Metadata is the information that describes the resources the University of Alberta Library makes accessible to our campus community and the world beyond. If you have searched our library catalogue or found an item in our institutional repository, you have already seen metadata in action:
Metadata is a core tool in the information search and retrieval process. In aggregate form, it holds inherent value as a resource in itself. Metadata creation and curation involves a great deal of intellectual effort, and the library community has a long history of collaboration and metadata sharing.
In keeping with this long standing community practice as well as the UofA Library’s support of and commitment to open access and open data, we are excited to announce the launch of the first version of our Open Metadata Framework.
This framework underscores our commitment to ensuring our metadata is as open as possible. By doing so, we aim to enhance the discovery of library and cultural heritage resources and empower users to use, reuse, remix, and repurpose our metadata through clearly communicated open licenses. And in doing so to make every effort to respect the reuse policies of data from other sources within our dataset.
The landscape of metadata sharing is constantly changing, and we look forward to ongoing conversations and collaborations that will help us refine and expand our framework over time. As part of our current Library Services Platform (LSP) migration, we will explore opportunities to incorporate best practices and workflows that further support the Open Metadata Framework.
More information is available here: Open Metadata Sharing Framework
Special thanks to Danielle Deschamps, Academic Library Resident (2023-2024) for spearheading this initiative, and to all of our colleagues within the UofA Library and the broader community for their support.
This content is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Creative Commons licence.