Organization > Committees > Data Standards
Data Standards Committee
The Data Standards Committee (DSC) was established in 1993 to meet the visual resources community's growing need to manage complex visual collections in the networked environment. Our charge from the Visual Resources Association is "To develop, advocate and promote standard descriptive practices in visual resources collections that will facilitate the management, organization, and exchange of information."
More specifically our goals are:
- To identify, develop, and disseminate information that promotes standard descriptive practices
- To communicate visual resources interests to public agencies that make policy and commercial vendors who develop tools and resources applicable to visual collections
- To establish liaisons and cooperative exchanges with similar interest groups in the museum, library, and archival communities
The Data Standards Committee meets annually at the VRA conference and conducts business via conference calls and a committee listserv during the rest of the year. In addition to creating the VRA Core Data Standard, the committee's work has included the development and sponsorship of VRA conference sessions, publication of articles, and participation on panels at related conferences. In June 1996, the DSC urged the VRA Board to petition the Library of Congress for representation on the USMARC Advisory Committee. The request was granted by LC and the current VRA representative, Sherman Clarke, attended his first meeting in February 1997. To contact the DSC email datastandards@vraweb.org.
Committee Structure
The DSC is comprised of Working Groups and Task Forces. Working Groups are standing groups that are established to foster the ongoing activities of the DSC, while the Task Forces are formed to tackle finite projects and initiatives and are usually dissolved once a project has been completed.
Active Task Forces and Working Groups
- Embedded Metadata - Working Group
- Controlled Vocabularies - Working Group
- Mapping Project - Task Force (collaboration between the DSC and the newly formed Core OC)
Former Task Forces and Working Groups
- VRA Core 4.0 Oversight Committee - Task Force (dissolved in 2012 to form a separate committee)
- VRA Core 4.0 Survey of Users - Task Force (dissolved 2011)
Chair:
Johanna Bauman, Pratt Institute
Members:
Mary S. Alexander, University of Alabama Libraries
Marta Bustillo, National College of Art and Design, Dublin
Robert Carter, Independent Metadata and Systems Consultant
Sherman Clarke, New York University, Retired
Bill Connor, Harvard University
Jen Cwiok, American Museum of Natural History
Jodie Double, University of Leeds (Consultant)
Jan Eklund, University of California, Berkeley
Heidi Eyestone, Carleton College
Sheryl Frisch, California Polytechnic State University
Denise Hattwig, University of Washington
Benjamin R. Kessler, Chicago, IL (Consultant)
Greg Reser,
University of California, San Diego
Tricia Rose-Sandler,
Missouri Botanical Garden
Andrea Schuler, MIT
Kelcy Shepherd, Amherst College
Steve Tatum, Virginia Tech
Margaret N. Webster, Cornell University, Emerita
Susan Jane Williams, Independent Cataloging & Consulting Services
VRA Executive Board Liaison:
Jolene de Verges,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
