Riley, Jenn. "Finding the right balance between human effort and automation for metadata creation." Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop (MEOW), Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University, July 24-25, 2006.

1. Finding the right balance between
human effort and automation for
metadata creation
Jenn Riley
Metadata Librarian
Indiana University Digital Library Program

2. Expectations for discovery systems are
rising
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Growth of cutting-edge systems outside of
libraries affecting user expectations
Higher user expectations is a good thing!
Many expected functions will be easier with
robust structured metadata
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Genre access
Faceted browsing
Limiting scope by time, place, etc.
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3. Libraries are having trouble meeting those
expectations
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Non-textual resources are more difficult to
search
Legacy metadata isn’t always structured in
ways that allow high-level services
Legacy metadata doesn’t always include
enough information to allow high-level
services
Creating new metadata needed to provide
high-level services is prohibitively expensive
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4. Enter automatic enhancement methods
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Much research has been done
Little of it has been put into production systems in
library metadata creation environments
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Still requires human intervention
Fear of human skills becoming devalued
Metadata aggregators, out of necessity, are among
the first implementers in the cultural heritage
community
Automatic enhancement holds great promise for
standardizing and streamlining metadata creation
and aggregation activities
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5. IU’s interest in automated metadata
enhancement
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IU DLP has a strong history of providing high-level
discovery services based on quality structured
metadata
Many collections could benefit
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Legacy collections described in MARC
Special collections largely undescribed, especially at the
item level
Currently developing new digital library infrastructure
into which enhancement tools could be integrated
Technical services looking to expand metadata
activities
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6. IU’s role in the DLF Aquifer Metadata
Remediation project
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Preliminary data analysis
Define tools needed to review and report on
effectiveness of remediation experiments
Iteratively review results of the automatic
enhancement processes
Test human review workflows
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Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop

7. Benefits to IU of the Aquifer Metadata
Remediation project
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Better understand aggregated metadata
Identify remediation tools that address local
needs
Plan for inclusion of these tools into our local
workflows
Building relationships between the Digital
Library Program and Technical Services
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8. The big picture from IU’s perspective
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Automated metadata enhancement
techniques promise to play an essential role
in building and aggregating digital library
collections
But they are not a “magic bullet” – must be
used together with other techniques
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User-contributed metadata
Content-based retrieval
Item-level attention by specialists
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9. More information


jenlrile@indiana.edu
These presentation slides:
<http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/presentations/
meow2006/metadataEnhancementAtIU.ppt>

Aquifer project Web site:
<http://www.diglib.org/aquifer/>
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Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop

10. More information


jenlrile@indiana.edu
These presentation slides:
<http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/presentations/
meow2006/metadataEnhancementAtIU.ppt>

Aquifer project Web site:
<http://www.diglib.org/aquifer/>
7/25/06
9
Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop