An Emergent Theory of Digital Library Metadata: Enrich then Filter

An Emergent Theory of Digital Library Metadata is a reaction to the current digital library landscape that is being challenged with growing online collections and changing user expectations. The theory provides the conceptual underpinnings for a new approach which moves away from expert defined standardised metadata to a user driven approach with users as metadata co-creators. Moving away from definitive, authoritative, metadata to a system that reflects the diversity of users’ terminologies, it changes the current focus on metadata simplicity and efficiency to one of metadata enriching, which is a continuous and evolving process of data linking. From predefined description to information conceptualised, contextualised and filtered at the point of delivery. By presenting this shift, this book provides a coherent structure in which future technological developments can be considered.

Metadata is valuable when continuously enriched by experts and usersMetadata enriching results from ubiquitous linkinMetadata is a resource that should be linked openlyThe power of metadata is unlocked when enriched metadata is filtered for users individually

• Chapter One: Overview of Standards-based Metadata Approaches
• Chapter Two: Changing Users’ Needs
• Chapter Three: The Web 2.0 Paradigm and the Emergence of Socially-Constructed Metadata Approaches
• Chapter Four: The Emergence of Socially-Constructed Metadata Approaches
• Chapter Five: The Principle of  Metadata Enriching
• Chapter Six: The Principle of  Metadata Linking
• Chapter Seven: The Principle of Metadata Openness
• Chapter Eight: The Principle of  Metadata Filtering
• Chapter Nine: The Emergence of a Theory of Metadata Enriching and Filtering
• Chapter Ten: Implications of the Emergent Theory of Metadata Enriching and Filtering
• Conclusion and Future Research