Metadata and the future of cataloging

Abstract

This article is a survey of representative metadata efforts comparing them to MARC 21 metadata in order to determine if new electronic formats require the development of a new set of standards. This study surveys the ongoing metadata projects in order to identify what types of metadata exist and how they are used and also compares and analyzes selected metadata elements in an attempt to illustrate how they are related to MARC 21 metadata format elements.

Cataloging in Stereo: Metadata for Stereographs

“…9 One author even questioned the need for new metadata standards. 10 Early in the new millennium, metadata harvesting and the Open Archives Initiative were two current initiatives in the field of metadata. 11 Many articles still dealt with the technical nature of metadata, especially standardization and interoperability, but few provided specific examples of actual metadata projects.…”

The design and development of a social science data warehouse: A case study of the Human Resources Development Data Warehouse Project of the Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa

“…A meta-data catalogue will assist effective identification and retrieval of information. It will also enable users to determine which data may suit their needs, and will refer researchers to related data for comparative purposes (El Sherbini, 2001). The metadata catalogue contains information about each database source including: information on the data itself (eg: size of dataset, format, codebook, GIS integration, dimensions/fields, unit of collection/aggregation, etc.…”

Distributing non-MARC metadata: the CUGIR metadata sharing project

“…Another noteworthy contribution is Lorcan Dempsey and Rachel Heery's article, "Metadata: a current view of practice and issues," which lists various metadata standards and categorizes them according to a typology [10]. Ohio State's Magda El-Sherbini reports on her literature search, e-mail survey, and the challenges of mapping Government Information Locator Service (GILS), Dublin Core, Colorado Digital Library Project, and the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) to MARC21 [11]. Sherry Vellucci, from the School of Library and Information Science at St. John's University, discusses some of the problems using MARC to describe electronic resources and encourages us to embrace a world of heterogeneous standards [12].…”