Search results

This paper aims to explore a new model of “record” that maps traditional attributes of a record onto a technical decomposition of digital records. It compares the core characteristics necessary to call a digital object a “record” in terms of diplomatics or “evidence” in terms of digital forensics. It then isolates three layers of abstraction: the conceptual, the logical and the physical. By identifying the essential elements of a record at each layer of abstraction, a diplomatics of digital records can be proposed.

Digital diplomatics, a research outcome of the International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems (InterPARES) project, gives archivists a methodology for analyzing the identity and integrity of digital records in electronic systems and thereby assessing their authenticity (Duranti and Preston, 2008; Duranti, 2005) and tracing their provenance.

Digital records consist of user-generated data (content), system-generated metadata identifying source and location, application-generated metadata managing the look and performance of the record (e.g., native file format), application-generated metadata describing the data (e.g., file system metadata OS), and user-generated metadata describing the data. Digital diplomatics, based on a foundation of traditional diplomatic principles, can help identify digital records through their metadata and determine what metadata needs to be captured, managed and preserved.

The value and originality of this paper is in the application of diplomatic principles to a deconstructed, technical view of digital records through functional metadata for assessing the identity and authenticity of digital records.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate tag use in a metadata ecosystem that supports a fan work repository to identify functions of tags and explore the system as a co-constructed communicative context.

Using modified techniques from grounded theory (Charmaz, 2007), this paper integrates humanistic and social science methods to identify kinds of tag use in a rich setting.

Three primary roles of tags emerge out of detailed study of the metadata ecosystem: tags can identify elements in the fan work, tags can reflect on how those elements are used or adapted in the fan work, and finally, tags can express the fan author’s sense of her role in the discursive context of the fan work repository. Attending to each of the tag roles shifts focus away from just what tags say to include how they say it.

Instead of building metadata systems designed solely for retrieval or description, this research suggests that it may be fruitful to build systems that recognize various metadata functions and allow for expressivity. This research also suggests that attending to metadata previously considered unusable in systems may reflect the participants’ sense of the system and their role within it.

In addition to accommodating a wider range of tag functions, this research implies consideration of metadata ecosystems, where different kinds of tags do different things and work together to create a multifaceted artifact.

With the aim of developing a conceptual framework which aims to facilitate semantic metadata interoperability, this paper explores overarching conceptual issues on how traditional library information organisation schemes such as online public access catalogues (OPACs), taxonomies, thesauri, and ontologies on the one hand versus Web 2.0 technologies such as social tagging (folksonomies) can be harnessed to provide users with satisfying experiences.

This paper reviews works in relation to current metadata creation, utilisation and interoperability approaches, focusing on how a social constructivist philosophical perspective can be employed to underpin metadata decisions in digital libraries. Articles are retrieved from databases such as EBSCO host and Emerald and online magazines such as D‐Lib and Ariadne. Books, news articles and blog posts that are deemed relevant are also used to support the arguments put forward in this paper.

Current metadata approaches are deeply authoritative and metadata deployments in digital libraries tend to favour an objectivist approach with focus on metadata simplicity. It is argued that unless information objects are enriched with metadata generated through a collaborative and user‐driven approach, achieving semantic metadata interoperability in digital libraries will remain difficult.

In this paper, it is indicated that the number of metadata elements (fields) constituting a standard has a direct bearing on metadata richness, which in turn directly affects semantic interoperability. It is expected that this paper will contribute towards a better understanding of harnessing user‐driven metadata.

As suggested in this paper, a conceptual metadata framework underpinned by a social constructivist approach substantially contributes to semantic interoperability in digital libraries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the information needs of one user group, public library fiction readers, in order to reveal a design of an online community at the local level. Examination of user‐generated metadata can reveal new approaches to information architecture.

A literature review into behaviors of virtual communities; surveying public library readers regarding search behavior characteristics – the survey included a sample “tagging” exercise to determine whether public library communities could create meaningful metadata for retrieval purposes.

The use of relevance as an indicator of tag quality is flawed: in a survey, public library readers “tagged” the novel The Da Vinci Code. The resulting collection of tags provided a richer description of the book than did the social book‐related web site www.librarything.com. Tag collections can be broken down into different categories, each reflecting a different “facet” of the novel: character, plot, subject/topic, setting, and genre. Faceted structure to tags enables users to choose the context of the tag to the novel.

This research is relevant in the world of social networking sites, online communities, or any other such system where users generate descriptive metadata. Examination of such metadata can reveal facets, which can guide the architect/librarian in the design of a versatile architecture.

This research resulted in a manifold design for a public‐library‐based online community that allowed for the full expression of users' information needs. This research introduces a faceted structure to current approaches for user‐generated metadata, adding versatility to search terms.

User‐created metadata, often referred to as folksonomy or social classification, has received a considerable amount of attention in the digital library world. Social tagging is perceived as a tool for enhancing description of digital objects and providing a venue for user input and greater user engagement. This article seeks to examine the pros and cons of user‐generated metadata in the context of digital image collections and compares it to professionally created metadata schema and controlled vocabulary tools.

The article provides an overview of challenges to concept‐based image indexing. It analyzes the characteristics of social classification and compares images described by users to a set of images indexed in a digital collection.

The article finds that user‐generated metadata vary in the level of description, accuracy, and consistency and do not provide a solution to the challenges of image indexing. On the other hand, they reflects user's language and can lead toward user‐centered indexing and greater user engagement.

Social tagging can be implemented as a supplement to professionally created metadata records to provide an opportunity for users to comment on images.

The article introduces the idea of user‐centered image indexing in digital collections.

The purpose of this research is to investigate some general features of folksonomies and user‐generated content with copyright issues, and to present semantic representation for folksonomies using a tag ontology that can be used to represent tagging data at a semantic level using Semantic Web technologies.

An exploratory study is described that features current social tagging methods and copyright metadata. In particular, a tag ontology is extended for representing copyright metadata across different platforms.

The main finding is that Social Semantic Cloud of Tags can improve the expressive knowledge representation of folksonomies and that this ontology can aid in describing copyright metadata using some extended properties.

The paper gives a valuable insight into representing folksonomies with Semantic Web technologies that enable the representation, exchange, and reuse of tagging data, and provides a way to reduce the risk of copyright infringements in the process of tag sharing in folksonomies.

The purpose of this paper is to present the implementation of LibraryThing for Libraries (LTFL) in an academic library and analysis of usage of LTFL data and their potential for resource discovery in the catalog.

The paper reviews the literature on social tagging and incorporation of third‐party user‐generated metadata into the library catalog. It provides an assessment based on the analysis of total absolute usage figures and frequency of use of LTFL data.

Based on the data available, usage of LTFL data in the catalog is low, but several possible contributing factors are identified.

The paper contributes to the literature on the implementation of LTFL in an academic library and provides usage statistics on LTFL data. It also provides directions for future research about tagging in the catalog.

Images can be seen in a different way by different users. The purpose of this paper is to examine how users describe images and to ascertain whether differences exist between users and librarians in creating metadata on images.

The paper compares metadata on digital images generated by users to metadata generated by librarians. A sample of images taken from Digital Library of Slovenia and Flickr is presented to students to assign tags. The tags are grouped into categories and classes of attributes and compared to keywords added by Slovene librarians and to tags created by Flickr visitors.

The number of assigned tags differs greatly among survey participants, librarians and Flickr users, the participants being the most productive. A majority of tags reflect perceptual attributes and tagging is mostly done for personal benefit. The matching rate for all images is 41.4 percent; matching is a little higher with the Flickr images.

Social tagging can be used to develop control vocabularies reflecting users' language and to provide access to digital images.

The paper presents quantitative data on image attributes used by users in describing images.

Most studies pertaining to social tagging focus on one platform or platform type, thus limiting the scope of their findings. The purpose of this paper is to explore social tagging practices across four platforms in relation to cultural products associated with the book Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming.

A layered and nested case study approach was used to analyse data from four online platforms: Goodreads, Last.fm, WordPress, and public library social discovery platforms. The top-level case study focuses on the book Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming and its derivative products. The analysis of tagging practices in each of the four online platforms is nested within the top-level case study. Casino Royale was conceptualized as a cultural product (the book), its derived products (e.g. movies, theme songs), as well as a keyword in blogs. A qualitative, inductive, and context-specific approach was chosen to identify commonalities in tagging practices across platforms whilst taking into account the uniqueness of each platform.

The four platforms comprise different communities of users, each platform with its own cultural norms and tagging practices. Traditional access points in the library catalogues focused on the subject, location, and fictitious characters of the book. User-generated content across the four platforms emphasized historical events and periods related to the book, and highlighted more subjective access points, such as recommendations, tone, mood, reaction, and reading experience. Revealing shifts occur in the tags between the original book and its cultural derivatives: Goodreads and library catalogues focus almost exclusively on the book, while Last.fm and WordPress make in addition cross-references to a wider range of different cultural products, including books, movies, and music. The analyses also yield apparent similarities in certain platforms, such as recurring terms, phrasing and composite or multifaceted tags, as well as a strong presence of genre-related terms for the book and music.

The layered and nested case study approach presents a more comprehensive theoretical viewpoint and methodological framework by which to explore the study of user-generated metadata pertaining to a range of related cultural products across a variety of online platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what metadata elements for access points currently exist to represent diverse library reading materials, either in libraries or from external sources, as well as what metadata elements for access points are currently not present but are necessary to represent diverse library reading materials.

A field scan of thirteen contemporary metadata schemas identified elements that might serve as potential access points regarding the diversity status of resource creators as well as topical or thematic content. Elements were semantically mapped using a metadata crosswalk to understand the intellectual and conceptual space of the elements. Element definitions and application of controlled vocabularies were also examined where possible to offer an additional context.

Metadata elements describing gender, occupation, geographic region, audience and age currently exist in many schemas and could potentially be used to offer access to diverse library materials. However, metadata elements necessary to represent racial, ethnic, national and cultural identity are currently not present in specific forms necessary for enabling resource access and collection assessment. The lack of distinct elements contributes to the implicit erasure of marginalized identities.

The search for metadata describing diversity is a first step toward enabling more systematic access to diverse library materials. The need for systematic description of diversity to make visible and promote diverse materials is highlighted in this paper. Though the subject of this paper is library organization systems and, for clarity, uses terms specific to the library profession, the issues present are relevant to all information professionals and knowledge organization systems.