Open Metadata:

Chris BanksUniversity Librarian and Director, Library, Special Collections and Museums

opportunities and challenges for the HE library

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

What metadata have we got?• Manuscript/Archives

• Printed materials with unique content

• Published materials

• Repository publications

• Research Data

• Digitised content

• Electronic: in perpetuity

• Electronic: licensed

• Just in time

• Project created resources

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Agencies• Author / creator/ project

• Publisher

• Aggregator

• Acquired/licensed from

• Licensed to

• LMS

• Local

• Cloud

• Library

• Public

• Re-purposing / Semantic enrichment

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Metadata priorities• Buy / license / link to pre-

existing metadata

• Eliminate cottage industries

• Concentrate human resource on managing the uniquely held metadata creation:

• MSS & Archives

• Research outputs

• Digitised materials

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Metadata utopia• Created once

• Enhanced and enriched by the community

• Held in the cloud

• Ability to link holdings / copy specific information / library specific metadata  

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

• Maximise the investment in the purchased / licensed resources

• Eliminate complexity

• Eliminate barriers to access

• Get the data to where it is needed

Resource discovery priorities

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The catalogue still matters!

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

New e-Book acquisition

e-books become available

E-book catalogue records added to our catalogue

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Investment in resource discovery tools

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Cross searching all collections, including museum and archives (with single-sign-on)

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Investment in training

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Training

Reader instruction - user hours

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Cambridge

Edinbu

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Swanse

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SCONUL m

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Aberdeen

Bangor

Cambridge

Edinburgh

Strathclyde

Swansea

UCL

SCONUL mean

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Metadata characteristics

• Created

• Licensed

• Distributed

• Enriched

• Discovered

• Re-purposed

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Whose metadata is it anyway?

Opportunities

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• Minimise duplication

• Maximise reach

• Allow for community created richness

• Opportunities for new services which add value to the community

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Existing sharing includes

• RLUK / Copac

• Backup catalogue

• Collection management tool

• WorldCat

• Uniqueness /collection strength comparison

• Aggregation of unique items

• eThos

• Europeana

• NRA

• Archives Grid

• Much data is OAI/PMH enabled (more to come)

Challenges

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Challenges

• Data ownership(s)

• Data quality

• Don’t just need to convince libraries

• Existing aggregations, business models, associated services and community benefits

• Resources required to publish

Metadata as £ $ €

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Various agencies exploiting metadata

• Aggregators• License to libraries• License to LMS /

resource discovery agencies

• Create “value added” services based on mass creation/accumulation of metadata

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

• LMS suppliers• Aggregate publisher

created and library created data

• In the cloud• Opportunity for

community created enrichment

• Opportunity to move physical storage (and storage management) into the cloud

www.abdn.ac.uk/library/

Others who aggregate data give HE

• Strategic decision making tools

• Value added search

• H- index

• Peer review information

• Citation information

• Data in the cloud

Inspire to enquire