Jenn,
I'm with you on that page too. This is the kind of thing we spent a lot
of time thinking about when I was at NSDL, partially because I'd spent
the years between 1995-2000 working in the authorities and catalog
maintenance areas at a time when our tools were few and far between.
I've become convinced that insofar as we can minimize the text in our
data and emphasize controlled vocabularies and linkages, we'll be far
better off in future.
I also think that the FRBR-ish parts of RDA will help, too. Consider
that we would no longer be proliferating text as we seek to describe the
works of Shakespeare? This should make maintenance far easier, as will
URIs linking into things like name authority files, where one
maintenance transaction will do for however many records using that link
to an author, for instance.
Too often in this day and age we still think about metadata generation
and maintenance as a one-at-a-time thing, done exclusively by humans.
That, surely *IS* the most expensive way to do it. I think we can do
better, but first we'll have to start thinking about how machines can
help us, and not just as storage devices.
Diane
Riley, Jenn wrote:
>> I agree that I wish there were more focus on figuring out how to make
>> key metadata generation/maintenance more efficient.
>>
>
> I wholeheartedly agree with both of you on this. We spend so much
time and effort, including structured user studies, on design for our
end-user interfaces but not for the metadata creation interfaces. I'm
currently involved in two projects that are developing
cataloging/metadata creation interfaces and frequently run into
resistance when I push for good design and/or advanced features. I often
get responses like "well, only a few people use this interface so is it
really worth all that effort," "no other systems make it easy to do that
particular task so why should this one," or "folks who use interfaces
like this are used to them being difficult/slow/easy to make mistakes
with." We're making progress, but sometimes I let the frustration with
the pace take over.
>
> Jenn
>
> ========================
> Jenn Riley
> Metadata Librarian
> Digital Library Program
> Indiana University - Bloomington
> Wells Library W501
> (812) 856-5759
> www.dlib.indiana.edu
>
> Inquiring Librarian blog: www.inquiringlibrarian.blogspot.com
>
>
Received on Wed Apr 22 2009 - 15:21:46 EDT