2024 Core Forum

In recent years, the traditional use of digital collections simply as proxies for the physical has shifted to a paradigm of viewing collections as data suitable for computational use and novel research methods.  A metadata strategy with robust description can provide access and inspire new contextual narratives and knowledge. The presenters saw great potential for a collections as data exploration in a significant World War I archival collection to highlight lesser-known stories, including those of the Pioneer Infantry, women, and noncombatants. This case study presentation will discuss approaches to digital collections metadata, digital storytelling, data visualization and mapping, and will present real-world techniques that participants can use in their own work.

The World War I Service Records collection contains a rich record of the experiences of students and alumni who engaged in military or community service. The collection, however, was accompanied by extremely minimal folder-level metadata, which, in combination with CONTENTdm's limited visualization capabilities, presented major challenges for exposing the collection's rich data and making its contents available. The presenters will share approaches to creating granular but scalable metadata and will discuss the use of ArcGIS and other digital humanities tools for bringing hidden stories of diversity to light.

Completely revitalizing a public library collection can be challenging for many reasons including budget, public opinion, and staff buy in.  But it can be done! This session will discuss how to plan and implement a project to uplift a collection with intention based weeding and selection to replace items that will enhance the diversity and discoverability of the collection.

E-resources are a central part of the services provided by academic libraries, but getting them to work with each other, or just getting them to work, is often a significant challenge. From access questions to failed inter-resource connections, from miserable metadata to discovery layer concerns, plus platform migrations, limited branding, and much more, it can be nearly impossible to ensure resources are discoverable and are properly connecting with each other. This preconference will investigate the problems that limit or prevent access, address tools to fix what can be fixed, understand what cannot and how (if possible) to work around it, and explore a potential cooperative solution to manage this issue. Just knowing that a problem exists can be incredibly difficult in many instances. Trying to figure out what’s causing that problem, then trying to solve these problems, will take even more time. In this preconference, those with responsibilities for e-resources will get a sense of what might be causing the problems they’re experiencing, and how they might be able to fix those problems. Attendees may want to bring a laptop so they can research, investigate, address and solve problems during the session.

The Core Competencies for Cataloging & Metadata Professional Librarians provides an important framework to assess professional-level cataloging and metadata skills, knowledge, and behavior. This presentation will introduce attendees to the revised (as of 2023) Core Competencies document and discuss ways it can be utilized for professional growth, mentoring, employee evaluation, and curriculum assessment. Additionally, presenters will facilitate an interactive exercise that will offer attendees a template for evaluating their own or employees cataloging and metadata proficiency.
Session materials available in this Google Drive folder Mapping Your Skillsets.

DEI metadata work has several goals: enhancing diverse representation in descriptive metadata; improving discovery of diverse resources; and mitigating negative effects of inaccurate, outdated, or offensive terminology. Through this work, librarians support their institutions’ commitments to foster a welcoming environment, provide access and opportunity, and promote a sense of belonging. Making metadata more inclusive also can be viewed as an effort toward sustainability—the tenth of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals is “reduced inequalities.” There has been a growing body of DEI metadata resources with valuable advice from innovative and forward-thinking metadata creators. However, these are scattered, not always easy to find, and require time to review and synthesize.

With the collaboration of the Iowa State University Digital Press, and building on the important groundwork laid by many others, five librarians wrote a handbook to provide guidelines for metadata work that focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our vision was to produce a one-stop, introductory reference, and make it freely available through open access.

The presentation will summarize the contents of the book, which is geared toward professionals in library and information science, archives, and other information management industries, and its publication process.