Managing eBook Metadata in Academic Libraries

Taming the Tiger

Donna E Frederick

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780081001516
• eBook ISBN: 9780081002155
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Managing ebook Metadata in Academic Libraries: Taming the Tiger tackles the topic of ebooks in academic libraries, a trend that has been welcomed by students, faculty, researchers, and library staff. However, at the same time, the reality of acquiring ebooks, making them discoverable, and managing them presents library staff with many new challenges. Traditional methods of cataloging and managing library resources are no longer relevant where the purchasing of ebooks in packages and demand driven acquisitions are the predominant models for acquiring new content. Most academic libraries have a complex metadata environment wherein multiple systems draw upon the same metadata for different purposes. This complexity makes the need for standards-based interoperable metadata more important than ever. In addition to complexity, the nature of the metadata environment itself typically varies slightly from library to library making it difficult to recommend a single set of practices and procedures which would be relevant to, and effective in, all academic libraries. Considering all of these factors together, it is not surprising when academic libraries find it difficult to create and manage the metadata for their ebook collections. This book is written as a guide for metadata librarians, other technical services librarians, and ancillary library staff who manage ebook collections to help them understand the requirements for ebook metadata in their specific library context, to create a vision for ebook metadata management, and to develop a plan which addresses the relevant issues in metadata management at all stages of the lifecycle of ebooks in academic libraries from selection, to deselection or preservation. - Explores the reasons behind creating records for our resources and challenges libraries to think about what that means for their context - Discusses the complex nature of academic libraries and the electronic resources they require - Encourages librarians to find their own way to manage metadata

1

Understanding eBooks, metadata, and managing metadata

Abstract

Metadata is structured information that represents a resource or service. This information is used to store, discover, retrieve, use, and/or manage that resource in the present and over time. EBooks are any type of electronic monograph or, in other words, a publication that is complete in a single part. These publications are not limited to print documents but could be sheet music, video, audio, or other digitized content that is complete in and of itself. Academic libraries are complex organizations that exist in larger academic and research environments. Each academic library must find its own approach to metadata management that will be suitable to the characteristics of their collection and supports the needs of their unique environment.

Keywords

Metadata

EBooks

Academic libraries

Research libraries

Metadata management

Electronic resources

In conversations with librarians and other employees of academic and research libraries it is common to encounter a diversity of opinions about what metadata is and what type of electronic resource constitutes an eBook. In order to effectively discuss the topic of managing eBook metadata in academic libraries it is essential to begin with building a common understanding of what metadata is and what eBooks are and what it means to manage metadata in an academic library context.

1.1 What is metadata?

Metadata is one of the most commonplace elements in our day-to-day life and yet is poorly understood, frequently misunderstood, and often underutilized. It doesn’t help that there is not a single useful and generally accepted definition of metadata within library and information science (LIS) or in the English language in general.

One of the most common definitions of metadata found in dictionaries, textbooks, and in conversation is “data about data.” However, for those who work with metadata, this definition is often found lacking. It tells us nothing about its form, substance, or purpose. It is not useful in helping us to differentiate between data and metadata. Certainly, it is possible for metadata to be data in and of itself. However, in the context of libraries and information organizations, as we will later see, metadata generally exists separate from the data or resources it has been created to represent.

The lack of a solid and commonly held understanding of the word “metadata” in the English-speaking world has been further confused by controversy in the media, particularly in 2013, about the use of cell phone metadata by governments to detect possible terrorist behavior.¹ While the word metadata has been more frequently heard and used in both the media and everyday speech since 2013, there has been no related increase in understanding of what metadata is and how it can be useful. For those whose education about metadata has been limited to media reports and coffee shop or pub chatter, it is understandable that there would be a belief that metadata is some sort of invisible private personal information that our cell phones collect. While some may argue that the controversy about cell phone metadata has brought the term and concept into the consciousness of a wider segment of the society, it is questionable as to how useful this wider awareness is if the concept that has been developed is extremely narrow and somewhat warped by fears about the loss of privacy. The key point arising out of this is that it has become increasingly important to recognize and accept that a clear and useful definition of metadata is needed for both the library and information field as well as society in general.

Speaking of the LIS field, this is a discipline that has a long history of creating, using, studying, and developing a body of knowledge on the topic of metadata. Yet, a certain vagueness persists among many library and information sector workers about what metadata is and its purpose. In preparing for an in-service information session to be presented at an academic library, the author casually polled a sample of 15 library employees and asked them to provide their definition of metadata. The most common response was along the lines of “it’s just a new term for cataloguing” or “it’s what we call cataloguing now that we have eBooks and eJournals.” The second most common response was “it’s cataloguing for digital collections.” Two people mentioned “data about data.” One person looked panicked and answered that she didn’t have any definition to give. Objectively observing how the word metadata was being used at the library in question, the definitions the author was given appeared quite accurate. From a practical point of view, not much is wrong with these definitions. However, they reveal a somewhat narrow understanding of metadata.

IFLA (2013) (the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) recognizes metadata as “Structured information used to describe information resources/objects for a variety of purposes.” This definition is certainly more useful than the traditional “data about data” definition seeing as it tells us that metadata has form and purpose. The IFLA definition gives us a sense of why libraries may be involved with the creation and use of metadata. Definitions such as this are helpful in the library and information field in the sense that they help us to form a high-level concept that we can then apply in solving problems in our real-life settings. We know, for example, that metadata must have a structure. We know that we cannot just randomly write down information about resources without deciding first what information we are going to record, how we are going to record it, and where the information will be stored.

Metadata schema used in libraries such as MARC21 (Machine Readable Cataloging Records), Dublin Core, and MODs (Metadata Object Description Schema), for example, define which bits of information are collected for each resource and define whether or not each bit is either required or optional. Essentially it is the schema that give metadata its structure. Descriptive cataloguing standards such as AACR2 (Anglo American Cataloging Rules), RDA (Resource Description and Access), or RAD (Rules for Archival Description) are guidelines for how information or resources are described. Together the schema and standards are implemented to create metadata that is useful “for a variety of purposes.” Librarians, archivists, and other information professionals who read this paragraph may be struck by the obviousness of the statements. Libraries, archives, and other information organizations have long been in the business of describing, classifying, and otherwise making accessible their collections through methods such as this. This is what is generally recognized in the profession as “cataloguing” and thus explains why many library workers are quick to define metadata as cataloguing. Certainly, librarians were cataloguing books before electronic computers were invented. Library cataloguing is a mature and well-developed discipline. However, to limit one’s understanding of metadata to traditional cataloguing is nearly as limiting for the profession as the popular understanding of metadata in the form of cell phone metadata.

Traditional cataloguing focuses on the discovery and access of resources. These are critical functions for all libraries and other information organizations. It makes little sense to build and preserve collections if patrons are not able to discover, locate, and use the resources. However, libraries must perform other functions in order to build the collections in the first place and to manage them over time. While traditional cataloguing can help with this, it is more important to view metadata from a very broad perspective in order to creatively see how metadata can be used to support collection development and collection management functions. In order to achieve this, IFLA’s definition needs to be expanded upon. For the purpose of this book, the author proposes an enriched definition of metadata:

Metadata is structured information which represents a resource or service. This information is used to store, discover, retrieve, use and/or manage that resource in the present and over time.

This is a definition that the author created in 2013 and has used for training purposes at an academic library. While it appears quite similar to the IFLA definition, it has some critical differences as well as additional detail about purpose. In particular, IFLA refers to “information resources/objects” while this definition prefers “resource or service.” The significance of this difference will become apparent as the various eBook management processes are discussed. For now it is adequate to note that in contemporary libraries, librarians are often purchasing, using, and/or managing services rather than resources or objects and it is important that libraries recognize that there is a difference between the two and create metadata that reflects that difference.

The second sentence in the definition helps to remind library workers that metadata can be used for many purposes beyond discovery and access. While no metadata is ever expected to fulfill all of the functions of “store, discover, retrieve, use, and/or manage” a resource “in the present and over time,” metadata needs to be useful for at least one of these functions and very good metadata will be effective and useful in fulfilling a number of the functions.

In order to effectively apply the principles that will be discussed in the following chapters of this book, it is essential to keep in mind the definition of metadata provided above.

Finally this is not a book about cataloguing eBooks. There are a number of publications that exist for this purpose. While high-quality metadata in bibliographic records will be discussed in this publication, the emphasis of the writing is on creating and managing metadata for eBook collections in general and not specifically limited to discovery and access. Therefore, much of the discussion of metadata stored in bibliographic records relates to how that metadata can be useful for management purposes. The latter is a use of metadata which is often overlooked in academic libraries and thus worthy of special consideration in this book.

1.2 What are eBooks?

In the context of an academic or research library, a person would be hard-pressed to find an individual who has not heard of eBooks. Almost as rare would be the person who has never at least read part of an eBook in one format or another. It seems reasonable to expect that as shelf-space in libraries continues to be a cost consideration for many libraries, universities continue to have decentralized campuses, and as the number of online students continues to increase, eBooks will continue to remain an important presence in library collections.

While eBooks have a presence in many academic and research libraries, what is interesting is that there is anecdotal evidence that the common understanding of eBooks often does not correspond with the reality of the format and functionality of the types of eBooks found in academic and research collections. For example, in a brief review of the eBook troubleshooting requests that were submitted to one academic library in 2012,² in situations where there was no technical problem with the electronic product or the vendor’s platform, the majority of users were frustrated in some way by the discrepancy between their expectations of what an eBook is and how it should function and the reality of the nature and functionality of the resources that the university made available. It seemed that many of the patrons were accustomed to buying their eBooks from an online bookseller, downloading them onto some type of eBook reader such as a Kobo or Kindle, and then using the functionality of that reader to navigate through the eBooks. In some cases the user was frustrated by his or her inability to download the “eBook” onto a device despite the fact that documentation on the platform made it clear that downloading wasn’t possible. More specifically, some were disoriented by the idea that the “eBook” might take the format of a PDF document that could only be read in a program like Adobe Acrobat Reader, and others did not feel that a book in HyperText Markup Language format was “a proper eBook,” and so on. In the analysis of the email messages that were exchanged, a strong pattern emerged with regard to the expectations that many users had about eBooks. These expectations appeared to be based on a narrow view of what constitutes an eBook and this narrow view was causing them difficulty in effectively making use of the diversity of types and formats of eBooks the university makes available to them.

It seems reasonable that past experience with personal use eBooks and the expectations that came from that experience could create difficulties for some library patrons. While the patrons may never like the functionality of the eBooks available from the library as much as the eBooks they purchase for personal use or borrow from a public library, it is expected that as they use the academic library eBooks, they will gradually become accustomed to them and find them less problematic. In a sense, their definition of what constitutes an eBook will be broadened and they will be less likely to report “problems” to library staff when they encounter a new eBook platform or format.

Just as library patro...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• List of Figures and Tables
• About the author
• Introduction
• 1: Understanding eBooks, metadata, and managing metadata
• 2: EBooks as a disruptive technology
• 3: Designing a method for managing eBook metadata
• 4: Acquisitions: The often overlooked metadata
• 5: Access and discovery: A focus on creating access metadata
• 6: EBook discovery metadata
• 7: Maintenance of eBook metadata and troubleshooting
• 8: Metadata for preservation and deselection
• 9: Special topics in eBook metadata
• Conclusion
• References
• Index