Community Catalog
The METAscripta Community Catalog encourages users to learn to catalog manuscripts using controlled vocabularies and authority files.
Thousands of manuscripts from collections all over the world are hidden from discovery by scholars and researchers because they lack descriptive catalog records. For example, even many manuscripts that have been digitized and uploaded to Digivatlib, the website for the BAV's digital collections, can only be accessed by BAV Shelfmark because they have no cataloging metadata to search. The METAscripta project seeks to make uncataloged manuscripts more accessible by encouraging our user community to learn to catalog manuscripts using structured metadata supported by authority files and controlled vocabularies, in order to standardize data so that records can be searched and shared. If you are not familiar with this type of cataloging, the metadata template will guide you as you create your record. For further information on controlled vocabularies and authorities as well as definitions of descriptive terms, see the Metadata Standards and Authorities tabs below.