PurposeAs digital resources proliferate, libraries plan to grant easy access to a distributed set of resources from one single entry point inside and outside the OPAC. The quest to manage the metadata about these resources becomes more important than ever. Thus, the term, “metadata management” is being used by various communities creating spatial data, enterprise applications, data warehouses, legacy environments, and bibliographic data. Unfortunately, metadata management is sparsely mentioned in the traditional information technology journals, grey literature, information technology company web sites, and the library science literature. The purpose of this viewpoint is to examine the limited use of the term metadata management in the library community and to introduce a new definition of it.Design/methodology/approachThis viewpoint examines the limited use of the term metadata management in the library community and introduces a new definition of it.FindingsAlthough the proposed definition captures the activities that libraries should be engaged as they provide access to millions of resources, this definition should constantly be examined as new technologies emerge, personnel change, and financial resources diminish.Originality/valueThe author's definition is a good start; however, to get to the complete definition of metadata management, a more comprehensive look at the workflow and procedures that exist in libraries for managing metadata is necessary.

This paper confronts the challenge of constructing language documentation and data management in the face of continually expanding sets of cross-linguistic multi-media data arising in collaborative language acquisition research. It describes the development of an infrastructure and methods for creating and managing such shared language data across a Virtual Center for Language Acquisition(VCLA) by fostering collaborative scientific research in the language sciences across multiple institutions. The infrastructure reflects a research lab/academic library collaboration that integrates metadata organization in research methods. This paper describes both the research and educational components involved in the development of the VCLA

Technical Service departments throughout libraries today are increasingly in the position to create and maintain non-MARC metadata that may be shared among institutions. The Cornell University Geospatial Information Repository (CUGIR) Metadata Sharing Project is an example of a system that manages heterogeneous metadata such as MARC, Dublin Core, and Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM). The mechanics and policies required to exchange MARC records are mature and well understood. In contrast, non-MARC metadata resource sharing is largely uncharted territory. The authors present and discuss the mechanisms they implemented to enable heterogeneous metadata sharing. Now that CUGIR geospatial metadata records are widely distributed, searchers who might not otherwise have access to geospatial information can more easily discover what they need.

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