Metadata Librarianship: Specializing for Maximum

Productivity

ADENIYI, Adegbilero Idowu

Librarian, Medical Library,Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti.Ekiti State, Nigeria.E-Mail: adegbileroidowu@gmail.comPhone no.: 08034316974

Oriola, Josephus Opowa

Chief Librarian

Administrative Staff College of Nigeria,

Topo, Badagry,

Lagos State, Nigeria.

E-mail: josephoriola@yahoo.com

Phone no.: 08038783485

Abstract

Librarianship has often been threatened by the advent of the

internet- the search engines, the wikis, social media

networks, blogs and an avalanche of wide ranging already-made,

easy to use information resources and sources on the internet.

Also, multiplication of mobile and hand-held electronic

devices such as Smartphones, Tablets, Android-based devices

and the likes; unrelenting production of information in

electronic format; emphasis on access and discovery of

information resource, have all necessitated a paradigm shift

in the general ways librarianship should be and/or is

practiced so as to keep the field afloat in perpetual

relevance in modern times of information technology. Whereas

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librarians and libraries are nowadays seemed to be by-passed,

at least, physically, yet they have remained quintessential in

the accessibility of information and knowledge. And, although,

researchers and information seekers have often resorted to the

internet to meet their information needs as against coming to

the library or consulting the librarian, they have actually

gone online to benefit from the sweat of librarians and that

without appreciation. How this has come to be is through

metadata. This paper, reviewing literatures, would bring to

the fore the concept of metadata and its wide application to

the LIS profession, recent trends within the profession will

be discussed and creation of a new arm of the LIS profession

i.e. metadata librarianship recommended.

Keywords: Librarianship, Metadata, Metadata Standards,

Metadata Librarianship

1.0 Introduction

During the last decade, great emphasis was placed on what

librarians can offer in the era of Internet resources. Today,

it is obvious that librarians accepted this challenge and have

assumed an important role in organizing Internet resources

(El-Sherbini and Klim, 2004). The library shifting radically

from the traditional sitting structure and system to a more

physically invisible, virtual and dynamic environment;

preference for soft information materials to hard copies due

to the ease of accessibility, usability and transportability

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are wave of change elements in librarianship. Also,

multiplication of mobile and hand-held electronic devices such

as Smartphones, and mobile devices as iPad, Android devices

and the likes; unrelenting production of information in

electronic format; emphasis on access and discovery of

information resource, have all necessitated a paradigm shift

in the general ways librarianship should be and/or is

practiced so as to keep the field afloat in perpetual

relevance in modern times of information technology.

El-Sherbini and Klim (2004) asserts that the world of

information has moved beyond paper and microform as the

primary carriers of information. Digital resources have become

abundant and with them came the need for classification. With

their proliferation came the perception that the available

cataloging standards could not be satisfactorily adapted to

the demands of these new formats. This development coincided

with a new trend in publishing and bibliographic description.

Publishers began to provide libraries that acquired their

books with skeletal pre-publication descriptions of their

books. As these descriptions became more accurate and

complete, the libraries saw an opportunity to use them in

their cataloging process. The door was opened to the idea that

the library was not the only place where information about

materials could be built into a record describing the

materials.

Whereas librarians and libraries are nowadays seemed to

be by-passed, at least, physically, yet they have remained

quintessential in the accessibility of information and

knowledge. And, although, researchers and information seekers3

have often resorted to the internet to meet their information

needs as against coming to the library or consulting the

librarian, they have actually gone online to benefit from the

sweat of librarians and that without appreciation. How this

has come to be is through metadata. Nearly every academic

library and many public libraries are engaged in projects that

involve cataloging of electronic resources and many librarians

attempt to integrate the new metadata standards into their

work (El-Sherbini and Klim, 2004).

2.0 Metadata Defined.

Generally, metadata is data about data. In its booklet

“Understanding Metadata”, the National Information Standards

Organization (NISO) defines metadata as structured information

that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it

easier to retrieve, use, or manage an information resource. In

the library and information management field, it is used for

information describing a resource in many of the ways

associated in the past with bibliographical referencing:

author, subject, position in a pre-defined subject

classification scheme are obvious examples. It also has the

capability to support more sophisticated ways of managing and

distributing information that are often given such labels as

knowledge management and information resource management

(Public Record Office, 2002). Day (2000) defines metadata as a

term that is increasingly being used by the library and

information communities and others to refer to structured data

that describes or otherwise documents other data in order to

support one or more specified functions. These functions may4

include, for example, resource discovery and access,

collection management and resource evaluation, rights

management and digital preservation.

The views above is corroborated by NISO (2004) which

document that the term metadata is used differently in

different communities; some use it to refer to machine

understandable information, while others use it only for

records that describe electronic resources; in the library

environment, metadata is commonly used for any formal scheme

of resource description, applying to any type of object,

digital or non-digital. Traditional library cataloging is a

form of metadata; MARC 21 and the rule sets used with it, such

as AACR2, are metadata standards. Yet, another renascent

metadata standard is the Resource Description and Access

(RDA). However, ESRI (2002) defines metadata as a summary

document providing content, quality, type, creation, and

spatial information about a data set. It can be stored in any

format such as a text file, Extensible Markup Language (XML),

or database record. Because of its small size compared to the

data it describes, metadata is more easily shareable. By

creating metadata and sharing it with others, information

about existing data becomes readily available to anyone

seeking it. Metadata makes data discovery easier and reduces

data duplication.

Although initially associated with electronic resources,

metadata has been used to describe a wide variety of

information-bearing resources involving various types of

textual and non-textual objects including published books,

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electronic documents, archival finding aids, art objects,

educational and training materials, and scientific datasets.

3.0 Why Metadata?

Great proliferation of electronic content that is

accessible through the World Wide Web makes it necessary to

create and apply metadata standards that will make navigation

more effective. Existing search engines reach a small portion

of Web-based resources, making effective metadata application

a necessity (El-Sherbini and Klim, 2004). NISO reports that

the main reason for creating descriptive metadata is to

facilitate discovery of relevant information. Also, metadata

can help organize electronic resources, facilitate

interoperability and legacy resource integration, and provide

digital identification, and support archiving and

preservation. The Government of Alberta in her Metadata Resource

Guide itemizes the functions metadata serve to include those of

administration, preservation, recordkeeping, resource

discovery, rights management and structural and technical

functionalities.

The interoperability function of metadata is one so

germane to the course of Open Archiving and Access Initiatives

that is gaining popularity in the knowledge business.

Interoperability allows for metadata harvesting using

appropriate software. Interoperability is the ability of

multiple systems, using different hardware and software

platforms, data structures, and interfaces, to exchange and

share data. According to Cullen and Chawner (2009), one key

standard for interoperability is the Open Archives Initiative6

Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), which allows

metadata for items in a repository to be extracted and indexed

separately such that from a single website, users from

anywhere in the world can access the data of any institution.

4.0 Types of Metadata

Metadata types range from simple formats to rich and

complex formats:

Unstructured data, which are automatically extracted from

resources and indexed for use by robot-based Web services

such as AltaVista.

Structured formats, which are simple enough to be created

by non-specialist users. Usually manually created, but

some data may be extracted automatically. Examples

include ROADS templates and DC.

Structured formats, which are rich and complex to

organize complex relations between objects or collections

of objects and are often based on implementations of

SGML. Examples include MARC21, TEI headers and CIMI

formats

Source: El-Sherbini and Klim, 2004

Meanwhile, NISO (2004) has categorized metadata into the

three main groups described below:

- Descriptive metadata which describes a resource for

purposes such as discovery and identification. It can

include elements such as title, abstract, author, and

keywords.

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- Structural metadata indicates how compound objects are

put together, for example, how pages are ordered to form

chapters.

- Administrative metadata provides information to help

manage a resource, such as when and how it was created,

file type and other technical information, and who can

access it. There are several subsets of administrative

data; two that sometimes are listed as separate metadata

types are:

o Rights management metadata, which deals with intellectual

property rights, and

o Preservation metadata, which contains information needed

to archive and preserve a resource.

However, agreeing with Carslon Analytics (2003), they both

concur that there are several ways metadata can be associated

with a resource. One of such ways according to El-Sherbini and

Klim is embedding metadata within the resource by the author

at the time of creating the resource itself. Also metadata can

be embedded in the document or created as a separate record

(NISO, 2004 and El-Sherbini and Klim, 2004). Whereas, storing

metadata with the object it describes ensures the metadata

will not be lost, obviates problems of linking between data

and metadata, and helps ensure that the metadata and object

will be updated together; storing metadata separately can

simplify the management of the metadata itself and facilitate

search and retrieval: therefore, metadata is commonly stored

in a database system and linked to the objects described

(NISO, 2004).

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5.0 Structure and creation of metadata

Metadata is composed of the various components described

as follows:

Elements: metadata elements describe characteristics of

the information object or resource. For instance, author,

title and subject are well-known metadata elements.

Metadata elements have standardized presentation and

content in order to facilitate their interoperability and

usefulness to the user of metadata. Most elements use

other rules, standards, or encoding schemas to ensure

consistent presentation of their content. For example,

the element ‘date’ is generally standardized to ISO 8601

– Standard for Date Encoding that specifies dates be

written as YYYY-MM-DD; or the element ‘subject’ is

standardized to a thesaurus, such as the UNESCO

Thesaurus, to ensure consistent vocabulary. Metadata

elements describe the resource in a standardized way to

facilitate information retrieval and handling (Government

of Alberta, 2004).

Semantics: according to NISO (2004) is the definition or

meaning of metadata elements themselves.

Content is the value given to metadata elements.

Syntax Rules specify how the elements and their content

should be encoded. A metadata scheme with no prescribed

syntax rules is called syntax independent. Metadata can

be encoded in any definable syntax.

Schema or Metadata Schemes- Schema defines terminology,

elements and attributes that also may be useful for a

metadata initiative (Government of Alberta, 2004). They9

also are sets of metadata elements designed for a

specific purpose, such as describing a particular type of

information resource (NISO, 2004).

There are various levels of creating metadata depending on

the complexity or simplicity envisaged and of course, the

function the metadata is intended to perform. Simple metadata

could be created by almost anyone, including the publisher of

electronic resource, the author or the resource creator,

experts, metadata creation agencies, the Webmasters, or the

institution (El-Sherbini and Klim, 2004). They further report

that what simplifies the process of creating metadata for

electronic resources are the metadata tools that have been

developed to assist the non-professional in this process.

There are a number of metadata creation tools that are readily

available. These include “DC-dot” which will retrieve a Web

page and automatically generate Dublin Core metadata for

embedding in the META section of the HTML pages; “Nordic

Metadata Project Metadata Templates”; and “Reggie Metadata

Editor”.

However, NISO (2004) has categorized metadata creation tools

under the following headings:

“Templates which allow a user to enter the metadata

values into pre-set fields that match the element set

being used. The template will then generate a formatted

set of the element attributes and their corresponding

values.

Mark-up tools will structure the metadata attributes and

values into the specified schema language. Most of these

tools generate XML or SGML Document Type Definitions10

(DTD). Some templates include such a mark-up as part of

their final translation of the metadata.

Extraction tools automatically create metadata from an

analysis of the digital resource. These tools are

generally limited to textual resources. The quality of

the metadata extracted can vary significantly based on

the tool’s algorithms as well as the content and

structure of the source text. These tools should be

considered as an aid to creating metadata. The resulting

metadata should always be manually reviewed and edited.”

Conversion tools translate one metadata format to

another. The similarity of elements in the source and

target formats will affect how much additional editing

and manual input of metadata may be required.

6.0 Metadata Standards

According to the Government of Alberta’s Metadata Resource

Guide there are many different metadata standards that cover

varied facets of metadata function. However, two major

thematic divisions are apparent. Specifically, metadata

divides into those standards that may be used commonly for all

resources, and metadata standards specific to a particular

discipline, sector or domain.

A common metadata schema is a ‘core’ set (i.e. schema) of

metadata elements that can be applied to all resources because

they answer common functions for metadata to perform. Common

metadata functions to consider are: resource discovery,

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administration, recordkeeping, preservation, rights

management, and structural / technical.

Domain-specific metadata refers to metadata that is

necessary only for a certain field or discipline. For

instance, statistical resources would use both a common schema

like Dublin Core (DC) as its ‘core’ metadata set, and a

statistical schema to add helpful and relevant elements for

searching and retrieving information, such as: “statistical

population”, “geographical coverage”, “observation unit”, etc.

More specifically, there are an increasing number of

metadata schemas covering varying fields of interest to those

that can be applied for general purposes. The Government of

Alberta (2004) has made a short list of both common and

domain-specific metadata schemas to include the Dublin Core,

DC; Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, AACR2; Encoded Archival

Description, EAD; Government Information Locator Service,

GILS; Text Encoding Initiative (TEI); Geospatial Metadata

Standards; Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS);

Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX) and so on. Some

of these standards are reviewed below as reported by previous

researchers and especially the detailed work done by the

National Information Standards Organisation (2004) and El-

Sherbini and Klim (2004).

6.1 Dublin Core

The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set arose from

discussions at a 1995 workshop sponsored by OCLC and the

National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). As the

workshop was held in Dublin, Ohio, the element set was named

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the Dublin Core. The continuing development of the Dublin Core

and related specifications is managed by the Dublin Core

Metadata Initiative (DCMI). The original objective of the

Dublin Core was to define a set of elements that could be used

by authors to describe their own Web resources. Faced with a

proliferation of electronic resources and the inability of the

library profession to catalog all these resources, the goal

was to define a few elements and some simple rules that could

be applied by non-catalogers.

The original 13 core elements were later increased to 15:

Title, Creator, Subject, Description, Publisher, Contributor,

Date, Type, Format, Identifier, Source, Language, Relation,

Coverage, and Rights. Because of its simplicity, the Dublin

Core element set is now used by many outside the library

community- researchers, museum curators, and music collectors

to name only a few. There are hundreds of projects worldwide

that use the Dublin Core either for cataloging or to collect

data from the Internet; more than 50 of these have links on

the DCMI website. The subjects range from cultural heritage

and art to math and physics.

6.2 The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)

The Text Encoding Initiative is an international project

to develop guidelines for marking up electronic texts such as

novels, plays, and poetry, primarily to support research in

the humanities. In addition to specifying how to encode the

text of a work, the TEI Guidelines for Electronic Text

Encoding and Interchange also specify a header portion,

embedded in the resource, that consists of metadata about the

work. The TEI header, like the rest of the TEI, is defined as13

an SGML DTD (Document Type Definition)- a set of tags and

rules defined in SGML syntax that describe the structure and

elements of a document. This SGML mark-up becomes part of the

electronic resource itself. Since the TEI DTD is rather large

and complicated in order to apply to a vast range of texts and

uses, a simpler subset of the DTD, known as TEI Lite, is

commonly used in libraries.

6.3 The Moving to Distributed Environments for Library

Services (MODELS)

The Moving to Distributed Environments for Library Services

(MODELS) project is funded by the Joint Information Systems

Committee of the United Kingdom Higher Education Funding

Council under its electronic libraries (eLIB) program. “MODELS

is providing a forum within which the UK library and

information communities can explore shared concerns, address

design and implementation issues, initiate concerted actions,

and work towards a shared view of preferred systems and

architectural solutions” – the Web site. MODELS was created to

manage the heterogeneous information resources and services

being offered to libraries and their users. (El-Sherbini and

Klim, 2004).

Other schemas reported by NISO includes Metadata Encoding

and Transmission Standard (METS); Learning Object Metadata; E-

Commerce – <indecs> and ONIX; Visual Objects – CDWA and VRA;

MPEG Multimedia Metadata; and those that can be used for

datasets.

Example of a metadata in Dublin Core

Title=”Metadata Demystified”

Creator=”Brand, Amy”14

Creator=”Daly, Frank”

Creator=”Meyers, Barbara”

Subject=”metadata”

Description=”Presents an overview of metadata

conventions in publishing.”

Publisher=”NISO Press”

Publisher=”The Sheridan Press”

Date=”2003-07"

Type=”Text”

Format=”application/pdf”

Identifier=”http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/

Metadata_Demystified.pdf”

Language=”en”

Source: National Information Standards Organisation

(2004).

7.0 Metadata and Librarianship- the Relationship and

Possibility for Metadata

Librarianship in Nigeria

Metadata may as well be referred to as cataloguing

modified. Bibliographic description and subject classification

of information resources less generation of notation is

essentially what metadata is about. According to El-Sherbini

and Klim (2004), the development and evolution of metadata

standards follow the familiar patterns established in the

library community. While cataloguing evolved given mainly to

put order into the chaos warranted by the publication of print

information materials, metadata came into being to meet the

need to classify and to organize the vast amounts of15

information and data that are produced and distributed

digitally.

The focus of metadata research is subtly changing as

projects gradually transform themselves into services and the

importance of the user comes to the fore. This is an area

where the library and information communities have much to

contribute. It certainly seems to bear out Clifford Lynch's

(1997, p. 44) perceptive comment that something very much like

traditional library services will be needed to organize,

access and preserve networked information if the Internet is

to continue to thrive as a means of communication Day (2000)

reports. El-Sherbini and Klim further report that most of the

metadata standards are a development, a refinement, or, in

some cases, a simplification of existing classification tools

and standards such that the library online catalogue serves as

an example of the relationship between traditional cataloging

and metadata.

However, as reports have it, the major distinction

between them is that the object of metadata, a digital entity,

is not physically located in a library or a collection. Given

the above, it has been thought often that librarians are not

needed to develop standards and tools to access electronic

information and more so that there are tools developed to

assist non-professionals in generating metadata. Yet, if

thorough and high quality description is envisaged, then,

trained librarians are the best hands for the job. The reason

been that, they have been well exposed to the use of

traditional tools and standards over the years; a short course

on metadata will be the simplest requirement. 16

In fact, explaining the people involved in a metadata or

digitization project, especially when a repository is

involved, Bor and Kucsma (2010) reports that a Digital

Initiatives Librarian, who receives support from the Digital

Content Specialist is responsible for managing the repository,

including creation of metadata standards, scanning workflows,

policy development, and quality control. This is also in

agreement with what is obtainable at the International

Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan’s Institutional

Repository project where computer scientist and librarians

produce a digital resource, create the metadata for that

resource under the supervision of a senior librarian.

This has warranted the call for the creation of the field of

Metadata Librarianship and of course the Metadata Librarian

cadre in the practice of librarianship in Africa. More

knowledge resource continue to come out in electronic or

digital formats, existing print materials receives continual

digitization attention; and the proliferation of digital

devices to access them with alarming ease continue to gain

rise. While print materials has not lost popularity in

scholarship, cataloguing librarians will continue to process

them, and combining that with the classification of digital

resources will be an unnecessary burden in that such duties

could be handled very well by a Metadata Librarian/

Specialist. In fact, the practice of librarianship in the West

has created this career position already. It is, thus,

desirable that we take a cue from them.

Recent advertisement placements on IFLA litserv widely

published vacant position for either a Metadata Librarian or17

Digital Initiative Librarian or Electronic Resource and

Emerging Technology Librarian and the likes. The under-listed

are examples of such vacancy postings:

1. Head, Digital Projects & Metadata. Beinecke Rare Book &

Manuscript Library, Yale University Library.

Requirement:

Knowledge of current metadata standards, including RDA, Dublin Core, EAD,

MARCXML, MODS, METS, TEI, and other emerging data standards. Knowledge of

XML, XSLT and XPath. Knowledge of linked data and semantic web development and

technologies. Knowledge of controlled vocabulary, and terminology development

and implementation.

Proficient computer skills and experience with heterogeneous operating systems,

including Windows, Mac, Linux, or Unix. Knowledge of computer hardware and

software application related to library services. Knowledge of database structure

and SQL query languages. Knowledge of open source software development and

applications regarding data indexing, sorting, and retrieval, such as Solr based

applications and tools.

2. Cataloging and Metadata Specialist

MARC, AACR2, RDA, and XML. If these acronyms make sense to you...If you tend

towards sorting and describing the world… If you appreciate fixed fields and tags

and how they promote information discovery and management…Then consider

applying for the Cataloging and Metadata Specialist position at the Montana State

Library.

Posted by Downs, Beth BDowns@mt.gov via infoserv.inist.fr

3. Cataloguing/Metadata Librarian- Fullerton, CA

Faculty, Part-time

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California State University Fullerton Pollak Library is seeking an energetic,

collaborative and service-centered cataloging and metadata librarian who is

innovative, technologically adept and has experience working with cataloging and

metadata standards and tools.

Qualifications Required:

Master’s degree in library and/or information science from an ALA-

accredited institution or equivalent institution by the time of appointment.

Knowledge of national standards, such as AACR2 (revised), USMARC, LCSH, LC

Classification, MARCIVE, CONSER and RDA.

 In depth experience with the cataloging module and OPAC from Innovative

Interfaces, Inc. (III) library system or similar ILS cataloging and OPAC

modules.

Posted by Secretary librarydepsec@exchange.fullerton.edu via

infoserv.inist.fr to libjobs   

Summary

A look at the vacancy posts above, an in-exhaustive list

though, shows that a qualification in librarianship is the

basic requirement for engagement in a metadata assignment.

Another important observation is that, basic qualification in

librarianship is equally not sufficient for practice of the

profession nowadays given the spate of technology emergence

and the continuous change in the production, distribution,

utilization and preservation of information. Therefore,

librarians should wake up to their responsibility now that the

importance of metadata is too important to be sidetracked in

the fulfillment of our professional obligation to humanity.

Specializing will immensely enhance performance, thus the19

field of Metadata Librarianship and the office of Metadata

Librarians in Nigerian libraries.

References

Bor, K. and Kucsma, J. (2010). Digitization in the Real World:

Lessons Learned from Small

and Medium-Sized Digitization Projects. New York:

Metropolitan New York Library

Council.

Caslon Analytics (2003), “Caslon Analytics Profile: metadata,

engines, directories”, available

at: http://www.caslon.com.au/metadataprofile.htm

Cullen, R. and Chawner, B. (2009)- Institutional repositories

in tertiary institutions: access,

delivery and performance. In: Access, delivery,

performance: the future of libraries without walls.

Edited by Jillian R. Griffiths and Jenny Craven. London:

Facet Publishing.

Day, M. (2000). Resource discovery, interoperability and

digital preservation: some aspects

of current metadata research and development. VINE, Issue

117, pp. 35-48. Retrieved

February 09, 2012 from

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/publications/vine-117/

El-Sherbini, M. and Klim, G. (2004)- Metadata and cataloguing

practices. The Electronic 20

Library, 22 (3), 238- 248. Retrieved November 01, 2011 from

www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm

Lynch, C. (1997). Searching the Internet. Scientific American, 276

(3), pp. 44-48. Available

at http://www.sciam.com/0397issue/0397lynch.html

Milstead, J. and Feldman, S. (1999), “Metadata: cataloging by

any other name”, Online, Vol.

23(1), pp. 24-6, available at:

www.infotoday.com/online/OL1999/milstead1.html

National Information Standards Organization. (2004).

Understanding Metadata. Bethesda,

MD.: NISO Press.

Public Records Office. (2002). Requirements for Electronic

Records Management Systems 2:

Metadata Standard, 2002 revision: final version. Surrey:

Public Records Office. Retrieved October 10, 2011 from

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/metadata.pdf

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