Non-MARC Metadata
for Technical Services
Librarians?
Beth M. Russell
The Ohio State University
Russell.363@osu.edu
Goals
Briefly cover “metadata basics”
 Highlight some projects with Ohio
connections as examples
 Discuss implications for technical services
librarians
 Then discuss some more!

Introductions
Who are we?
 What kinds of positions are in our
libraries?
 What do we need to know?

What I’m Going to Say
We already know metadata
 Examples for discussion
 What do we need to know in our current
jobs?
 How can we apply our skills?
 Questions, discussions, controversy.
PLEASE!

Metadata was the Future …
It seemed liked catalogers were going to
morph into metadata librarians.
 In reality, we have maintained distinct
roles and traditions.

Metadata is the Present …
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We have to work with “metadata” colleagues.
We have to know enough to plan projects,
answer questions, guide policy.
We have to shake a reputation for rigidity and
narrowness.
See Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, “Crashing the
Party: Catalogers as Digital Librarians.” OCLC
Systems & Services 20/4, 2004.
What Do We Mean by non-MARC?
MARC *is* METADATA
 So are other things, like EAD, VRA, Dublin
Core, etc., which we’ll talk about more
later
 List is changing all the time and cannot be
complete, but some types are more
common in libraries than others.

Why Not Use MARC?
MARC is robust, works for many formats,
and integrates into library catalog
 *but*
 It lacks descriptive elements for many
types of resources; it’s not intuitive; and
can be inflexible

 351
Organization & arrangement field
 555 Cumulative index/finding aid note
Content Guidelines vs. Schemes
Content guidelines govern what goes into
records
 Schemes guide how that content is
structured
 AACR vs. MARC, for example, but
consider also LCSH and LCAF

Remember …
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Even simple things like an address book can be
seen as having a “metadata scheme” and
perhaps their own content guidelines as well
Garbage in, garbage out regardless of the
scheme
Metadata is only *part* of the delivery of digital
objects (or physical objects, for that matter)
XML (Extensible Markup
Language)
MARC can be expressed/migrated to
XML, but usually isn’t
 Most other non-MARC schemes are (or
can be) expressed in XML
 Or in spreadsheets
 Or on paper …
 XML allows easier transfer and migration

Categories or Types of Metadata
These are not mutually exclusive
 Again, MARC is a good example, but not a
perfect correlation
 Scheme does not equal type of metadata

Descriptive Metadata
Descriptive metadata describes the
content of a resource
 Closely aligned to most of what we do in
MARC cataloging

 Title
 Author
 Date
of creation
Administrative Metadata
Information that allows staff to locate and
manage a resource
 Also might mirror some other data we’re
used to recording

 Provenance
(541 Immediate source of
acquisition)
 Copyright status (506 Restrictions on access)
Structural Metadata
Describes the organization or relationships
among multiple objects that create a
resource
 Often broken out into separate document
 TEI, for example

Preservation Metadata
Information that facilitates long term
identification, storage, and use of
resources
 Might be in separate document
 PREMIS, for example, documents
preservation events for a resource

Technical Metadata
Describes the technical details of an object
 Type of object governs what is recorded
(image resolution vs. video running time)
 May overlap with administrative metadata

 File
size
 Color space
Questions and Discussion?
Common Types of non-MARC
Metadata with Ohio Library
Examples
Dublin Core (DC)
 Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)
 Encoded Archival Description (EAD)
 Visual Resources Association Core (VRA)
 Do these ring a bell?

Dublin Core
Developed from 1994 conference
“discussion on semantics and the Web
revolv[ing] around the difficulty of finding
resources”
 International effort, constantly growing
 Initiative Website

Dublin Core is Everywhere!
OhioLINK - Digital Media Center
 The Knowledge Bank at OSU: Home
 Ohio Memory Online Scrapbook

TEI (Text Encoding Initiative)
Developed around 1987, before XML
 “Aims to encode all the semantically
significant aspects of literary texts”
 National Underground Railroad Freedom
Center E-Books

Results of DLXS search
Full-text results
EAD (Encoded Archival
Description)
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Began in mid 1990s, pre-XML
Similar to TEI in that digital “version” is marked
up for content, not just display
Enables sophisticated searching of archival
finding aids – more refined than an HTML “find”
search and can search across collections
Online Archive of California
Ohio State University Finding Aids Collection
EAD
VRA (Visual Resources Categories)
VRA Core Categories “consist of a single
element set that can be applied as many
times as necessary to create records to
describe works of visual culture as well as
the images that document them”
 Recommend controlled vocabularies be
used
 McKenney & Hall Collection
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Other schemes
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METS incorporates administrative, descriptive,
and structural metadata into one transmission
standard. Used to ingest records, “turn” pages,
etc. Manipulating complex records. Can use
MODS for descriptive portion, for example.
MODS “half way between MARC and DC.” Used
to map for cross-collection searching.
MODS
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Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS)
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“Schema for a bibliographic element set that may be
used for a variety of purposes, and particularly for library
applications. As an XML schema, the "Metadata Object
Description Schema" (MODS) is intended to be able to
carry selected data from existing MARC 21 records
as well as to enable the creation of original resource
description records. It includes a subset of MARC
fields and uses language-based tags rather than
numeric ones, in some cases regrouping elements from
the MARC 21 bibliographic format.”
So How Does this Affect Technical
Services?
New duties?
 Can we “repurpose” non-MARC and
MARC data with minimal effort?
 Will non-MARC move into our catalogs?
 Is our expertise transferrable?
 What will the future hold?

Examples from MY Life
Grant-funded project at Texas A&M– I
made it up as I went along
 OhioLINK DMC metadata application
profile (which is actually a scheme)
 DISC metadata guidance
 Mapping to save cataloger time vs.
duplication of effort
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Examples from YOUR Lives??
Thanks for Your Attention!

Russell.363@osu.edu