Introduction
Metadata Decisions for Digital Libraries is a survey undertaken in 2007 by Marcia Zeng (Kent State University), Jaesun Lee (National Library of Korea), and Allene Hayes (Library of Congress) to identify major issues and concerns in the metadata community that should be addressed by the Working Group of IFLA Guidelines for Digital Libraries.
This website is merely a selected report of the survey results. A full article can be found in the Journal of Library Metadata 9:173-193, 2009; DOI 10.1080/19386380903405074. [Link to information]
Data Collection
The questionnaire was tested with the help of the IFLA Cataloging Section members, distributed through the IFLA listserv, and later further forwarded by IFLA members to other professional listservs.
During a one-month period, from October to November 2007, the authors received over 400 survey answers from 49 different countries. These included answers from individual professionals as well as collective
answers from several national libraries and many institutions.
The researchers collected 417 valid questionnaire answers, with 413 answering the question:
"Which of the following best describe your role in your digital collection/digital library project(s)?"
| Role | Response % | Response # |
|---|---|---|
| Creating Metadata Records | 47.50% | 196 |
| Supervising metadata and/or cataloging project(s) | 45.30% | 187 |
| Consulting on metadata issues | 40.40% | 167 |
| Developing policies and best practices | 40.40% | 167 |
| Coordinating digital collection/digital library projects | 39.50% | 163 |
| Creating and maintaining controlled vocabularies (lists of subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies, etc.) and authority files | 32.00% | 132 |
| Teaching and training information professionals | 28.60% | 118 |
| Consulting on vocabulary control issues | 27.60% | 114 |
| Providing technical support to the digital library projects | 21.30% | 88 |