Metadata Obscura: Refocusing digital collections through the lens of art history

Art librarians in academic libraries often rely on generalists in metadata and digital collections departments to accurately describe visual collections. When these partnerships are successful, students and researchers in art disciplines can use their subject training to discover and contextualize visual resources. However, art researchers may experience disruption and disconnection in their research when they encounter visual collections that were digitized without proper attention to disciplinary expectations. This is especially important in academic libraries, whose primary mission is to support students and faculty, and where university users are inherently subject specific in their research. This paper discusses the decisions and workflows implemented to revise a popular digital collection of 19th and 20th-century trade cards held at the Walter Havighurst Special Collections at Miami University. By aligning subject metadata with the methodologies of art history, librarians improved the accessibility and discoverability of these visual materials for art researchers.