Repurposing MARC metadata: using digital project experience to develop a metadata management design

Abstract

Metadata and information technology staff in libraries that are building digital collections typically extract and manipulate MARC metadata sets to provide access to digital content via non‐MARC schemes. Metadata processing in these libraries involves defining the relationships between metadata schemes, moving metadata between schemes, and coordinating the intellectual activity and physical resources required to create and manipulate metadata. Actively managing the non‐MARC metadata resources used to build digital collections is something most of these libraries have only begun to do. This article proposes strategies for managing MARC metadata repurposing efforts as the first step in a coordinated approach to library metadata management. Guided by lessons learned from Cornell University library mapping and transformation activities, the authors apply the literature of data resource management to library metadata management and propose a model for managing MARC metadata repurposing processes through the implementation of a metadata management design.

Metadata Dictionary Database: A Proposed Tool for Academic Library Metadata Management

“…In addition to matching user expectations, there is also an implicit recognition derived from the literature (e.g., Agnew, 2003;Kurth et al, 2004;Ma, 2006;Rettig, Liu, Hunter, & Level, 2008) that indicates that good metadata management will be necessary for digital collections to be of high quality within organizations. Equally important is the ability of metadata to be integrated with external collections, the latter being the strategic objective of contemporary libraries.…”

Automated Metadata Harvesting: Low-Barrier MARC Record Generation from OAI-PMH Repository Stores Using MarcEdit

“…Unlike the process documented by Surratt and Hill, the CU Library project looks at the development of a service to repurpose MARC metadata for use within one's digital library infrastructure. 5 Kurth, Ruddy, and Rupp note that metadata currently found within the online catalog could be used to enrich many of the digital services and projects at CU Library. However, to use this metadata, a system needed to be developed that broke down MARC metadata and reassembled it for use in the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) and DC.…”

An Integrated Approach to Metadata Interoperability

“…According to Kurth, Ruddy, and Rupp, mapping is the process of establishing relationships between semantically equivalent elements in different structures. 5 Thus mapping refers to the process of associating elements from one set with elements from another set, thereby providing conceptual connections between data elements in two or more bibliographic structures. However, establishment of relationships at the structural level is necessary to achieve full interoperability between two or more schemes.…”