A New Report from Europeana Looks at What Makes For Good Metadata

The title of the report discussed below is, Report and Recommendations from the Task Force on Metadata Quality.  We think many of the concepts discussed in this paper will be of interest to many of you.

From a Blog Post Introduction (via Europeana Pro):

This report looks at how data partners’ motivation, the technical requirements and the content of the metadata affect overall metadata quality. We believe this document to be relevant to the entire Europeana Network.

From the Executive Summary:

Metadata is the lifeblood of Europeana. It is only by describing digital collections with rich metadata that they can become part of the shared cultural heritage landscape of Europe.
Metadata quality is controlled by a set of processes which ensures that cultural heritage objects can be identified, discovered and seen in context by audiences, in a manner appropriate to the context in which the data provider created them. Metadata must include information on the potential reuse of cultural heritage objects.
This report looks at how data partners’ motivation, the technical requirements and the content of the metadata affect overall metadata quality. We believe this document to be relevant to the entire Europeana Network.
We have defined good metadata quality as:
1. Resulting from a series of trusted processes
2. Findable
3. Readable
4. Standardised
5. Meaningful to audiences
6. Clear on reuse
7. Visible

The report is organized into the following sections:

• Executive Summary
• Importance of Good Quality Metadata to Europeana
• How Metadata Quality is assessed in Europeana
• Task Force Recommendations: Future Steps
• Technical

Direct to Full Text Report (54 pages; PDF)

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