Metadata Services:

Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities

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Tim Thompson

Librarian for Applied Metadata Research

Yale University Library

timothy.thompson@yale.edu

www.linkedin.com/in/timathompson

@timathom@indieweb.social



October 31, 2024

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Discuss current trends, challenges, and opportunities in the field of metadata services. Provide an example of a leadership role you’ve taken in addressing those trends, challenges, and opportunities.

To some extent, the catalog is the library, because it is itself a model, in metadata, of the essence of the library: the information it offers. The library catalog is to the library as the architect’s miniature is to the real building.

– Karen Coyle

  • A shift is needed from an approach based on metadata management to one based on metadata operations.
  • The assumption that metadata can be “managed” and sorted into silos or compartments is unsustainable and leads to technical debt.
  • Metadata should be treated as a living resource that is produced through the careful application of appropriate standards.

Thesis

Increasingly, metadata professionals need the following set of skills:

  • Polyglot fluency in a variety of tools, technologies, and standards.
  • Ability to prototype and design proof-of-concept code that can demo functional intent for a process or workflow and provide the basis for production-level implementation by software engineers.

Trends

Metadata Operations

  • A metadata operations team is one that could, in principle, be managed using methodologies like Agile and Kanban, which are commonly used in the software development lifecycle.
  • Project boards and platforms for issue tracking and version control, especially GitHub, are important tools to adopt.
  • Metadata services staff can “incubate” projects and write code to reach the last mile before deployment.
  • Code can then be handed off to software engineers and DevOps for testing, hardening, and implementation.

Incubation

Specification

Metadata Operations

MacGyver Operations

Charles Williams on Flickr, “MacGyver’s Multitool” (CC-BY-NA).

A paperclip can be a wonderous [sic] thing. More times than I can remember one of these has gotten me out of a tight spot...

Metadata Operations

  • Often, the code, queries, and reports that are part of a metadata service don’t need to go into production in the strict sense.
  • They are purpose-built to address an internal need or facilitate a workflow.

Metadata Operations

“The Garvinator” was a metadata entry form designed with Sarah Coe to help process additions to the Garvin City Planning Image Collection.

Metadata Operations

Speaking of Paperclips...

XQuery

  • XQuery is a language for querying and modifying structured documents in XML and JSON, as well as tabular data in CSV.
  • As a declarative query language, XQuery can be particularly empowering for metadata professionals.

2014

XQuery Summer Institute, Vanderbilt University

2024

Lifecycle of Metadata Operations

Resolving

Reporting

Repurposing

Challenges

  • Change management
  • Technical debt
  • Capacity building

Change Management:

From MARC to BIBFRAME?

​MARC Must Die,

Roy Tennant (October 2002)​

BIBFRAME Must Die,

Jeff Edmunds (October 2023)

Technical Debt:

This Heading Is Valid?

Capacity Building:

From Challenge to Opportunity

2014

XQuery Summer Institute

2023

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

2024

Linked Data for Production (LD4P)

Cultural Heritage IT and LUX

Linked Data for Production (LD4P)

  1. Joint effort of Central Technical Services and Beinecke Technical Services (with co-PI Audrey Pearson)

  2. Goals:

    1. Build capacity

    2. Develop workflows

    3. Explore discovery

  3. Structure:

    1. Project Leadership Team

    2. Project Advisory Group

    3. Metadata Creation Team (15 members)

LD4P

  • Designed Yale metadata templates in the Sinopia Linked Data Editor (developed by Stanford).

  • Purchased a license for metaphactory, a platform for knowledge graph management and visualization.

  • Provided training in RDA, BIBFRAME, and Sinopia for the Metadata Creation Team.

LD4P: Sinopia

LD4P: Tools

LD4P: Discovery

LD4P: Discovery

LD4P: Competencies

  1. The core principles of linked data as formulated by Tim Berners-Lee.

  2. The concept of a triple as it relates to linked data.

  3. The difference between literal and nonliteral resources.

  4. The difference between the RDF model and concrete serializations of RDF.

  5. The concept of naming a “real-world” thing using a URI.

  6. The difference between an ontology and a controlled vocabulary.

  7. How to locate appropriate RDF-based vocabularies.

  8. The Library of Congress BIBFRAME model.

LD4P: Competencies

  • Members of the Metadata Team began the project with different levels of familiarity with core linked data concepts.
  • Participants had “leveled up” considerably by the end of the project.
  • The mean of all ratings had increased 76% to 75 in the final survey.

LD4P: Still Going!

=LDR  01529na  a2200229 i 4500
=001  1000
=008  \\\\\\s1863\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\eng\
=046  \\$k1863$2edtf
=100  1\$aWashburne, E. B.$q(Elihu Benjamin),$d1816-1887,$eauthor.$4aut$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50028339
=245  10$aSpeech of Hon. E.B. Washburne, of Illinois, on the bill to construct ship canals : $bdelivered in the House of Representatives, February 7, 1863.
=264  \1$a[Washington, D.C.] : $b[publisher not identified], $c1863
=264  \3$a[Washington, D.C.] : $b[L. Towers & Co., Printers]
=300  \\$a8 pages ; $c23 cm
=370  \\$gWashington (D.C.)$2naf$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79018774
=651  \\$aUnited States$xHistory$yCivil War, 1861-1865$xNaval operations.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85140251
=651  \\$aUnited States$xDefenses.$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85139992
=655  \7$aCongressional addresses.$2rbmscv$0http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/rbmscv/cv00298
=700  1\$aWashburne, E. B.$q(Elihu Benjamin),$d1816-1887,$eauthor.$4aut$0http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50028339
=921  \\$usuperwork$0https://trellis.sinopia.io/repository/yale/860d0c33-5b7f-44bc-8a43-50c2e4db71e0
=921  \\$uwork$0https://trellis.sinopia.io/repository/yale/1e5f2900-8a27-4e99-82ad-9ab05198963b
=921  \\$uinstance$0https://trellis.sinopia.io/repository/yale/5fdd85ad-431c-4cc2-b568-d040ffb148cc
=921  \\$uitem$0https://trellis.sinopia.io/repository/yale/439a2028-d6a6-48fc-88d8-882bb5f4678b

Thank You!

Questions?

Tim Thompson

Librarian for Applied Metadata Research

timothy.thompson@yale.edu

www.linkedin.com/in/timathompson

@timathom@indieweb.social

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