Using collection descriptions to enhance an aggregation of harvested item-level metadata

ABSTRACT

As an increasing number of digital library projects embrace the harvesting of item-level descriptive metadata, issues of description granularity and concerns about potential loss of context when harvesting item-level metadata take on greater significance. Collection-level description can provide valuable context for item-level metadata records harvested from disparate and heterogeneous providers. This paper describes an ongoing experiment using collection-level description in concert with item-level metadata to improve quality of search and discovery across an aggregation of metadata describing resources held by a consortium of large academic research libraries. We present details of approaches implemented so far and preliminary analyses of the potential utility of these approaches. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of related issues and future work plans.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.7 Digital Libraries
          Subjects: Collection

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.3 Information Search and Retrieval
          Subjects: Retrieval models; Query formulation
      H.3.7 Digital Libraries
          Subjects: Systems issues

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation

Keywords:
collection-level description, descriptive metadata, metadata aggregation, open archives initiative