Set ‘Author’ to your name to show that you are working on this page, and preview the page so you can compare its metadata with PastPerfect and old American Centuries.

1. In the right column of the editing screen, change the Author to your name (pick from the dropdown). (If the right-hand column is not displayed, display it by clicking on the ‘gear’ icon in the top right corner, next to the ‘Publish’ button.)
2. Click on ‘Save as pending’ in the top right.
3. Right click on ‘View Preview’. A dropdown will open; choose ‘Open in a new tab’. This will display the page in a new browser tab as it appears to site visitors. Go to that tab.
4. Review the metadata that PVMA staff assigned to this item below the heading ‘Details’. Compare this with the item’s metadata from PastPerfect below the heading ‘Curatorial Info’. There is a link to the PastPerfect paget. You can also view the old American Centuries page for the item by copying the ‘Catalog #’ and searching for it in old American Centuries as the ‘Accession #.’ Note any changes you want to make to the staff-assigned metadata.

Go back to your original tab (displaying the WordPress editing screen) to edit the item’s American Centuries metadata and approve the item.

All of the relevant metadata fields are in the large center column, below the item title and label text. All of the taxonomy fields are dropdowns: to edit click on the box and wait a few seconds for the list of taxonomy terms to drop down. You can also start typing in the box and the list of terms will try to match your typing. A collection item may be assigned multiple values for any of these taxonomies if this is appropriate. Not all items need to have values for all taxonomies. For instance, our sample item (above) doesn’t need an Event assigned to it.

5. Verify the assigned taxonomy values (Item type, Material, Medium, Topic, Era, Event, and Place). It is important that these be correct; it is also important that they are consistently applied across all of the collection items.
6. Verify the assigned dates. If there is only a single date, it should be in the ‘Creation date’ field. This date is entered as YYYY-MM-DD, or YYYY-MM, or YYYY, depending on how much detail is known. This format is important—it makes the date sorting work properly. If the PastPerfect date is an exact date, then that month and day should be entered here in addition to the year.
7. If the PastPerfect date includes ‘circa’ or ‘c.’ or another notation, the corresponding check box under ‘Date circa’ should be checked. It is important that none of this ‘circa’ information is typed in the ‘Creation date’ field—only numbers and hyphens.
8. If there is a date range (usually labeled ‘Years’ in the ‘Curatorial info’ on the American Centuries front end), the earliest year is entered in the ‘Earliest creation year’ field, and the latest year in the ‘Latest creation year’ field. (If the Creation date is a single specific year (no ‘circa’), that year will automatically be entered in both of these fields, too.)
9. Uncheck the ‘Metadata’ box under ‘Needs’. This indicates that this page’s metadata is ready to be made public.
10. Review any notes in the ‘Editors’ notes’ box and take any needed action.
11. If there are errors in the label, you may correct them or leave a note here for the future.
12. If there are errors in the title, make sure they are noted in ‘Editors’ notes’. The title field is imported from PastPerfect and may not be edited here. To make changes you will need to notify the cataloger who can edit the record in PastPerfect.
13. Uncheck the ‘Pending review’ box. This will change the page’s status to ‘Draft’.
14. Save your work by clicking on ‘Save draft’ in the top right.
15. A black box will appear in the lower left corner of your screen saying, “Draft saved. View Preview.” Click on the “View Preview” link to see the results of your work. (You can return to the editing screen by using your browser’s ‘Back’ button.)

To return to the ‘All Pages’ list to review another collection item, click on the black box in the top left corner with the WordPress logo. (If you hover your mouse over it, a tooltip will say, “View Pages”.)