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 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 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 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

developmentrefining

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 http://research.cis.drexel.edu/test/ipl/ipl.html file:///Users/mkhoo/Desktop/Work/

10%20ALISE/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, 2009.

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. 407-408.

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.

AcknowledgementsOCLC and ALISE

Thank you. Questions?

Image credits

Librarian 2.0 http://www.daveyp.com/blog/stuff/librarian2/ro

bot_catalogue.png

If you build it, they will come http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/11/10/if-y

ou-build-it-they-will-come/