This book assists information professionals in improving the usability of digital objects by adequately documenting them and using tools for metadata management. It provides practical advice for libraries, archives, and museums dealing with digital collections in a wide variety of formats and from a wider variety of sources. This book is forward-thinking in its approach to using metadata to drive digital library systems, and will be a valuable resource for those creating and managing digital resources as technologies for using those resources grow and change. Provides practical guidance on the key choices that information professionals in libraries, archives, and museums must make when defining and implementing a metadata strategy Provides insight on the new area of metadata librarianship while positions are opening in many organizations and many professionals worldwide are charged with managing and sharing metadata Focuses on metadata usability and the careful definition of what a digital library system must do in order to define a metadata strategy

Since it was first published, LIS students and professionals everywhere have relied on Miller’s authoritative manual for clear instruction on the real-world practice of metadata design and creation. Now the author has given his text a top to bottom overhaul to bring it fully up to date, making it even easier for readers to acquire the knowledge and skills they need, whether they use the book on the job or in a classroom. By following this book’s guidance, with its inclusion of numerous practical examples that clarify common application issues and challenges, readers will learn about the concept of metadata and its functions for digital collections, why it’s essential to approach metadata specifically as data for machine processing, and how metadata can work in the rapidly developing Linked Data environment; know how to create high-quality resource descriptions using widely shared metadata standards, vocabularies, and elements commonly needed for digital collections; become thoroughly familiarized with Dublin Core (DC) through exploration of DCMI Metadata Terms, CONTENTdm best practices, and DC as Linked Data; discover what Linked Data is, how it is expressed in the Resource Description Framework (RDF), and how it works in relation to specific semantic models (typically called “ontologies”) such as BIBFRAME, comprised of properties and classes with “domain” and “range” specifications; get to know the MODS and VRA Core metadata schemes, along with recent developments related to their use in a Linked Data setting; understand the nuts and bolts of designing and documenting a metadata scheme; and gain knowledge of vital metadata interoperability and quality issues, including how to identify and clean inconsistent, missing, and messy metadata using innovative tools such as OpenRefine.

An Emergent Theory of Digital Library Metadata is a reaction to the current digital library landscape that is being challenged with growing online collections and changing user expectations. The theory provides the conceptual underpinnings for a new approach which moves away from expert defined standardised metadata to a user driven approach with users as metadata co-creators. Moving away from definitive, authoritative, metadata to a system that reflects the diversity of users’ terminologies, it changes the current focus on metadata simplicity and efficiency to one of metadata enriching, which is a continuous and evolving process of data linking. From predefined description to information conceptualised, contextualised and filtered at the point of delivery. By presenting this shift, this book provides a coherent structure in which future technological developments can be considered. Metadata is valuable when continuously enriched by experts and users Metadata enriching results from ubiquitous linkin Metadata is a resource that should be linked openly The power of metadata is unlocked when enriched metadata is filtered for users individually

This book provides a practical introduction to metadata for the digital library, describing in detail how to implement a strategic approach which will enable complex digital objects to be discovered, delivered and preserved in the short- and long-term.

An overview of metadata: what it is, its types and uses, and how it can help to make Web resources more accessible and comprehensible. Contains articles, a glossary, and a list of acronyms relating to metadata.

An overview of the field of information organization that examines resource description as both a product and process of the contemporary digital environment. This timely book employs the unifying mechanism of the semantic web and the resource description framework to integrate the various traditions and practices of information and knowledge organization. Uniquely, it covers both the domain-specific traditions and practices and the practices of the ‘metadata movement’ through a single lens – that of resource description in the broadest, semantic web sense. This approach more readily accommodates coverage of the new Resource Description and Access (RDA) standard, which aims to move library cataloguing into the centre of the semantic web. The work surrounding RDA looks set to revolutionise the field of information organization, and this book will bring both the standard and its model and concepts into focus. Key topics include: • information resource attributes • metadata for information retrieval • metadata sources and quality • economics and management of metadata • knowledge organization systems • the semantic web • books and e-books, websites and audiovisual resources • business and government documents • learning resources • the field of information/knowledge organization. Readership: LIS students taking information organization courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, information professionals wishing to specialise in the metadata area, and existing metadata specialists who wish to update their knowledge.