Metadata Committee Meeting Minutes, 10-17-05
- Agenda: Review charge,clarify it as needed, and attempt to choose initial
priorities
Members Present: Roberta Winjum, Marshall Breeding, Zora Breeding, Eileen Crawford, Catherine Gick, Teresa Gray, Mary Charles Lasater, Linda Tesar, Pete Wilson
This inaugural meeting was convened to review the charge. The communication procedures for the committee were discussed. Nancy Boggess-Korekach was absent but has volunteered to record minutes at all subsequent meetings. A summary of each meeting will be posted on the committee’s webpages. Only actions and decisions will be communicated to the library staff at large. The reports of any project teams that are formed will be posted on the committee’s webpage.
- Decision – CAAG minutes will be archived on the committee’s webpage.
Marshall Breeding discussed his involvement with several metadata projects. For each project, he has had to ask “are we using the appropriate standard?” (MARC, Dublin Core, etc.). TV News Archive had an indexing scheme in place, but could still be adapted somewhat to take advantage of metadata schema. ABZU is an archaeological dig database that will be moving to Vanderbilt. It has a complicated schema designed by computer engineers that may need adaptation to yield consistent data from workers in the field. The project Ecclesiastical Sources for Slave Societies in Cuba is a grant funded project administrated by a Vanderbilt professor to take images of the pages in church records. A skeletal metadata structure has been fashioned after the gathering of data. None of these projects is ideal in that the metadata formats were implemented in the beginning stages of the projects.
Teresa Gray said that Special Collections is not using the EAD format because it is too labor intensive to implement. Special Collections has an image database that uses metadata.
- Decision – Marshall and Teresa will demonstrate these projects at another scheduled committee meeting.
A discussion developed around educating committee members on metadata projects and formats so that they will have the knowledge base to execute the committee’s charge. It was suggested that citations and links to online articles be posted on the committee’s webpage. Roberta Winjum said that there is money for professional development that can be requested by members to attend workshops and conferences on metadata. It was requested that Marshall involve library staff as he works on projects in order to develop expertise more widely.
- Decision – Committee members will share URL’s for metadata sites to link from the committee’s pages for further study.
Mary Charles Lasater brought up the problem of errors in metadata for Vanderbilt electronic theses. Is there a procedure for reporting errors and is this the type of problem the Metadata Committee should address?
Acorn training was a responsibility of CAAG. Is this another area that has been transferred to this group? Our committee is the only logical choice for this responsibility, however workgroups can be appointed as needed to implement the training.
- Recommendation: It is recommended that ACORN training be a part of the committee’s charge. Also recommend that Sirsi trainer be brought in for JAVA training.
- Recommendation: Request LITS to send pending ACORN enhancement requests to the committee.
- Next meeting: October 31, 2005, GLB e-Classroom
Proposed agenda: Marshall will demonstrate metadata projects.