ALCTS Metadata Interest Group

ALCTS Metadata IG ALA Annual 2014 Meeting Program

  • 1.  ALCTS Metadata IG ALA Annual 2014 Meeting Program

    Posted Jun 11, 2014 06:14 PM

    Sunday, June 29, 2014 - 8:30 am to 10:00 am


    ALCTS Metadata Interest Group, ALA Annual 2014

    Las Vegas Convention Center, room N263

    Add this event to your Annual schedule: http://ala14.ala.org/node/14822

    We will feature two presentations followed by a business meeting during which new officers will be elected.


    Metadata Migration to Islandora: Is There An Easy Way?


    Sai Deng, Metadata Librarian and Associate Librarian, University of Central Florida Libraries


    Presentation abstract:


    This presentation will introduce UCF’s digital collection migration from DigiTool to Islandora, the new content management system for the state universities in Florida. It discusses the issues in DublinCore (DC) to MODS transformation, explores the possible options, the approach adopted and the tool used for MODS metadata editing.


    As part of the state-wide Islandora implementation, UCF has been migrating its collections in DigiTool to MODS records for Islandora to ingest. In migrating from a less granular metadata schema to a more granular one, many issues are involved such as data ambiguity, overly generic data representation, the markup inadequacy in describing sub-elements and element relationships, and a less intricate data structure. Two options were explored: a. revamp the Library of Congress’s DC-MODS stylesheet to produce more desirable MODS metadata, b. edit the MODS records generated from a more generic stylesheet conversion. Due to the fact that the consensus needs to be reached among the state universities for any change, only some adjustments such as adding local subjects and online thesauri were made to the LC stylesheet state-wide, and the major work of MODS metadata editing fell on the individual university libraries. At UCF Libraries, Notepad++ was used to edit the MODS records, such as the first set of 847 records in the Political & Rights Issues & Social Movements (PRISM) collection. In batch editing the MODS metadata and dealing with the DC-MODS transformation problems, data patterns in author year, author role terms, publication places, corporate and conference names were identified, data normalization and cleaning was executed, and several types of mark up and editing were performed: authors were marked up to distinguish author year and role from name; personal, corporate and conference names were differentiated; the main entry and added entries were distinguished; subtitle was separated from the main title; publication place was distinguished from publisher; topical, temporal, geographic, genre subdivisions were marked up for subjects; and series name and other common fields were added for the collection.


    This presentation addresses the common issues in DC-MODS metadata mapping and transformation, discusses possible solutions of customizing the XSLT stylesheet and editing the MODS XML records, and the balance that needs to be sought in pre- and post-transformation. It also raises some interesting questions in machine vs. human labor and utilizing the computer’s analytical power. It invites audience to participate in a wider discussion.


    Discovering Isaac Leeser: Improving access to text collections with TEI markup


    Nicole Arbuckle, Vice President, Metadata Services, Backstage Library Works

    David McKnight, Director, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania

    Presentation abstract:


    In 2013, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries completed its Gershwind-Bennett Isaac Leeser Digital Repository project, which features access to the personal papers and publications of Isaac Leeser, one of the foremost American Jewish figures of the 19th century.


    Penn Libraries established a template for collecting metadata from Leeser's correspondence, teamed up with Backstage Library Works to complete TEI markup, and developed an online digital repository. The metadata files and the repository structure provide users with sophisticated tools for full-text search and discovery, with filters for details such as document type, date range, language, author and addressee.


    In the presentation, David McKnight, Director of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Penn, will discuss the background of the collection and the library's preparation of transcriptions and descriptive metadata for the project. Nicole Arbuckle, Vice President of Metadata Services for Backstage Library Works, will discuss the use of that metadata in the TEI markup process.


    The digital repository can be viewed online at: http://ubuwebser.cajs.upenn.edu/