Many institutional repositories have pursued a mixed metadata environment, relying on description by multiple workflows. Strategies may include metadata converted from other systems, metadata elicited from the document creator or manager, and metadata created by library or repository staff. Additional editing or proofing may or may not occur. The mixed environment brings challenges of creation, management, and access. In this article, repository efforts at three major universities are discussed. All three repositories run on the DSpace software package, and the opportunities and limitations of that system will be examined. The authors discuss local strategies in light of current thinking on metadata creation, user behavior, and the aggregation of heterogeneous metadata. The contrasts between the mission of each repository effort will show the importance of local customization, while the experience of all three institutions forms the basis for recommendations on strategies of benefit to a wide range of librarians and repository planners.

source: DigitalKoans

DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 19 May 2009—This report synthesizes evidence from archival user studies and specifies what descriptive information is needed for research.

“Understanding PREMIS” is now available from the PREMIS Maintenance Activity website. This document is a “gentle” introduction to the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata, giving an overview of its scope and goals. It does not give enough information for implementation, but will make the larger document, i.e. the PREMIS Data Dictionary, more familiar.

Metadata, often referred to as “data about data,” provides interesting information that supplements the
primary content of digital documents. Metadata has become a powerful tool to organize and search
through the growing libraries of image, audio and video content that users are producing and
consuming. This is especially important in the area of digital photography where, despite the increased
quality and quantity of sensor elements, it is not currently practical to organize and query images
based only on the millions of image pixels. Instead, it is best to use metadata properties that describe
what the photo represents and where, when and how the image was taken.
Metadata is now critical in workflows ranging from consumer sharing experiences to professional-level
asset management. That said, there are several complications which result from structural hierarchies
required to store metadata within images:
Digital images are stored in a variety of common file formats such as TIFF, JPEG and PSD as well as
proprietary formats such as RAW. Each file format has unique rules regarding how metadata formats
must be stored within the file.