Speakers
Cheryl Gowing
University of Miami

Marja Musson
International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam

Cyndi Shein
Getty Research Institute

Karen Smith-Yoshimura
OCLC Research

Elizabeth Yakel
University of Michigan School of Information

Ken Varnum
University of Michigan

Description

Metadata helps users locate resources that meet their specific needs. But metadata also helps us to understand the data we find and helps us to evaluate what we should spend our time on. Traditionally, staff at libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs) create metadata for the content they manage. However, social metadata—content contributed by users—is evolving as a way to both augment and recontexutalize the content and metadata created by LAMs.

Cultural heritage organizations have been eager to expand their reach into user communities and to take advantage of users' expertise to enrich their descriptive metadata. In 2009-2010, a 21-member Social Metadata Working Group from five countries reviewed 76 sites relevant to libraries, archives, and museums that supported such social media features as tagging, comments, reviews, images, videos, ratings, recommendations, lists, links to related articles, etc. The working group analyzed the results of a survey sent to site managers and discussed the factors that contribute to successful—and not so successful—use of social metadata. We conducted interviews and compiled an extensive resource list. All informed our recommendations and are documented in three reports under the common title, Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives, and Museums.

In this webinar, five members of the Social Metadata Working Group presented highlights of their research and personal observations:

• Observations on our research into social metadata— Marja Musson, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
• Tagging, crowd-sourcing, and other uses of social metadata— Ken Varnum, University of Michigan
• LAMs' use of third-party sites— Cyndi Shein, Getty Research Institute
• Key points from our survey— Cheryl Gowing, University of Miami
• Measuring successful use of social metadata— Elizabeth Yakel, University of Michigan School of Information

Program Officer Karen Smith-Yoshimura introduced and facilitated the session.

Links to the webinar recording and slides are available below. The webinar recording is also available in iTunes.

• Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives and Museums webinar slides (.pptx: 27 MB/80 slides)
• wmv (132 MB/1 hr. 15 min.)
• mp4 (19.8 MB/1 hr. 15 min.)