Making the Most of Your Descriptive Metadata: Planning, Transforming, and Re-using Nancy Fallgren, Metadata Specialist Librarian National Library of Medicine* * This webinar was prepared in part by Nancy Fallgren in her private capacity. The views expressed do not represent the views of or endorsement by the United States Government or the National Library of Medicine. Marisa Ramírez, Digital Repository Librarian California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo

Goals for Today Identify sources for collecting, enhancing, and redistributing siloed metadata Describe strategies to collect and re-use descriptive metadata Identify the tools used for metadata transformation

“Metadata is structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use, or manage an information resource.” (NISO, 2008)NISO, 2008 Ideally, metadata is “good” and “shareable” ­Conforms to standards ­Uses authority control ­High quality & reflects consistent practice ­Includes terms of use ­Is coherent ­Provides context ­Supports long term preservation ­Should be authoritative, authentic, archivable, persistent and unique ­Optimized for interoperability (NISO, 2007(NISO, 2007 and Shreeves et al., 2006) Metadata: Essential to Discovery Image©2006 Saltatempo Saltatempo

Metadata Silos Duplicative metadata creation Reduced efficiency Greater chance for inconsistent description across systems © 2007 MM Andamon. Used with permission.MM Andamon

What descriptive metadata silos exist at your institution? (select all that apply) A. Integrated Library System (ILS) B. Institutional repository C. Digitized archival collections D. Campus systems E. Homegrown or other systems

Silos as Sources ILS Campus Systems Digitized Archival Collections Homegrown Other Sources Institutional Repository

Silos as Sources From ILS to IR –Authority records From IR to ILS –Extracting specialized abstracts, descriptors Excel spreadsheet to IR From homegrown database to IR

Breaking down the walls ILS Campus Systems Digitized Archival Collections Homegrown Other Sources Institutional Repository

Metadata Extraction Metadata planning o Repository metadata o Project level metadata Extracting existing metadata Modifying extracted metadata

Metadata Planning: What do you want? Develop metadata guidelines for your IR o Schema, elements, data formatting o Required elements vs. Optional elements Some considerations: o Object formats o Audience o Resource management needs o Sharing/Interoperability

Metadata Planning: System Considerations Reconciling what you want with what you can have o System requirements o User Interface requirements  Schema  Indexing  Display Be Flexible!

Project Level Metadata: Assess and Map What metadata do you have? What metadata do you want or need? How can you get it? o Create new metadata for Repository objects o Re-use existing metadata o Hybrid of new and existing Crosswalk to your Repository guidelines

Metadata Extraction: Re-using Existing Metadata From Integrated Library System o Z39.50 o MARC21 to MARCXML From internet o XML files From databases or spreadsheets o Tab delimited to XML o XML to XML

Metadata Extraction: ILS Metadata

Metadata Extraction: Internet

Metadata Extraction: Spreadsheet/MS Excel

Metadata Extraction: MS Excel to oXygen

Metadata Extraction: Database

Modifying Extracted Metadata Transform the metadata o Use the crosswalk as a guide Title = = o XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet LanguageTransformations)  a language for transforming XML documents into XHTML documents or to other XML documents – W3CW3C Some pre-existing tools o MarcEdit o Library of Congress

XSL Transformations MARCXML to DC XSLT (snippet) :

XSL Transformations MARCXML in … Seuss, Dr. The cat in the hat, by Dr. Seuss. … DC out The cat in the hat, Seuss, Dr. …

Summary Silos need not be insurmountable barriers to sharing metadata Existing metadata in xml format can be manipulated to fit individual repository needs Be creative – think outside the box!

Resources Shareable & Interoperable Metadata Best Practices for Shareable Metadata. Jun Digital Library Federation. Accessed online 13 Feb at blic blic Menzies, K., Dunsire, G., and Shreeves, S. “From ILS to Repository and Back : Data Interoperability”. 13 Jan NISO. Accessed online 13 Feb at Shreeves, S., Riley, J. and Milewicz, L. “Moving towards shareable metadata.” First Monday 11.8 (2006) : Accessed online 13 Feb at Understanding Metadata. Bethesda, MD: NISO Press, Accessed online 13 Feb at

Resources Metadata guidelines Library of Congress’ Metadata for Digital Content: University of Maryland Descriptive Metadata Tag Library: Toy-Smith, V. (2010). “UALC Best Practices Metadata Guidelines: A Consortial Approach”. Journal of Library Metadata, 10(1), XSLT W3school XSLT tutorial: Kay, M. XSLT 2.0 and XPATH 2.0: Programmer’s Reference, 4 th ed. Indianapolis: Wiley, Tennison, J. Beginning XSLT 2.0: From Novice to Professional. Berkeley: Apress, 2005.

Resources More XSLT XSLT for Digital Libraries (ALCTS pre-conference course) xlt.cfm xlt.cfm Library of Congress: –MARCXML: –MODS: MarcEdit: oXygen XML editor: ALCTS IR Resources sources.cfm

Thank You! Questions? Nancy Fallgren Metadata Specialist Librarian National Library of Medicine Marisa Ramírez Digital Repository Librarian Cal Poly– San Luis Obispo This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.