Doing data differently.(metadata in digital library management)

METADATA IS OFTEN CREATED IN a time-consuming process by catalogers, digital library technicians, and others. It is then underused in our systems and the systems of those with whom we share the information. But recent experiments by some library organizations indicate that we are only scratching the surface of what our data can do for us.

The American West Project at the California Digital Library (CDL) is aggregating metadata that describes digital objects related to the American West from a couple of dozen libraries, museums, and archives. When we used the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting to gather these records, we discovered such significant metadata problems I was prompted to write a paper ("Bitter Harvest") as well as a similarly titled column (LJ 7/04, p. …