Metadata Blog

Intellectual Access to Preservation Metadata: Real-life tales of using PREMIS

Links to the presentations and business meeting minutes are available on ALA Connect.

The first speak was Rebecca Guenther, from the Library of Congress, who spoke on “Understanding and Implementing the PREMIS data dictionary for Preservation Metadata.”

Guenther defined preservation metadata, which includes:

• provenance
• authenticity
• preservation activity
• technical environment
• rights management

She provided a history of PREMIS, the de facto standard for preservation metadata: the data dictionary first issued in 2005, PREMIS 2.0 followed in 2008, with a small revision (2.1) in January 2011.  PREMIS is designed to be a comprehensive view of information needed to support digital preservation with guidelines and recommendations to support the creation management and use.  It covers administrative metadata and information to manage an object for preservation purposes.  It includes technical metadata, such as information on actions done on an object and relationships to other objects, e.g., how compound objects are put together and identifying derivatives from the original.  It includes rights metadata that is associated with preservation.  It fits into OAIS reference model mostly into preservation description information

PREMIS:

• is a common data model for organizing and thinking about digital preservation
• is a checklist for core metadata when setting up a digital repository
• can provide guidance for local implementation
• is a standard for exchanging information packages between repositories

But it is NOT an out of the box solution

• Semantic units, not metadata elements
• It has no business rules
• It does not include all technical metadata, relying on other schemas for format-specific metadata
• It only includes preservation rights, not access rights

Guenther showed a diagram of PREMIS data model

• Intellectual entities, e.g., book, photograph, website, that has one or more digital representations
• Objects: at the file level, e.g., chapter in a book or representation, bitstream. When these are put together they create an intellectual entity
• File and representation: these can be the same thing, or a representation can bring together many files to understand it as a whole
• Events are what document digital provenance.  PREMIS data dictionary has a list of event types, e.g., an ingest event, migration event.
• Agents are person, organization, software program associated with an event.
• Rights statements satisfy preservation rights documentation, e.g., what preservation action can be undertaken.
• A lot of technical metadata is under object characteristics.

Current state of PREMIS

• De facto preservation metadata standard, and mandated by the country of Spain.
• Some implementation fairs have talked about use and ways to improve
• Editorial committee sets standards and goals, using feedback, and includes international membership.
• Current activities: integration with other standards like METS, new documentation and tools, new release coming of draft PREMIS OWL ontology
• See the implementation registry

What does it mean to implement PREMIS?

• Keeping preservation metadata as defined in PREMIS data dictionary, regardless of form, or names, so long as they are mapped
• approaches to implementation can be phased, e.g., only implement objects, then implement other parts
• It’s not designed for people to fill in by hand
• You don’t have to control all levels of objects, maybe just files
• DO plan to track actions on objects for preservation purposes
• METS is useful as exchange package, and PREMIS fits into this

Tools

• A list of tools to generate PREMIS is listed on the PREMIS website
• http://id.loc.gov: has three different PREMIS controlled vocabularies available

In conclusion, PREMIS is a critical piece of digital preservation infrastructure. It is international, cross-domain, and consensus created, and provides a building block for a successful digital preservation strategy.  The data dictionary is focused on implementation. Preservation metadata will be crucial for the future, even if it doesn’t help access today.

The second speaker was Peter Van Gaderen, President of Artefactual Systems, Inc., who spoke on “PREMIS in Archivematica.”

Van Gaderen spent some time describing his company’s product: Archivematica.  Archivematica is an open-source digital preservation system.  It is in alpha stage, with clients testing it from Canada and the U.S., and requires significant technical support.  It is designed to help with day to day processing and electronic records accessioning and designed around microservices: each performs small tasks on a set of files related to digital curation, which together handle the digital preservation process. The workflow uses a watch directory process, so complex workflows can be chained together, and silo processing jobs to different clients. Archivists and librarians monitor the objects as it goes through the processing.  It’s based on the OAIS reference model.  Tools related to digital forensics are still being tested.

Because it is based on the OAIS reference model, the Archivematica workflow: focuses on generating SIPs from objects from the outside world and creating AIPs for archival storage and DIPs for dissemination. It can identify files that are in “at risk” formats, and create “best bet” file format for the AIP.  It keeps both the original object and normalized preservation copy, with all of the technical and descriptive metadata about the object. Ulimately Van Gaderen wants an interoperable AIP structure to be able to interchange packages between systems. A tool called ACE checks the AIPs for stability and bit-rot.

Archivematica and PREMIS

As Priscilla Caplan pointed out, PREMIS is useful for repository design, evaluation, and exchange of AIPs between respositories (Priscilla Caplan, Understanding PREMIS). It provides authencity by establishing integrity and identity.  It maintains the chain of custody, keeps records secure, documents activities, and describes the records.  To do this, metadata must be stored in a standardized format. Within Archivematica, semantic units of PREMIS are managed as SQL metadata while going through Archivematica ingest and output as XML. Archivematica uses a Bagit package for managing files and can generate PREMIS records in METS. The events controlled vocabularies are used by Archivematica.

Archivematica hasn’t implemented rights metadata yet, but believe that by using the rights extension almost any rights can be expressed, including usage rights and access restrictions. This area should be expanded as new changes come out saying more of what you CAN’T do as well as what you CAN do (PREMIS 3.0). The AIPs are in XML and Archivematica will index so all will be searchable. Archivematica uses the PREMIS performance check-list to make sure they are conformant with PREMIS.

As an open source product, Archivematica is still evolving, and Van Gaderen encouraged people to explore the product.

The final speaker was Andrew Hart, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who spoke on “UNC PREMIS in the Carolina Digital Archive.”

Hart began with background about the Carolina Digital Repository. It is based in the library, but partnership with campus information technology and the School of Information and Library Science.  It’s a repository in a very broad sense, and is designed to handle a wide range of objects, including individual photos, complex datasets, images of human remains with complex rights issues, and digital objects managed by the library. It is operational and a mixture of dark and public content.  Hart described the architecture as being like a snowball rolling downhill: raw information is wrapped in multiple layers of information added by the repository, and then that information is wrapped as well.

Hart displayed a diagram of the repository’s underlying structure. It uses Fedora with an underlying iRODS grid.  A lot of work at UNC is figuring out to have Fedora talk to the iRODS grid.  PREMIS is accommodated nicely in Fedora, but there are challenges pushing information up from iRODS.

The PREMIS elements are focused on the events entities.  In the repository, metadata that can be exported currently is MODS, Dublic Core, and PREMIS Events metadata.  It uses the the identities as defined in id.loc.gov.

One major challenge that Hart sees is how to put the PREMIS information to work. Jjust having the information doesn’t mean you know what to do with it, and knowing what to do doesn’t mean doing it, but you need to start somewhere and keep developing.  PREMIS isn’t an end in and of itself, but steps to take along a long path without end.  How does a problematic event in PREMIS catalyze action? Hart would like to create PREMIS report that reflects the full range of what PREMIS does and like to automate processes to make sure that on a regular basis information is documented and reported on.

More information can be found at the Carolina Digital Repository blog.

Reported by Kristin Martin

Metadata Interest Group, Sunday, June 26, 2011

Rather than specific presentations, the Metadata Interest Group organized a series of concurrent discussions at round tables, each focusing on a different topic related to metadata.  A summary of the discussion at each of the tables follows.  I sat at the Metadata Quality Control table, so I have the most detail about that table.

Metadata Quality Control

Discussion covered a wide number of areas that touched upon the topic.  First, we defined quality control as in general, making sure record is free of errors in descriptive metadata and that technical metadata is correctly recorded. Many libraries use students to input metadata, so the discussion first centered on quality control for student-generated metadata.  Student work is generally reviewed and checked more frequently than cataloger work.  At Baylor both student workers and catalogers are encouraged to take ownership of their own quality control.  A database maintenance librarian checks cataloger’s work and answers questions.  To reduce errors, catalogers and students create metadata in one shift and review for quality control the beginning of their next shift.  It can be difficult to keep an eye of different people because many people in many places working on metadata.  The University of North Texas has a system to randomly check metadata records to for quality control, but it is a homegrown system and not able to be shared with others.

Quality control also is necessary for catalog clean-up and implementation of new discovery tools.  For example, Saint Joseph University discovered that they needed to update MARC to make facets to work in their new implementation of Summon.  At Penn State, as the library is trying to build search interfaces to run across all collections, they have had to do retrospective work to bring older metadata up to current standards.  The Triangle Research Libraries Network is performing a pilot project to put digital collections in SearchTRLN, their consortial catalog, and finding a number of inconsistencies between institutions.  It also leads to the unresolved question: Do we want collections in the catalog?

Maintaining metadata is another challenge.  Structures set up for maintenance in a MARC environment are still being experimented with in non-MARC metadata.  Most libraries do not create name authority records when cataloging in non-MARC metadata. The University of Alabama uses Schematron to make sure technical metadata is correct.  They have experimented with MADS in a separate file and would like to put the VIAF URIs directly into the MODS records for ease of updating.  North Carolina State University has a name authority file for its Electronic Resource Management system, but no good way to update ERMS records using the authority file.  There are problems syncing metadata that moves between systems, such as metadata extracted from the Archivist’s Toolkit used to generate MARC records.  If the MARC record is updated in OCLC, there isn’t an automated way to enter changes in the Archivist’s Toolkit. The eXtensible Catalog Metadata Services Toolkit will review MARC records and generate a list of list of problems with records, but they must be corrected using another program.  Some libraries have been experimenting with embedded metadata as a way to transport metadata from one system to another, but no one had a production system in place.

The National Agricultural Library gets a lot of metadata from publishers and would like to have some way to be alerted of new data and be able to claim it if a record set isn’t received on time and complete.  MarcEdit is one tool for formatting and cleaning up MARC metadata.

The group also discussed electronic theses and dissertations.  At NCSU, students submit ETD metadata in DSpace, which is transformed to MARC using XSLT and cleaned up.  Several universities use LDAP to pull information in the records, including department, student name, and advisor name.  Baylor enhances records with keyword subject headings (not LCSH).  Records are sent to OCLC and the OCLC number is inserted back into DSpace. The University of Alabama transformed data from ProQuest into MODS.  Some libraries, including Baylor, perform authority control. The University of Arkansas fully catalogs ETDs using student transmittal form, which comes with a student birthdate that is entered into an authority record.

The discussion also covered handling the quality of metadata for non-collection images, e.g., event photographs of events held at the library.  Libraries have done different things to try to promulgate metadata standards outside of the library.  The University of Virginia created a guide for faculty creating their on metadata, Penn State manages non-collection images within a content management system, and NCSU provided a list of controlled vocabularies that could be used.  Also at NCSU, there has been work done on a data normalization project for GIS metadata.  There were not enough resources to perform complete do quality control, so they chose a middle ground of keywords, and tried clean up into a “sort-of” controlled vocabulary, identifying some synonyms, singular vs. plural, acronyms, etc.

In summary, we are still lacking systematic ways to perform quality management behind the scenes with our current systems.

Metadata Schema Selection

Most people in this group use DSpace or CONTENTdm and their schema choices are dictated by the software.  Within ARTStore’s ShareShelf, users can use any metadata schema that you want, but that is unusual.  Questions to ask when selecting a schema: how will you arrange this collection?  What kinds of information do you need?  What content management system do you have?  What kind of work do you have to do to make it play well?  Who will be doing the work of manipulating and correcting metadata and what kind of a background will they have?  At one institution, collection curators had a large say in what kind of schema was chosen because they already had a well-developed descriptions of their objects.  It is also important to identify specific needs in collections and make sure that attributes of certain objects are brought out.  When receiving metadata in a locally developed schema, be wary of fields that are implemented or entered in such a way that they won’t make sense beyond the local context, e.g., flags for yes/no in a local metadata implementation are not helpful outside of their collection.

Material Formats

The following questions were discussed by the group: when getting text, video, audio, do you treat it in a like manner or do you break out by material type?  Rights and access issues are especially problematic in video/audio/data sets.  In an interesting example, Rice University faculty didn’t want their faculty recitals shared because they felt like they played poorly.  The group spent a long time discussing data sets, as they are a huge unknown that no one quite knows how to deal with.  Mandates for data management from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health will require developments in this area.  Different disciplines affect the metadata elements that researchers want to share and disseminate in relation to their datasets. In general, it is best to have metadata people involved from the beginning of a project to be able to create the best metadata.

Metadata Creation and Migration Tools:

These two tables covered a lot of the same material so their report is merged into one. Electronic and dissertations were also discussed here.  The University of Virginia merges information from students and professors into ETD description.  Texas A&M discussed using Verio and moving MODS records into their ILS, but there was a lot of hand-holding to get records in shape.  Diacritics are a problem when trying to move from one system to another. Libraries are looking for workflows for embedding metadata into files, and ImageMagic was suggested as a tool.  The group also discussed holdings data: how do we share our holdings without all having local copies of the complete records?  Holdings data in the ILS is typically in MARC Format for Holdings Data (MFHD) and not accommodated by vendors.  What kinds of tools do we need for metadata, and what tools would benefit a wide range of institutions?  Current tools are very tied to local situations and not easily shared. The question of how we help build an infrastructure where we can share things in the cloud came up, with a suggestion that the Digital Library Federation or Research Libraries Group might be  place to start these conversations.

As a migration strategy, linked data can match up data from different silos, thus avoiding time-consuming migration. Participants also raised the possibility of migrating MARC data into whatever new metadata schema that arises from the Bibliographic Team Framework

This concluded the discussion portion and was followed by the business meeting.

Reported by Kristin Martin

Continuing Resources Cataloging Committee Update Forum

The Continuing Resources Cataloging Committee Update Forum met on Monday, June 27. There were a variety of speakers who gave updates of interest to the continuing resources cataloging community. Summaries of the reports are below.

CONSER – Les Hawkins and Hein Nguyen provided an update from CONSER and their work related to RDA. A document of standard practices was created in an effort to aid those testing RDA by providing general guidance for resolving differences between RDA Core and CSR mandatory set. The document, RDA as modified by CSR: recommended guidelines, is available from the CONSER web page http://www.loc.gov/acq/conser/CSR-RDA-Test.pdf .

At the end of the testing period the list of guidelines was refined and will be brought to the operations meeting for review. The new document, which will be available on the CONSER site, describes each issue that may conflict with RDA. Under each issue the rule according to AACR2, RDA and any LCRIs are listed. This is followed by the specific question that is to be discussed at the operations meeting. Of the 13 issues illustrated in the document the committee reached an agreement on 10. Two issues were left unresolved:

1. Questions about the best way to distinguish between different works with the same title
2. Questions about using the 130 to identify the original language of a work

A task force has been created to discuss these remaining issues furthur.

ISSN – Regina Reynolds discussed the potential of using the ISSN in a linked data environment as an identifier. She explained a potential new policy where an ISSN would be assigned to digitized materials. She suggested that a separate number be assigned to print and digital versions of the same title.

The U.S. ISSN Center (http://www.loc.gov/issn/ ) is working on the assignment of ISSNs to onlline versions of print materials. They are currently working an a list of approximately 1200 titles.

She described a task force that is looking at FRBR to see what doesn’t quite match up between RDA and ISBD standards. They are working to synchronize the ISBD rules to better match with RDA.

Early conversations have begun with Hathi Trust and other digital repositories about the possibility of using the ISSN as an identifier.

Regina finished by explaining what was happening with PIE-J (http://www.niso.org/workrooms/piej ) this is a NISO working group that is developing recommended practices that will provide guidance on the presentation and identification of e-journals. Their goal is to solve the problem of getting the user from the citation to the actual article. They are nearing the final draft stage of the guidelines. The document will be reviewed by NISO in the fall of 2011. Next steps are to publish it as NISO recommended practice, then to distribute and publicize the content. They are considering encourqaging pu8blishers to sign on like KBART is doing and perhaps developing a symbol to market PIE-J complience.

CC:DA – report by Naomi Young

The JSC will be meeting in November; new proposals are due by August 11^th; responses to those will be due in September.

Bibliographic framework transition initiative – information is up on the Library of Congress website (http://www.loc.gov/marc/transition/ ) look there to find out more about what’s after MARC

The RDA test site (http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/ ) is being reworked to provide additional information as we move from testing to implication. There are some issues surrounding the use of container as the source of title and/or the collective title. There will be more discussion on this before implementation of RDA.

There was a presentation by Troy Linker about updates to the RDA Toolkit. They are extending the double user access and the ability to get a free trial subscription. They are also offering a temporary increase in user access for training purposes if you give them advanced notice. There will be a free RDA Toolkit webinar on July 12, 2011. They are working on improvements to the documentation on how to edit work flows and are in the process of translating the toolkit into French, German and Spanish. Additionally they are planning to implement virtual user group meetings which will take place a minimum of three times per year.

She also said to expect RDA training materials from PCC by October. Check the PCC web site for updated information.

Playing in the RDA Sandbox – by Valerie Boss

Valerie gave an overview of the CRCC Informal RDA Testing Task Force. More information can be found on their web page (http://connect.ala.org/node/112885 ) The task force is looking for suggestions of ways that the test records can be used in the implementation and/or training of RDA. She also asked the audience for their suggestions about how we can best use the next 18 months to prepare for the transition to RDA.

She then gave an overview of the VTLS sandbox. She explained that originally the sandbox was going to expire with the implementation of RDA. With the delay of implementation, the sandbox will continue. She also provided the following links for more related information

Access to the Sandbox – rdasandbox.vtls.com/user
CRCC web page – connect.ala.org/node/112885
Access to the VTLS OPAC – poseidon.vtls.com:9984/
RIMMF – www.marcofquality.com

Electronic Resources Interest Group Meeting
The Electronic Resources Interest Group met on Saturday, June 25. The general theme of the meeting was Implementing and and managing web-scale discovery services : Implications for E-Resources Librarians. There were five speakers with time allotted for questions and general discussion. Summaries of the presentations are below.

Evaluating Discovery Services
presented by Kate Montgomery from Tulane University

Kate began her presentation with a description of the library’s situation post Hurricane Katrina. A combination of the destruction of physical collections due to Katrina and large increases in electronic content set the framework for the library’s interest in evaluating various discovery services.

She then described a time line of the library’s efforts in establishing a discovery service that would meet their needs.

• 2008 – Exlibris federated search (Metalib) – Was helpful, but searching was slow, there is a limited number of collections that can be searched at once, and many of the local resources were not available for the federated search.
• 2010 – Investigated current discovery tools with the intention of increasing access to digital collections without sacrificing access to the print collections – Chose to wait because of lack of coverage for specialized collections and known item searching was not as robust as needed. Used this time to analyze and evaluate the current federated search tool in use at the library.
• 2011 – Priorities shift at the library with the creation of more silos of information and a greater need for an overarching discovery tool. These were in part created by the inclusion of vendor created MARC records for e-collections, an expansion of digitization projects, and discussions about creating an institutional repository using Dspace and Bpress to create a digital commons.

Kate continued her presentation by discussing how the library evaluated the discovery tools now available. They began with a list which prioritized their needs and wants in a new discovery system, and used that to devise a ranking system. This list included items such as

• database coverage
• indexing (how often, how customizable)
• interface (ability to work with FRBR, customization)
• interoperability
• web 2.0 (ability for spell check, social networking, etc.)
• cost (product, implementation,maintenance, etc)

She finished her presentation by sharing some of the things they learned during this evaluation process. Kate made a point of saying that good communication was key to a successful evaluation. They had tried both blogs and wikis but neither of those worked well for them. In the end they utilized LibGuides which worked well as it could easily incorporate research papers and meeting minutes. They also used Google Docs as a space for working documents. They found that listening to webinars, product demos, and visiting with customers who have established sites with the different discovery services was helpful.

She concluded by saying that the products are now more mature, the known item search issues of the past have been resolved, it is now possible to rank results based on local collections and both the database coverage and individual customizations that are available have improved. One of the most important things she said in conclusion was that we need to remember that this is not a permanent solution; there is no magic bullet that will solve all our needs. Continual evaluation is necessary because in a few more years there will be more new a better options available.

Bringing it all together : Discovery Service as a part of the Whole
presented by Jessie Koennecke from Cornell University

Jessie talked about the process that library went through to choose a new discovery service. He highlighted what worked well and what they learned along the way. He began his discussion by introducing the history of discovery tools used at Cornell. They have used a variety of services over the years from locally managed catalogs and federated search tools to WorldCat Local.

The library established a committee to review the available discovery services. The committee consisted of 25 people which was too large for efficient decision making, so smaller sub groups were created to focus on specific issues:

• What are our options & what are others doing to reduce separate silos of information
• What are we currently doing and what do we want our service to look like in a perfect world
• What will we need to build; what is lacking from the available services currently available
• How do we effectively manage the process in the future

The committee was then revised and a new group of teams were formed. These teams were tasked with the following:

• Vendor – arrange demos and gather information about the available service options
• Library – interview other libraries about their discovery services
• SMART goals – develop goals for improving ongoing development and maintenance processes
• Report – draft discovery & access report

He concluded his discussion by reviewing some of the determinations and outcomes of the analysis process. It is important for a library to clearly establish their criteria for evaluating discovery services. For Cornell some of the important aspects were the content provided and the ability to search local content as well as the availability of documented and robust API. Discovery tools need to be considered a part of the whole. They are very valuable, but they won’t solve everything. Jessie indicated that their library will be implementing Summon and that perhaps next ALA he will be providing a report on how that decision has panned out.

Integrating a Consortial Catalog into Summon
presented by Stephanie Buck from Oregon State University

Stephanie gave a presentation that explained the process they went through in order to integrate a union catalog with the Summon discovery service.

She began with an introduction of SUMMIT and the Orbis Cascade alliance. Their consortia extends across Washington and Oregon and provides a courier service which allows any member to receive a book from any library within the system within three days. The SUMMIT catalog is accessed via WorldCat Local.

Stephanie explained that the library wanted to use Summon as their discovery service, but also wanted to be able to link to the SUMMIT catalog from SUMMON. They wanted to make the interface as easy as possible for the user. They wanted it to be clear what resources were available from the library and what was available via the alliance.

She demonstrated how they featured the search box for the discovery service predominately on the library’s homepage and how they branded it as 1Search. They wanted to market the new discovery layer, but did not want it to be confused with the already established SUMMIT catalog.

Stephanie provided screen-shots and a demonstration of how they have made the integration. She explained how they designed the display of the search results to show local materials first and then to show results from SUMMIT. She explained how they wanted to visually separate the two results lists visually so there would be no confusion of where a resource was located, but at the same time they wanted the SUMMIT results to be prominent enough that they were not overlooked by the user.

She concluded by explaining how they planned to do more usability testing; particularly related the the patron’s use of facets. They are also currently working to iron out a few issues with known item searching, and they expect they will make changes to the system display based on the results of the usability studies.

What’s Going on Behind the Curtain of Content Discovery?
presented by Mike Bushman (Serials Solutions) and Wendy Zeigler (Bridgeman Education)

Mike and Wendy gave a presentation on how vendors work together to provide better access to materials.

Wendy gave an overview of Bridgeman Education. She described their services and interface for accessing images.

Mike followed this with a description of how discovery services like Summon harvest metadata, index that data and then provide direct access to the images at Bridgeman. For libraries that subscribe to Bridgeman direct access to the images is seamless for the user. For libraries that do not have a subscription, users are given a thumbnail of the image and information about options for subscribing for full access.

They provided a demonstration of what the user will see if they search and then discussed how this type of an agreement is a win win situation for the discover service provider, the vendors and the library user.

• Discovery and access to resources are enhanced
• searching for multiple formats is consolidated into one place
• partnering increases & establishes trust between vendors (data is safe & wellused)
• increases visibility (and subscriptions) for vendors products

Description from the ALCTS website:

The performing arts are ephemeral textual forms that often elude capture and are difficult to access. While libraries and archives have developed metadata that enables research into collections of written texts, little has been done for texts that encompass space and time: dance, theatre, architecture, and archeology. This panel will discuss issues and possible solutions to the development of controlled vocabularies for, and systematic description of, performance arts objects: both tactile and ephemeral. Co-sponsored by the ALCTS Metadata Interest Group and the ACRL Image Resources Interest Group.

Speakers: Lucie Wall Stylianopoulos, Head, Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library, University of Virginia; Moderator, Kathleen Haefliger, Music & Performing Arts Librarian, Chicago State University; Jenn Riley, Head, Carolina Digital Library and Archives, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Susan L. Wiesner, Treasurer, Society of Dance History Scholars and Instructor in Dance (Theory), Kennesaw State University

Jenn Riley of University of North Carolina Chapel Hill began the session with her presentation Next Generation Controlled Vocabularies. Here she discussed how cultural and technological changes are altering the scope of controlled vocabularies and how the profession creates and uses them. She demonstrated how controlled vocabularies have been historically criticized for updating and adapting too slowly and how this is being overcome by allowing subject specialists and users to build and update terms. Examples included were the Allmusic Guide, LibraryThing, and Worldcat.

Linked Data was also suggested as a way to connect subject authorities from different fields to other specialized communities to enhance description, citing Library of Congress’ work on the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) project as an example in the library profession.

Riley concluded by indentifying a movement in the profession to describe “isness versus aboutness.” She pointed to current work concerning music description being done with the Library of Congress Genre Headings project to determine what terms rightfully belong to LCSH, what belongs to genre headings, and the development of a third vocabulary to describe the medium of presentation for the music resource.

Slides from Next Generation Controlled Vocabularies
Allmusic Guide
LibraryThing
VIAF

Lucie Wall Stlianopoulos of the University of Virginia presented her newly created metadata schema for archaeological resources, ArchaeoCore, in her presentation Alternative Metadata: Siting Archaeology in Space & Time. Stlianopoulos developed this schema to work with ARTStor’s new Shared Shelf image management system implemented with University of Virginia’s Sciences, Humanities, and Arts Network of Technological Initiatives (SHANTI).

Stilanopoulos showed how ArchaeoCore was designed to describe not just the object, but the object as it exists within the context of the site.

SHANTI

Kennesaw State University’s Susan L. Wiesner concluded the session with her presentation If you can do it with dance you can do it with anything. Wiesner discussed how creating an ontology for dance resources could help resolve contention amongst the different ways to describe dance (descriptive, interpretive, and evaluative) by better describing the descriptive relationships.

Wiesner showcased the development of movement derived data to assist researchers in resource discovery related to dance using 3-D motion capture and creating relationships between identified and described movements in the Artefact Movement Thesaurus.

Wiesner’s presentation concluded with a video compilation of found videos interpreting The Dying Swan to demonstrate the variety of ways a researcher may need to identify and link dance resources. The videos ranged from classic ballet to modern dance and on to anime and hip hop.

ALCTS Metadata Interest Group meeting
Sunday 26 June 26 2011, 8-10 am
Convention Center Room 350-351

Today’s meeting program will consist of a round-table discussion forum on various topics related to metadata creation:

• generating item records
• metadata migration
• independent metadata creation/manipulation tools
• metadata quality control
• material formats
• metadata schema selection

MIG will hold its business meeting at 9:15-10 am following the presentations. The group will also be electing a new Vice-Chair/Chair Elect, program officers, secretary, and publications officers.

Sound Bytes: Audio Metadata Standards in Slightly More than Six Seconds
Saturday, June 25, 2011, 10:30am–noon
Convention Center Room 346-347

Do you work with digital audio materials? You’re in luck! New audio metadata standards are coming soon. Get a sneak peek from those who are actively developing them, and learn how they can enhance your description and long-term preservation of digital audio materials. The session will be in three parts:

Metadata is key to long-term access and preservation of digital information. While this need is well understood, the existence and use of standards is not. The Preservation Administrators Interest Group formed a Taskforce, under the leadership of Janet Gertz, Head of Preservation, Columbia University Libraries, to collect and disseminate existing standards for audio collections management. The presentation begins by defining metadata as it pertains to sound recordings, looks at current practice and options, and demonstrates how the use of standards makes your life easier and sets you on the path to sound file management nirvana.

Mike Casey will provide an introduction and update to the emerging technical and digital provenance metadata standards from the Audio Engineering Society. He will also discuss how these standards may be applied in developing software applications and will demo the Audio Technical Metadata Collector developed by the Sound Directions project at Indiana University.

Jane Otto will discuss the efforts of Rutgers University Libraries to implement the Audio Engineering Society’s (AES) draft “Audio Object” schema, AES-X098B, extend it for moving images, align it with existing standards, and integrate it with technical metadata for text, three-dimensional objects, and graphics in Rutgers’ OpenMIC open source bibliographic utility.

Speakers
George Blood, Safe Sound Archive
George Blood has been actively recording live concerts since 1982, and has documented over 4,000 live events. From 1984 through 1989 he was a producer at WFMT-FM, where he recorded and edited some 600 nationally syndicated radio programs. He has recorded or produced over 200 CDs, 3 of which were nominated for Grammy Awards. He was a Recording Engineer for The Philadelphia Orchestra for 21 years, serving Maestros Riccardo Muti and Wolfgang Sawallisch.

George Blood Audio, L.P. (formerly Safe Sound Archive) was founded in 1992 as a repository for the thousands of recordings he had accumulated, and to house the recital archives of the Curtis Institute of Music, and concert recordings of The Philadelphia Orchestra—which previously had been stored in an unheated warehouse and the “smoking lounge” of a local radio station. Each month the company digitizes approximately 1,000 hours of audio and video collections from around the country, and its members are active in researching workflow, best practices, metadata, authentication, and interchangeability of digital information. George is also active as teacher and presenter at conferences and workshops. He currently serves on committees for IASA, AES, ALA, MLA, and the advisory board to Brenda Nelson-Strauss for the National Recording Preservation Plan.

Michael T. Casey, Associate Director for Recording Services, Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University
Mike Casey is the Associate Director at Indiana University’s Archives of Traditional Music and the Co-Chair of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections’ Technical Committee. He is the co-author of Sound Directions: Best Practices for Audio Preservation and managing director for the Sound Directions project at Indiana University. Mike is the creator of FACET: The Field Audio Collection Evaluation Tool and is the author of FACET Format Characteristics and Preservation Problems, a document that explores degradation issues for audio formats. He also authored the Indiana University Media Preservation Survey report which explores degradation, obsolescence, and research value issues for the half million media objects held by the Bloomington campus. He is currently leading the development of open source software for the collection of audio preservation metadata and is adjunct faculty in the School of Library and Information Science where he teaches a class in audio preservation.

Jane Otto, Media and Music Metadata Librarian, Rutgers University Libraries
Jane Johnson Otto is Media and Music Metadata Librarian at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, where she contributes to the ongoing development of the University repository’s data model and metadata strategy and oversees music and media cataloging. She has been an architect and developer of the NSF-funded Moving Image Collections portal and the Getty-funded Women Artist Archives National Database. A leader in metadata for moving images, she has over 20 years experience as a working cataloger at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), and given numerous presentations on metadata standards and moving image cataloging.

Below is a list of metadata and digital library-friendly sessions for ALA Annual 2011. Planning to attend a session or already reporting on a session? Think about blogging it here! If you would like to blog any of the sessions, please contact Kristin Martin at kmarti@uic.edu with your name, e-mail address, and preferred session. All sessions are linked to the conference scheduler (as an aside, if you haven’t checked out the new conference scheduler, it’s very easy!), and links are provided to fuller descriptions, when available. See a section not on here that you think would be of interest? Suggest it! NOTE: Preconferences are listed for informational purposes only and cannot be covered by the blog.

I’ve tried to be inclusive as possible with the sessions as metadata is a cross-disciplinary topic within library and information science. Sessions of interest include metadata, digital projects, digital technology, and cataloging, and are from all different groups within ALA.

***Updated: the bottom of the post got cut off***

Thursday and Friday Sessions

8:30am – 5:00pm
RDA 201: RDA Gets Real
Description at ALCTS website
Location: Convention Center Rm 255-257
Sponsor: ALCTS
Ticketed Event

Friday Sessions

8:30am – 4:00pm
What_IS_it Anyway? Library of Congress Genre / Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials
Description at ALCTS website
Location: Convention Center, Rm 263
Sponsor: ALCTS
Ticketed Event

10:30am – 12:00pm
FRBR Interest Group
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 338
Sponsor: ALCTS/CCS

1:30pm – 3:30pm
Electronic Resources Management Interest Group
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Embassy Suites New Orleans Convention Center, Jean Lafitte 4
Sponsor: ALCTS and LITA

3:30pm – 5:30pm
CCS Executive Committee Forum (ALCTS)
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 243
Sponsor: ALCTS/CCS

Saturday Sessions

8:00am – 10:00am
Discovery Tools: Tales of Implementation at Two HBCUs
Location: Convention Center, Rm 333
Sponsor: BCALA

8:00am – 10:00am
Intellectual Access to Preservation Data Interest Group
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 284
Sponsor: ALCTS/PARS

8:00am – 12:00pm
Linked In: Library Data and the Semantic Web
Description on LITA website
Location: Convention Center, Rm 398
Sponsor: LITA

10:30am – 12:00pm
Catalog Form and Function Interest Group
Location: Convention Center, Rm 355
Sponsor: ALCTS/CCS

10:30am – 12:00pm
Electronic Resources Interest Group (ALCTS CRS)
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 397
Sponsor: ALCTS/CRS
Blogger: Teressa Keenan

10:30am – 12:00pm
Future of Libraries: Cutting-edge Services
Location: Convention Center, Rm 391
Sponsor: OITP Advisory Committee

10:30am – 12:00pm
OCLC Increase Your Digital Collection Visibility with WorldCat: A Roundtable for OAI-PMH Repository, Digital Collection and WorldCat Administrators
Location: Hilton New Orleans Riverside, Rosedown
Sponsor: OCLC

10:30am – 12:00pm
Open Source Integrated Library Systems in Consortia
Location: Convention Center, Rm 333
Sponsor: ASCLA

10:30am – 12:00pm
Sound Bytes: Audio Metadata Standards in Slightly More than Six Seconds
Description from ALCTS website
Location: Convention Center, Rm 346-347
Sponsor: ALCTS

1:30pm – 3:30pm
Catalog Management Interest Group Program
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Marriott at the Convention Center, New Levee
Sponsor: ALCTS/CCS

1:30pm – 3:30pm
Cataloging Norms Interest Group (ALCTS CCS)
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 353
Sponsor: ALCTS/CCS

1:30pm – 3:30pm
Digital Conversion Interest Group
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Marriott at the Convention Center, Blaine Kern F
Sponsor: ALCTS/PARS

1:30pm – 3:30pm
Image Resources Interest Group (ACRL)
Description from ACRL Website
Location: Sheraton New Orleans, Napoleon C2
Sponsor: ACRL

1:30pm – 3:30pm
JPEG 2000 Interest Group
Location: Intercontinental New Orleans, Pelican I
Sponsor: LITA

1:30pm – 3:30pm
You Mean Libraries Will Be Able To Deliver Electronic Content Better Than iTunes and Netflix?
Location: Convention Center, Rm 244
Sponsor: LITA

4:00pm – 5:30pm
Diving into the Deep End: Catalog Use Committee Discussion Forum (RUSA RSS)
Description from RUSA Blog
Location: Loews New Orleans Hotel, LaFourche
Sponsor: RUSA

4:00pm – 5:30pm
Collaborative Digitization Discussion Group
Description from Collaborative Librarianship News
Location: Doubletree Hotel, Cresent B
Sponsor: ASCLA

4:00pm – 5:30pm
MARC Formats Interest Group (LITA / ALCTS)
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 354
Sponsor: ALCTS and LITA

4:00pm – 5:30pm
Standards Interest Group
Location: Convention Center, Rm 287
Sponsor: LITA

Sunday Sessions

8:00am – 10:00am
Digital Library Technologies Interest Group
Location: Convention Center, Rm 341
Sponsor: LITA

8:00am – 10:00am
Digital Preservation Interest Group
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 342
Sponsor: ALCTS/PARS

8:00am – 10:00am
Lost in Translation: the Emerging Technology Librarian and the New Technology
Location: Convention Center, Rm 274
Sponsor: LITA

8:00am – 10:00am
Metadata Interest Group
Location: Convention Center, Rm 350-351
Sponsor: ALCTS
Blogger: Kristin Martin

10:30am – 12:00pm
Audio Metadata Task Force (ALCTS PARS)
Location: Marriott New Orleans, Iberville
Sponsor: ALCTS/PARS

10:30am – 12:00pm
Cataloging & Classification Research IG (ALCTS CCS)
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Sheraton New Orleans, Napoleon A1
Sponsor: ALCTS/CCS

10:30am – 12:00pm
Linked Library Data Interest Group
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 265
Sponsor: ALCTS and LITA

10:30am – 12:00pm
US RDA Test Participants Meeting
Location: Sheraton New Orleans, Bayside A/B

10:30am – 12:00pm
Vendor Plans for Implementing RDA
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Hilton New Orleans Riverside, Versailles BR
Sponsor: ALCTS

1:30pm – 3:30pm
Creating Multimedia Metadata: Controlled Vocabularies Across Time and Space (ACRL Arts)
Description from ACRL website
Location: Convention Center, Rm 338
Sponsor: ACRL/ANSS/ARTS
Blogger: Meghan Finch

1:30pm – 3:30pm
Have Metadata, Can Collaborate: Putting the MARC21 583 Field to Use in Cooperative Preservation Efforts
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 342
Sponsor: ALCTS

1:30pm – 3:30pm
RDA Update Forum
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Hilton New Orleans Riverside, Versailles BR
Sponsor: ALCTS

1:30pm – 3:30pm
Top Technology Trends
Location: Convention Center, Auditorium A
Sponsor: LITA
Blogger: Kimberly Durante

1:30pm – 5:30pm
Authority Control Interest Group Meeting – Authority Control in the Next Generation
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Sheraton New Orleans, Waterbury BR
Sponsor: ALCTS and LITA

4:00pm – 5:30pm
Access to Continuing Resources Interest Group: The Age of Discovery: Understanding Discovery Services, Federated Search, and Web scale
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Hilton New Orleans Riverside, Grand Salon C
Sponsor: ALCTS/CRS

4:00pm – 5:30pm
PCC Participants Meeting
Location: Convention Center, Rm 243
Sponsor: PCC

Monday Sessions

8:00am – 10:00am
Emerging Technologies Interest Group
Location: Convention Center, Rm 341
Sponsor: LITA

8:00am – 10:00am
Forum (ALCTS)
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 388-390
Sponsor: ALCTS

8:00am – 10:00am
Heads of Cataloging Departments Interest Group
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 397
Sponsor: ALCTS/CCS

10:30am – 12:00pm
Education and Training for Using RDA
Downloadable description from ALCTS
Location: Convention Center, Rm 352
Sponsor: ALCTS

1:30pm – 3:30pm
Continuing Resources Cataloging Committee Update Forum
Location: Convention Center, Rm 275
Sponsor: ALCTS/CRS
Blogger: Teressa Keenan
1:30pm – 3:30pm
Next Generation Catalog Interest Group
Location: Convention Center, Rm 269
Sponsor: LITA

1:30pm – 3:30pm
The Ultimate Debate: “Library Web Scale Discovery Services: Paradigm Shift or More of the Same?”
Location: Convention Center, Rm 278-282
Sponsor: LITA

4:00pm – 5:30pm
Cataloging Zine Collections in Libraries and Info-shops
Location: Convention Center, Rm 297