Addressing the Metadata Bottleneck* *By Developing and Evaluating an Online Tool to Support Non-specialists to Evaluate Dublin Core Metadata Records Michael Khoo, The iSchool at Drexel ALISE Annual Conference Boston, MA, January 12-25, 2010

The Metadata Bottleneck  The Web is a rich source of digital resources  Quality metadata = quality repositories  The number of resources needing metadata > number of people making metadata  There is a metadata bottleneck or gap in the way of quality digital repository development The Metadata Bottleneck

 The Web is a rich source of digital resources  Quality metadata = quality repositories  The number of resources needing metadata > number of people making metadata  There is a metadata bottleneck or gap in the way of quality digital repository development The Metadata Bottleneck

 The Web is a rich source of digital resources  Quality metadata = quality repositories  The number of resources needing metadata > number of people making metadata  There is a metadata bottleneck or gap in the way of quality digital repository development The Metadata Bottleneck

 The Web is a rich source of digital resources  Quality metadata = quality repositories  The number of resources needing metadata > number of people making metadata  There is a metadata bottleneck or gap in the way of quality digital repository development The Metadata Bottleneck

Addressing the metadata bottleneck …

The Web …

… the library …

… and the ‘bottleneck’

Some possible solutions

More librarians

Automatic tools

Creators, users, volunteers, etc., using custom tools

However, metadata tools for non-experts are not always successful

 Identified problems:  Poor communication of knowledge and instruction  Poor interface design  Poor usability  Useful to continue to have a professional cataloger dimension (support, QA, etc.)  How can users be better supported? Metadata tools for non-experts

Context: IPL/LII merger, and IPL2

 IPL & LII metadata crosswalked to Dublin Core  This required a new metadata admin tool  Tool will be used by students in iSchool classes to practice metadata generation and contribute metadata to IPL2  Students are ‘non-experts’ (for now) Context: IPL/LII merger

User-centered design approach  Metadata tools have to be carefully designed  For the IPL metadata tool, a UCD approach was adopted  Interface design  Tool content

requirements testing development refining User-centered design approach

Analysis of Problem Space  IPL cataloging currently requires:

Training materials …

… metadata forms …

… and the resource itself

Cataloging requires multiple windows/tabs

 Graduate HCI class at Drexel  IPL introduced as ‘client’ (real world example)  Metadata tool as the design brief  Student teams worked on  Requirements gathering  Paper prototyping  Usability testing  Prototype refining User-centered design approach

 Students developed several prototypes, and a hybrid was subsequently developed further   file:///Users/mkhoo/Desktop/Work/10%20ALIS E/tool_01%20copy/ipl.html User-centered design approach

Content Analysis  Aims  Identify key concepts in metadata experts’ discourse  Identify student conceptions  Provide useful instructions to bridge the two  Only the first analysis (key concepts for metadata experts) undertaken so far

Content Analysis  Identify online/digital guides to and descriptions of metadata  Convert to text files and analyze with Centering Resonance Analysis (CRA) software  Output as graphs and ranked indices

Definitions of Metadata

Final tool will:  Integrate multiple windows (rubric, record, resource) into one interface  Explain complex metadata concepts to non-specialist users  Support usability with iterative user- centered HCI

“Surprises”  Students are busy  Technology (e.g. Fedora api) is complex  Tech staff are busy  Existing IPL workflow is complex

Outcomes  Khoo, M., Park, J-r., and X. Lin. (2009). The User-Centered Design Of A Non-Specialist Metadata Tool And Interface For The Internet Public Library. 72nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vancouver, BC, November 6-11,  Khoo, M., X. Lin, & J-r. Park. (2009). A User-Friendly Metadata Quality Control Tool for the Internet Public Library. 9th ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL), Austin, TX, June 15-19, 2009, pp  Galloway, M., Khoo, M., Lin, X., & Park, J-r. (2009). Crosswalking IPL metadata to Dublin Core. iConference 2009, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, February 8-11, 2009.

Acknowledgements OCLC and ALISE

Thank you. Questions?

Image credits  Librarian 2.0  bot_catalogue.png bot_catalogue.png  If you build it, they will come  you-build-it-they-will-come/ you-build-it-they-will-come/