. | |
| Author & Date: | This is the name of the author of the essay and the date written. All dates should be in the format YYYY-MM-DD. | |
| Translator & Date: | This is the name of the translator of the essay and the date translated (YYYY-MM-DD). | |
| Editor & Date: | This is the name of the editor of the essay and the date edited (YYYY-MM-DD). | |
| Mark-up & Date: | This is the name of the person who marked up the essay (or converted it to XML) and the date that task was done (YYYY-MM-DD). | |
| Journal or Collection: | This is for articles from a journal and should have the name of the journal. | |
| Vol.: | This is the volume number of the journal or series. | |
| Pagination: | This is the pagination of the article in the volume of the journal or series. | |
| Editor of Collection & Date: | This is the name of the editor of the journal or series, if the article is part of such. | |
| Publisher & Date: | The name of the publisher of the essay, journal, book, etc. and the date of publication. These fields are required. If the essay is an electronic essay that is newly published by the THL, then put THL as the publisher with the present date (YYYY-MM-DD). | |
| Place of Publication: | This is self-explanatory. | |
| Description: | This should contain a brief summary of the essay in question that could be displayed as a search result, on the cover page of the essay, or next to the link to the essay. | |
| Domain URL, etc. | The next eight (8) fields are all related and are used to create the breadcrumbs of the HTML page generated on the fly from the XML. |
The only required ones are Domain URL, Domain Text, Home URL, and Home Text, but all of the fields can be filled out if appropriate. For these paired fields, the URL field is for the FULL URL of that item; it must begin with "http://." The text field is the text to be displayed in the link, such as “Tools,” “Collections,” etc.
Domain refers to the THL domain to which the document belongs (either collections, reference, community, education, or tools). Portal is used here to refer to the next step after domain, and project refers to a child page of a portal. Home refers to the essay's home page – the page from which it is to be linked.
Note: The conversion program automatically adds the first breadcrumb (the THL homepage). It also adds the last breadcrumb (the page itself, which it draws from the essay's title), although we will be changing this to allow for a shorter title to appear in the breadcrumb.
Except where noted, fields may be left blank without adversely affecting the validity of the resulting XML. However, as much information as possible should be included in the metadata table. Furthermore, it is possible in the XML to add more information than the metadata table covers, if such is desired. To do so, one should look at the description of the teiHeader found on the TEI site at 
http://www.tei-c.org/P4X/HD.html and add the information directly into the XML post-conversion.