Annotated Bibliography on Metadata

Maruja De Villa Lorica
Paper/project written in Spring 2009

1. Baca, M. (October, 2003). Practical Issues in Applying Metadata Schemas and Controlled Vocabularies to Cultural Heritage Information. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 36(3/4), 47. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from Academic Search Complete database via UNT Electronic Resources: http://irservices.library.unt.edu/

The article explains what metadata mapping and crosswalks are by providing clear definitions of each term. Metadata mapping enables one to identify metadata elements or groups of metadata elements within different metadata schemas. Crosswalks show which value in one metadata standard matches a particular value in another standard.

2. Bohle, S. (2008). The New Digital Awareness. Library Journal, (133) 12. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from Library Literature & Information Science database via UNT Electronic Resources: http://irservices.library.unt.edu/

Bohle discusses three “competing” models in metadata and digital asset management (DAM), which he refers to as "competitive isolationists," the "exclusionary collaborateurs," and the "free mashups and crossovers”. The "competitive isolationists" are those institutions that vigorously and successfully protect their holdings, regardless of copyright status, using expensive software packages; “exclusionary collaborateurs” are institutions that share copyrighted materials and/or metadata through the use of same-software or standards to form formal "collaborative" groups, and "free mashups and crossovers” are those groups that have "relinquished" their noncopyrighted and/or copyrighted holdings by crossing over to the "Creative Commons" (CC) for all noncommercial use.


3. Caplan, P. (2003). Metadata fundamentals for all librarians. Chicago: American Library Association.

The book addresses the concept and structure of metadata and it examines a variety of metadata schemes common to the library and information science profession. It defines metadata, including its various types (descriptive, administrative, structural), schemes (sets of metadata elements designed for a specific purpose and the rules for their use), and levels of description (work, expression, manifestation, and item).

The book also presents a discussion of the formats used to represent metadata in machine-readable form, as well as an overview of Internet search engines and embedded metadata

4. Day, M. Extending metadata for digital preservation. Retrieved March 5, 2009 from http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue9/metadata/

The article discusses the role of metadata in the organization of and access to networked information and in the area of digital preservation. It introduces that metadata formats come in a variety of shapes and sizes such as the Dublin Core which is intended to be a simple structured record which can, if required, be enhanced or mapped to more complex records, and the USMARC which is used by OCLC.

The article points out the useful role of preservation metadata in helping ensure that digital information will be available to future generations. It also poses several questions such as who will define what preservation metadata are needed, who will decide what needs to be preserved, who will archive the preserved information, who will create the metadata, and who will pay for it.

5. International Imaging Industry Association. Metadata Standards: A Smarter Way to Look at Digital Images. Retrieved January 28, 2009, from http://www.i3a.org/technologies/metadata/

The article discusses the importance of metadata in digital imaging. It states that metadata allows image files to contain additional information beyond the pixels in the image itself. In addition, metadata a) enhances the content of the image (by adding an audio track, for instance); b) provides in-depth information on the image and its creation, such as date and time, focus distance, light levels, GPS location; and, c) allows for easy indexing, identification, categorization and usage-control according to image type, copyright conditions, originator, subject matter, and location.

6. Neal, D. (2006). News photography image retrieval practices: locus of control in two contexts. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. Denton, TX: University of North Texas.

In this dissertation study, Neal explored the photograph retrieval methods preferred by news photographers and news photo editors in an actual work context. Results showed that most participants prefer searching by events taking place in the photograph, objects that exist in the photograph, photographer- provided keywords, and relevant metadata, such as the date the picture was taken. Further, news photographers, news photo editors, and other photojournalism-related professionals favor searching for photographs for their work by various metadata-based keywords related to the story told in the picture, such as the events taking place or people that appear in the picture.

This particular reading is relevant to the general topic of metadata. Based from Neal’s findings, specific events, people, places, and other metadata that exist in the picture are the respondents’ favorite ways to retrieve pictures.

7. O’Connor, B. & O’Connor, M. (1999). Categories, photographs & predicaments: exploratory research on representing pictures for access. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science. 25 (6). Retrieved March 9, 2009,from http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Aug-99/o_connor.html

The article reports the findings of an exploratory study on representing pictures for access. Participants were librarians or library school students. Analysis consisted of gathering the adjectives and adjectival phrases that describe users' reactions to the images and through content analysis to determine the categories that would emerge.

Results showed a wide range of narrative and emotive descriptors used by the participants. Antonyms emerged as anticipated while geographic attribution emerged which the researchers had not anticipated. The researchers conclude that user assertions about interactions with pictures can be gathered to form a rich description of images and as basis for constructing categories.

8. Shiri, A. (2008). Metadata-enhanced visual interfaces to digital libraries. Journal of Information Science, (34) 763. Retrieved February 6, 2009 from Academic Search Complete via UNT Electronic Resources: http://irservices.library.unt.edu/

The article reports a study carried out to investigate and analyze a specific category of digital library visual interfaces that support information seeking and retrieval based on metadata representations. The study identified ways in which designers of visual interfaces for digital libraries have utilized these metadata elements to support users in their search process and interaction experience.

The article demonstrates that metadata enhanced visual interfaces are an emerging category of visual interfaces

9. Taylor, A. (2004). The Organization of Information, 2nd ed. Westport, Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited.

In Chapter 6 of the book, Taylor discussed the topic of metadata. She defined metadata as “data about data”. Specifically, metadata is an encoded description of an information package (e.g., an AACR2 record encoded with MARC) to provide a level of data at which choices can be made as to which information package to view or search, without having to search massive amount of irrelevant full text.

Taylor enumerated metadata characteristics such as “interoperability”, “flexibility”, and “extensibility”. Interoperability refers to the ability of various systems to interact with each other regardless of the software or hardware being used, thus minimizing the loss of information due to technological differences. Flexibility is the ability of “metadata creators to include as much or as little detail as desired in the metadata record”. Extensibility is the ability to use additional metadata elements and qualifiers as needed.

10. The University of North Texas Library. (2005). Metadata: Descriptive Metadata. Information Technology Services, Digital Projects Unit.

This resource published by UNT in November 2005 provides guidelines to metadata creators in describing digital objects in a consistent manner to enable long term access, optimum searching, and retrieval of information by users of digital collections. The document aims to promote interoperability with accepted standards as well as flexibility to integrate with existing content, processes, and systems.