A metadata lifecycle model for digital libraries: methodology and application for an evidence-based approach to library research

Metadata is an emerging approach to organizing digital collections in order to enhance retrieval, preservation, and interoperability. The various issues confronting digital library projects that aspire to adopt metadata create the need for a systematic methodology. The Metadata Lifecycle Model (MLM), proposed in this paper, consists of ten steps: 1) acquiring basic metadata needs, 2) assessment of deep metadata needs, 3) review of standards and projects, 4) analysis of elements and standards, 5) preparation of metadata specification, 6) evaluation of metadata systems, 7) preparation of guidance and best practice, 8) development of metadata system, 9) maintenance of metadata service, and 10) evaluation of metadata performance. The MLM has already undergone two years of actual use, and a case study involving forty digital library projects has been conducted to examine its feasibility. 1.0 Introduction Metadata is an emerging approach to organizing structured digital collections, in order to support precise retrieval, long-term preservation, and interoperability on an extraordinary Internet scale. Although there are many metadata practices in digital libraries, few literatures have addressed the methodology of a best practice for developing metadata. In the light of metadata provision, digital library projects often face a series of issues, including: how to get started, how to acquire metadata needs, how to choose a suitable metadata standard and adopt it, how to develop metadata specification, how to evaluate a metadata system, and so forth. A set of effective methods to develop metadata is thus very important. This paper introduces a Metadata Lifecycle Model (MLM) as a methodology of whole process of metadata provision for a digital library. In order to learn how well the MLM has been used, a case study of 40 digital library projects from the National Digital Archives Program in Taiwan (NDAP) examined the feasibility of this approach. 2.0 Literature Review