New Report from OCLC Research: Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Part 1: Site Reviews

This is a repost of an item we shared about a month ago.
Title: Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Part 1: Site Reviews
Auhtors: Karen Smith-Yoshimura, OCLC Research, and Cyndi Shein, Getty Research Institute

The report provides an overview of social metadata, including an environmental scan of 76 social metadata sites and a detailed review of 24 representative sites. The goal of the report is to provide cultural heritage institutions with a better understanding of social metadata so they can better utilize their users’ expertise and enrich their descriptive metadata to improve their users’ experiences.
This report, first of three OCLC Research reports about social metadata, is available on the OCLC Research website at  and the news announcement about it is available below. The second report will provide an analysis of the results from a survey of site managers, and the third report will provide recommendations on social metadata features most relevant to libraries, archives, and museums as well as the factors contributing to success.

Report Summary:

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 recontextualize the content and metadata created by LAMs. Many cultural heritage institutions are interested in gaining a better understanding of social metadata and also learning how to best utilize their users’ expertise to enrich their descriptive metadata and improve their users’ experiences.
In order to facilitate this, a 21-member RLG Partners Social Metadata Working Group 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. In addition, working group members surveyed site managers, analyzed the survey results and discussed the factors that contribute to successful—and not so successful—use of social metadata. They also considered issues related to assessment, content, policies, technology, and vocabularies.
This report includes an environmental scan of 76 social metadata sites and a detailed review of 24 representative sites. It is the first of three OCLC Research reports about social metadata. The second report will provide an analysis of the results from a survey of site managers, and the third report will provide recommendations on social metadata features most relevant to libraries, archives, and museums as well as the factors contributing to success.

Direct to Full Text (174 pages; PDF)
See Also: Learn more about the OCLC Research project associated with the report, Sharing and Aggregating Social Metadat

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Data Files, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users, Reports