Workbook on Digital Private Papers > Glossary
Glossary - C
Controlled vocabulary
To ensure consistency and interoperability, when recording metadata about a digital archive it is important to make use of standardised terminology (in the form of a controlled vocabulary) to describe certain types of data in a uniform way. Such controlled vocabularies are often taken from data dictionaries or other authorities. They are particularly important in relation to descriptive metadata, and for years archivists have been using controlled vocabularies to create access points and indexes (based on standardised subject terms, geographical locations or names) in archive catalogues to facilitate information retrieval for researchers.
