Basic metadata scheme for the descriptive representation of works of art in Brazilian museums

Abstract This paper examined international guidelines for the descriptive representation of museum objects to propose, based on such guidelines, a basic metadata scheme to represent artworks considering the Brazilian scenario. This proposal is justified, since part of local museums clearly stated that they are not cataloguing their collections and another part does not adopt standardized resources for that activity. The methodology applied in this research was based on: a) the Terminology literature, used to compare and to analyze metadata, and b) the International Standard Organization nº 25964-1/2 as well as on the international literature, used to perform a mapping and a crosswalk of the selected guidelines in this investigation. As a result, a concrete metadata scheme was developed as a methodological guide for the basic descriptive representation of artwork collections in Brazil; in addition, suggestions were made for its implementation in the national scenario. The application of such scheme was tested and validated using a small sample of artworks that sought to include different categories of this type of work available in Brazilian museums. It is believed that the implementation of a minimum metadata scheme in the cataloguing activity of Brazilian museums may enhance the information organization of artworks and contribute to the consistency of information retrieval. Moreover, it may maximize the access to the information of artwork collections located in Brazil for national and international audiences. The analysis of international guidelines for the information representation of museum objects draws attention to an urgent necessity of using processes, procedures, and collection management policies. For this purpose, these fundamental components must be aligned to promote best practices. A future experimental investigation should include more types of artworks in the sample to verify different implementations of the basic metadata schemes proposed as well as to observe and to identify conditions and attributes not predicted in the use of the proposal.