[Metadatalibrarians] Practice with METS, MARC and Dublin Core

[Riley, Jenn]

Hi Elizabeth,

This is definitely a tough question - I think the hardest part about metadata work (and lots of jobs actually) is translating theory into practice. It's *especially* hard making compromises from that perfect vision we have of all the high-end discovery features we could provide given multitudes of detailed structured metadata - compromises that reflect real-world situations and judgments about what's most important. Getting good at this definitely comes with practice, and an assistantship like yours is a great way to get a kick-start on that.

My personal opinion is it's helpful when first starting to put things into practice to think about *use* of this metadata. What is this data element/property/field going to achieve, either for an end user or some reasonably likely processing system? To achieve that goal what sorts of constraints need to be put on the construction of that data - free text, authority control, restriction to a few predefined values, conformance to a pattern (like dates), etc. You'll make the best decisions if you have a good reason for why they're made the way they are. Look at other systems out there (especially discovery systems). What features do they include? What properties does the metadata have that allows that feature to work? What do you *wish* the system did? How would the metadata need to be different for that new feature to be successful?

Good luck with your assistantship!

Jenn

========================
Jenn Riley
Metadata Librarian
Digital Library Program
Indiana University - Bloomington
Wells Library W501
(812) 856-5759
www.dlib.indiana.edu

Inquiring Librarian blog: www.inquiringlibrarian.blogspot.com




> -----Original Message-----
> From: metadatalibrarians-bounces at lists.monarchos.com
> [mailto:metadatalibrarians-bounces at lists.monarchos.com] On Behalf Of
> Elizabeth Kelly
> Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 12:40 PM
> To: metadatalibrarians at lists.monarchos.com
> Subject: [Metadatalibrarians] Practice with METS, MARC and Dublin Core
> 
> Hi everyone, I'm happy to be joining the league of metadata librarians.
> I have just started a graduate assistantship with a digital library,
> and am trying to learn as much about METS, MARC, and Dublin Core as I
> can. I've read all of the information online I could find about each
> set, and feel like I have a pretty good understanding of each. I am not
> sure yet how much metadata creation I will actually be doing in this
> job, but I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for actually putting
> what I have learned into practice. Thanks!
> 
> Elizabeth Kelly
> GA
> Digital Library Center
> Florida State University
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