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Finding the right balance between human effort and automation for metadata creation. Jenn Riley Metadata Librarian Indiana University Digital Library Program. Expectations for discovery systems are rising. Growth of cutting-edge systems outside of libraries affecting user expectations
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Finding the right balance between human effort and automation for metadata creation Jenn Riley Metadata Librarian Indiana University Digital Library Program
Expectations for discovery systems are rising • 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 • Genre access • Faceted browsing • Limiting scope by time, place, etc. Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop
Libraries are having trouble meeting those expectations • 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 Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop
Enter automatic enhancement methods • Much research has been done • Little of it has been put into production systems in library metadata creation environments • 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 Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop
IU’s interest in automated metadata enhancement • IU DLP has a strong history of providing high-level discovery services based on quality structured metadata • Many collections could benefit • 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 Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop
IU’s role in the DLF Aquifer Metadata Remediation project • 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 Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop
Benefits to IU of the Aquifer Metadata Remediation project • 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 Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop
The big picture from IU’s perspective • 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 • User-contributed metadata • Content-based retrieval • Item-level attention by specialists Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop
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/> Metadata Enhancement and OAI Workshop