ANEXPLORATORYSTUDYOFTHEDESCRIPTIONFIELD

INTHEDIGITALPUBLICLIBRARYOFAMERICA

HannahTarver

OksanaL.Zavalina

MarkPhillips

1October14,2016

Outlineofpresentation

• Introductionandbackground

• Methodologyofthestudy

• Somefindings

• Discussion

• Conclusionsandfutureresearch

2October14,2016 2

INTRODUCTIONANDBACKGROUND

3October14,2016

Descriptionmetadata

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•  Repeatablemetadataelementswithfree-textdatavalues

•  Oneormoreelementsindifferentmetadataschemes

•  DublinCore:Description(abstract,tableofcontents)

•  MetadataObjectDescriptionSchema:Abstract,Note,Table

ofContents

•  EncodedArchivalDescription:ScopeandContent

•  MachineReadableCataloging:5XXnotes(atotalof53

fields) 4

Descriptionmetadata:datavalues

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•  Bestpracticerecommendationssuggestincludinginformationaboutinformationobject’s:

•  anabstract,tableofcontents,referencetoagraphicalrepresentationofcontentorafree-textaccountofthecontent(DC)

•  subject,significance,andfunction(CCOandCDWA)

•  provenanceandhistory,language(OSULibraries)

•  etc.5

Descriptionmetadataapplication

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Inconsistentlevelsofapplication

•  in40%-99%ofmetadatarecords:•  50.9%inOAIster(Ward,2003)

•  40-75%acrossuniversitydigitalrepositories(Kurtz,2010)

•  99%indigitalvideocollections(Weagley,Gelches,&Park,2010)

•  100%indigitalimagecollections(Park,2006)

•  by72%-89%ofdataprovidersinaggregations:•  72%inOAIster(Ward,2003)

•  89%inIMLSDCCaggregation(Jacksonetal.,2008)6

DPLA

•  DigitalPublicLibraryofAmerica(launchedin2013)

•  Oneofthelargestandrapidlygrowingdigitalrepositories

•  Distributednetworkmodel:•  Contenthubs•  Servicehubs

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DPLA&Description

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DescriptiondefinedinDPLAMetadataApplicationProfileas“Includesbutisnotlimitedto:anabstract,atableofcontents,orafree-textaccountofdescribedresource”•  DiscrepancyinDescriptiondocumentation

•  recommendedfieldinIntrotoDPLADataModel:version4(2015)•  optionalincompleteDPLAMetadataApplicationProfile:version

4(2015)

•  MetadatanormalizedatharvestingintoDPLA•  Variousnativemetadatafieldsmappedtodcterms:description

Problemstatement

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Lackofsystematicempirical

studiesofdigitallibrarymetadata

withthefocusonfree-text

Descriptionmetadata

•  inverylargeaggregations

(e.g.,HathiTrust,Internet

Archive,DPLA,etc.)

9

METHODS

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Problemstatement&ResearchQuestions

11October14,2016

Lackofsystematicempiricalstudiesofdigitallibrarymetadatawiththefocusonfree-textDescriptionmetadata

•  inverylargeaggregations(e.g.,HathiTrust,InternetArchive,DPLA,etc.)

•  WhatistheoverallusageofDescriptionfieldbyhubsinDPLA?

•  HowcanlengthofdatavaluesprovideinsightintoDescriptionmetadatapracticesamongDPLAhubs?

Datacollection&processing

12October14,2016

BigDataapproach:DPLABulkDownloadhttp://dp.la/info/developers/download

•  over11.5millionmetadatarecordsinasinglecompressedJSONfile

•  eachrecordparsed,allinstancesofDescriptionfieldextracted•  Solrfull-textindexerforDescriptionfields:StatsComponent

http://wiki.apache.org/solr/StatsComponent

Dataanalysis

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•  LevelofapplicationofDescriptionfieldbyDPLAhub•  fieldinstancesperrecord

•  LengthofdatavalueinDescriptionfield–range,mean,standarddeviationof:

•  numberofcharacters•  numberofwords•  averagewordlength•  proportionofdatavaluethatconsistofletters,

punctuation,orintegers•  ContentanalysisofdatavaluesfromDescriptionfield

instances(n=200)

Thefindingspresented

here

13

FINDINGS:LEVELOFAPPLICATION

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%ofrecordswith1+Descriptioninstance

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Only5outof29hubsincludeDescriptioninallrecords;22hubsincludeitin50%+ofrecords

MAXnumberofDescriptioninstancesperrecord

16October14,2016

51104 17191 98

25

6511

77

98

35

111615

1216179

31

25 4611

020406080100120140160180artstor

bhlcdl

david_rumsey

digital-commonwealth

digitalnc

esdn

georgia

getty

gpo

harvard

hathitrustindiana

internet_archivekdlmdlmissouri-hubmwdl

nara

nypl

scdl

smithsonian

the_portal_to_texas_history

tn

uiuc

undefined_provider

uscvirginiawashington7hubswithover20instances:

4withover50

Averageno.ofDescriptioninstancesperrecord

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Above2.00for8of29hubs:5ofthesehubshaveunusuallyhighmaxnumberofinstances

%ofDescriptioninstanceswithuniquevalues

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0.00%10.00%20.00%30.00%40.00%50.00%60.00%70.00%80.00%90.00%

Under50%valuesareuniqueforallbut6hubs

FINDINGS:LENGTHOFDATAVALUES

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Ave.lengthofdatavalues(no.ofcharacters)

20October14,2016

200charactersorlessformosthubs

Veryhighvariabilityfor2hubs

MAXlengthofdatavalues(no.ofcharacters)

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Morefindings:contentanalysisofdatavalues

22October14,2016

DatavalueinDescriptionfield Category1glassnegative:b&w;8x10in.;sulfiding. PhysicalobjectdescriptionThismaterialhasbeenprovidedbyTheRoyalCollegeofSurgeonsofEngland.TheoriginalmaybeconsultedatTheRoyalCollegeofSurgeonsofEngland

Rightsorusagestatement

ThisimageshowsasectionofThornCemeteryincludinggravestones. Objectcontentdescription

Microform. ObjecttypeorformatTitlesuppliedbycataloger. Noteormetadatasource

Thisseriescontainstranscriptsofproceedings,depositions,andoralexaminationspreparedexclusivelyfororintheDistrictCourt.ThedepositionsandoralexaminationsweretakenoutofcourtandareprimarilyinterviewswithSchoolBoardrepresentativesandemployeesconcerningthedevelopment,implementation,andreviewofdesegregationplans.

Collection-levelcontentdescription

P950. Identifierorcallnumber

Mainsourceofnon-uniquedatavalues(slide18)

DISCUSSION,CONCLUSIONS&

FUTURERESEARCH

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Variabilityissues

• Notallhubs(and/orpartnerinstitutionswithinservicehubs)may:•  considerfree-textDescriptionfields(e.g.,notesofvariouskinds)

tobeequallyimportant,or

• enforcetheusageofDescriptionfields

• WidevariabilityofthenumberofinstancesofDescriptionandthelengthofdatavalues

• Higher(butnotoutlying)lengthscouldindicatemorerigorousstandardsofDescriptioninhubs

• OutlierrecordswithDescriptionfieldvalues20,000characters+shouldbereviewedastotheirappropriatenesstolocaldescriptivemetadatainputrulesOctober14,2016

Unexpected:departurefrombestpractice

guidelines

24

Mappingissues

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_

differingperceptionsofDescriptionsemanticsamongDPLAhubsandcontributors

absenceofabettermatchthanDescriptiontomapthe

informationfromnativemetadata(richerthanDublin

Core)inDPLA

insufficientconsistencyofcontributedrecordsformoreaccuratemapping

ThevarietyofinformationtypesobservedinDescriptiondatavaluesmightbedueto1ormorefactors:

Otherpossibleproblems

• Context

• Shortervaluesmightbeduetolocalpracticeswheredescriptionofitem

isinthecontextofthedescriptionofcollection

• Contextlostinaggregation

• Quality

• Outlierswithshortestdatavaluelengthsmightindicatelackofrelevant

informationaboutanitem

• Outlierswithlongestdatavaluelengthsmightbeduetofulltext

harvestedwiththemetadatarecordOctober14,2016 26

Conclusions

• Simplestatisticalanalysescanprovidebetterunderstandingofmetadata

usageinaggregation

•  Largesetsofempiricaldata(bigdataapproach,eliminatessamplingerror)

• Diversityallowsforbetterunderstandingofcontributinginstitutions’varying

practices

• Recommendationforaggregatorstoincludeinmetadataapplication

profilesaseparateNotepropertyformappingofinformationthatdoes

notfitDescription

• AdditionalresearchisneededOctober14,2016 27

Someideasonthenext2slides

Futureresearch

UseoflanguageinDescriptiondatavalues•  numberofwords

•  averagewordlength

•  proportionofdatavaluesthatconsistofletters,punctuation,orintegers

• proportionofwordsfromlistoffrequently-usedEnglishworks(e.g.,1K,5Ketc.,standardEnglishdictionary)

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Datacollectedbutnotanalyzed

yet

28

Morefutureresearch1.  CategorizinginformationinDescription•  automaticallyidentifyingsomeofthisinformationtomapdata

valuesmoreaccuratelyormarkthemforreviewforqualitycontrol.

2.  ComparingperceivedimportancewithactualapplicationofDescriptionmetadatainDPLAhubs’nativemetadata

3.  Researchinto:•  Howdifferentinstitutionsperceiveitem-level(andcollection-

level)metadatainnativesystemsandaspartofanaggregation•  End-userperceptionofusefulnessofdescriptiveinformationin

helpingfinditemsü  couldhelptorefineguidelinesonDescriptionfield

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30

Questions?Comments?

Ideas?October14,2016

Workscited•  Baca,M.andP.Harpring(Eds.).(2009)CategoriesfortheDescriptionofWorksofArt(CDWA),GettyResearchInstitute,SantaMonica.

•  Baca,M.,etal.(2006)CatalogingCulturalObjects:AGuidetoDescribingCulturalWorksandtheirImages,AmericanLibraryAssociation,Chicago.

•  DigitalPublicLibraryofAmerica(2015a,March5).AnintroductiontotheDPLAmetadatamodel.Retrievedfromhttp://dp.la/info/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Intro_to_DPLA_metadata_model.pdf

•  DigitalPublicLibraryofAmerica(2015b,March5).Metadataapplicationprofile:Version4.0.Retrievedfromhttp://dp.la/info/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MAPv4.pdf

•  EncodedArchivalDescription.(2002).Retrievedfromhttp://www.loc.gov/ead/.•  EncodedArchivalDescription:EAD3.(2015).Retrievedfromhttp://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/TagLibrary-VersionEAD3.pdf.

•  Jackson,A.S.,M.Han,K.Groetsch.,M.MustafoffandT.W.Cole.(2008).DublinCoremetadataharvestedthroughOAI-PMH.JournalofLibraryMetadata,8(1),5-21.

•  Hillmann,D.(2005).UsingDublinCore.Retrievedfromhttp://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/•  Kurtz,M.(2010).DublinCore,DSpace,andabriefanalysisofthreeuniversityrepositories.InformationTechnology&Libraries,29(1),40-46.Retrievedfromhttp://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ital/article/view/3157/2771

•  OSUKnowledgeBankMetadataApplicationProfileforDigitalVideo.(2011).Retrievedfromhttps://library.osu.edu/documents/knowledge-bank/KnowledgeBankMetadataApplicationProfile2011.pdf

•  Park,J.(2006).Semanticinteroperabilityandmetadataquality:Ananalysisofmetadataitemrecordsofdigitalimagecollections.KnowledgeOrganization,33(1),20-34.

•  Ward,J.(2003).AquantitativeanalysisifunqualifiedDublinCoremetadataelementsetusagewithindataprovidersregisteredwiththeOpenArchivesInitiative.Proceedingsofthe2003JointConferenceonDigitalLibraries,pp.315-317.

•  Weagley,J.,E.Gelches,&J.Park.(2010).Interoperabilityandmetadataqualityindigitalvideorepositories:astudyofDublinCore.JournalofLibraryMetadata,10(1),37-57.DOI:10.1080/19386380903546984.

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