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Multiple studies have illustrated that the needs of various users seeking descriptive bibliographic data for pop culture resources (e.g. manga, anime, video games) have not been properly met by cultural heritage institutions and traditional models. With a focus on manga as the central resource, the purpose of this paper is to address these issues to better meet user needs.

Based on an analysis of existing bibliographic metadata, this paper proposes a unique bibliographic hierarchy for manga that is also extendable to other pop culture sources. To better meet user requirements of descriptive data, an aggregation-based approach relying on the Object Reuse and Exchange-Open Archives Initiative (OAI-ORE) model utilized existing, fan-created data on the web.

The proposed hierarchy is better able to portray multiple entities of manga as they exist across data providers compared to existing models, while the utilization of OAI-ORE-based aggregation to build and provide bibliographic metadata for said hierarchy resulted in levels of description that more adequately meet user demands.

Though studies have proposed alternative models for resources like games or comics, manga has remained unexamined. As manga is a major component of many popular multimedia franchises, a focus here with the intention while building the model to support other resource types provides a foundation for future work seeking to incorporate these resources.

In the fall of 2002, the University of Illinois Library at Urbana‐Champaign received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to implement a collection registry and item‐level metadata repository for digital collections and content created by or associated with projects funded under the IMLS National Leadership Grant (NLG) program. When built, the registry and metadata repository will facilitate retrieval of information about digital content related to past and present NLG projects. The process of creating these services also is allowing us to research and gain insight into the many issues associated with implementing such services and the magnitude of the potential benefit and utility of such services as a way to connect, bring together, and make more visible a broad range of heterogeneous digital content. This paper describes the genesis of the project, the rationale for architectural design decisions, challenges faced, and our progress to date.

The purpose of this paper is to employ a case study of the Omeka content management system to demonstrate how the adoption and implementation of a metadata standard (in this case, Dublin Core) can result in contrasting rhetorical arguments regarding metadata utility, quality, and reliability. In the Omeka example, the author illustrate a conceptual disconnect in how two metadata stakeholders – standards creators and standards users – operationalize metadata quality. For standards creators such as the Dublin Core community, metadata quality involves implementing a standard properly, according to established usage principles; in contrast, for standards users like Omeka, metadata quality involves mere adoption of the standard, with little consideration of proper usage and accompanying principles.

The paper uses an approach based on rhetorical criticism. The paper aims to establish whether Omeka’s given ends (the position that Omeka claims to take regarding Dublin Core) align with Omeka’s guiding ends (Omeka’s actual argument regarding Dublin Core). To make this assessment, the paper examines both textual evidence (what Omeka says) and material-discursive evidence (what Omeka does).

The evidence shows that, while Omeka appears to argue that adopting the Dublin Core is an integral part of Omeka’s mission, the platform’s lack of support for Dublin Core implementation makes an opposing argument. Ultimately, Omeka argues that the appearance of adopting a standard is more important than its careful implementation.

This study contributes to our understanding of how metadata standards are understood and used in practice. The misalignment between Omeka’s position and the goals of the Dublin Core community suggests that Omeka, and some portion of its users, do not value metadata interoperability and aggregation in the same way that the Dublin Core community does. This indicates that, although certain values regarding standards adoption may be pervasive in the metadata community, these values are not equally shared amongst all stakeholders in a digital library ecosystem. The way that standards creators (Dublin Core) understand what it means to “adopt a standard” is different from the way that standards users (Omeka) understand what it means to “adopt a standard.”

This study furthers metadata quality research by providing complementary network-based metrics and insights to analyze metadata records and identify areas for improvement.

Metadata record graphs apply network analysis to metadata field values; this study evaluates the interconnectedness of subjects within each Hub aggregated into the Digital Public Library of America. It also reviews the effects of NACO normalization – simulating revision of values for consistency – and breaking up pre-coordinated subject headings – to simulate applying the Faceted Application of Subject Terminology to Library of Congress Subject Headings.

Network statistics complement count- or value-based metrics by providing context related to the number of records a user might actually find starting from one item and moving to others via shared subject values. Additionally, connectivity increases through the normalization of values to correct or adjust for formatting differences or by breaking pre-coordinated subject strings into separate topics.

This analysis focuses on exact-string matches, which is the lowest-common denominator for searching, although many search engines and digital library indexes may use less stringent matching methods. In terms of practical implications for evaluating or improving subjects in metadata, the normalization components demonstrate where resources may be most effectively allocated for these activities (depending on a collection).

Although the individual components of this research are not particularly novel, network analysis has not generally been applied to metadata analysis. This research furthers previous studies related to metadata quality analysis of aggregations and digital collections in general.

The purpose of this article is to review metadata issues identified in recent research carried out in Scotland on services based on metadata aggregation via OAI‐PMH, and to examine the role of collection‐level description in managing ingest to harvested repositories, subsequent harvesting by secondary aggregators, and the contextualisation of institutional and aggregated repositories in the wider information retrieval environment.

The paper reviews the output of several projects involving institutional repositories and collection‐level description in Scotland.

Collection‐level description is a useful tool for aggregator services, but further work is required to accommodate information about the manipulation of metadata sets. Communities need to consider how best to incorporate structured collection information within the OAI‐PMH for their specific purposes.

The paper shows the importance of recent developments in collection description metadata for implementors of OAI‐PMH services, building on the simple placeholders for such metadata allowed by the protocol.

The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for the articulation of relationships between collection-level and item-level metadata as logical inference rules. The framework is intended to allow the systematic generation of relevant propagation rules and to enable the assessment of those rules for particular contexts and the translation of rules into algorithmic processes.

The framework was developed using first order predicate logic. Relationships between collection-level and item-level description are expressed as propagation rules – inference rules where the properties of one entity entail conclusions about another entity in virtue of a particular relationship those individuals bear to each other. Propagation rules for reasoning between the collection and item level are grouped together in the framework according to their logical form as determined by the nature of the propagation action and the attributes involved in the rule.

The primary findings are the analysis of relationships between collection-level and item-level metadata, and the framework of categories of propagation rules. In order to fully develop the framework, the paper includes an analysis of colloquial metadata records and the collection membership relation that provides a general method for the translation of metadata records into formal knowledge representation languages.

The method for formalizing metadata records described in the paper represents significant progress in the application of knowledge representation techniques to problems of metadata creation and management, providing a flexible technique for encoding colloquial metadata as a set of statements in first-order logic. The framework of rules for collection/item metadata relationships has a range of potential applications for the enhancement or metadata systems and vocabularies.

There has been a significant increase in activity over the past few years to integrate library metadata with the Semantic Web. While much of this has involved the development of controlled vocabularies as “linked data”, there have recently been concerted attempts to represent standard library models for bibliographic metadata in forms that are compatible with Semantic Web technologies. This paper aims to give an overview of these initiatives, describing relationships between them in the context of the Semantic Web.

The paper focusses on standards created and maintained by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, including Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, Functional Requirements for Authority Data, and International Standard Bibliographic Description. It also covers related standards and models such as RDA – Resource Description and Access, REICAT (the new Italian cataloguing rules) and CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model, and the technical infrastructure for supporting relationships between them, including the RDA/ONIX framework for resource categorization, and Vocabulary Mapping Framework.

The paper discusses the importance of these developments for releasing the rich metadata held by libraries as linked data, addressing semantic and statistical inferencing, integration with user‐ and machine‐generated metadata, and authenticity, veracity and trust. It also discusses the representation of controlled vocabularies, including subject classifications and headings, name authorities, and terminologies for descriptive content, in a multilingual environment.

Finally, the paper discusses the potential collective impact of these initiatives on metadata workflows and management systems.

The paper provides a general review of recent activity for those interested in the development of library standards, the Semantic Web, and universal bibliographic control.

The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) protocol for metadata harvesting offers the prospect of resource discovery tools far beyond what is currently available to users of the Web via standard search engines. This article illustrates how existing information about available resources can be repurposed fairly easily and cheaply using standard tools. However the publishing of this information throws up a number of practical and philosophical questions which have to be addressed by projects and institutions.

In July of 2001, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign undertook a project to test the efficacy of using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting to construct a search and discovery service focused on information resources in the domain of cultural heritage. To date, the Illinois project has indexed over two million Dublin Core metadata records contributed by 39 metadata repositories in the museum, academic library, and digital library project communities. These records describe a mix of digital and analog primary content. Our analysis of these metadata records demonstrates wide divergence in descriptive metadata practices and the use and interpretation of Dublin Core metadata elements. Differences are particularly notable by community. This article provides an overview of the Illinois project, presents quantitative data about divergent metadata practices and element usage patterns, and details implications for metadata providers and harvesting services.

The MetaScholar Initiative is a collaborative endeavor to explore the feasibility and utility of scholarly portal services developed in conjunction with Open Archives Initiative (OAI) metadata harvesting technologies. The MetaScholar Initiative comprises two projects, the MetaArchive and AmericanSouth projects, both funded by grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation totaling $600,000. These two projects have created two metadata aggregation networks connecting some 24 libraries, archives, museums, and electronic text centers. Each network has an associated portal being created under the guidance of teams composed of scholars, librarians, archivists, and technologists. The MetaScholar Initiative is studying issues such as metadata normalization, alternative forms of scholarly communication through portals, and the process of facilitating smaller archival institutions in providing better access to their collections through the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI‐PMH). The MetaScholar Initiative is based at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.