An Operational Model for Library Metadata Maintenance

Abstract

Libraries pay considerable attention to the creation, preservation, and transformation of descriptive metadata in both MARC and non-MARC formats. Little evidence suggests that they devote as much time, energy, and financial resources to the ongoing maintenance of non-MARC metadata, especially with regard to updating and editing existing descriptive content, as they do to maintenance of such information in the MARC-based online public access catalog. In this paper, the authors introduce a model, derived loosely from J. A. Zachman’s framework for information systems architecture, with which libraries can identify and inventory components of catalog or metadata maintenance and plan interdepartmental, even interinstitutional, workflows. The model draws on the notion that the expertise and skills that have long been the hallmark for the maintenance of libraries’ catalog data can and should be parlayed towards metadata maintenance in a broader set of information delivery systems.