Collection Description Enrichment Process in The European Library

Collection Description Collection Description Enrichment Process in Enrichment Process in TELTEL

Roberta CacciagliaThe European LibraryCollections Officer

A bridge across Europe: linking collections at international level, Birmingham, October 2014

OverviewOverview

Numbers of Collections Descriptions

Collection Level Description Elements

Gathering Information about Collections

Description Process

Publishing Process

Strengths and Weaknesses

3Collection Description Enrichment Process in TEL

Numbers of Collections Numbers of Collections DescriptionsDescriptions


In October 2013 we had more than 600 collections but with little descriptive information;

By September 2014 nearly all carried an enriched collection level description;

Around 15% of the collections still have little information (including new collections lately added to TEL).

CLDs in TEL consist not only of information about the collection as a whole but also provide information about the individual items within it and their content.


Collection Level Description Collection Level Description ElementsElements

Information collected for CLDs originates from different sources:


Gathering InformationGathering Information

Metadata provided by the library

Analysing items within the digital collection

A CLD can be based on different sources together but in most cases they represent different methods of approaching the description process.

TEL Survey

Information on Libraries’ websites

Description Process: Case 1 Description Process: Case 1 (1/6) (1/6)


Gathering information from TEL surveys

TEL survey was sent to partnenrs in January 2014

TEL was able to gather more information on collections and new digital and physical collections to be displayed on TEL portal.

CLD based primarily on the description provided by the library



As the Russian State Library delivered a detailed description of the collection, we improved it by extracting Collection Level Metadata from the general description.

Time CoverageItem Type

Spatial Coverage

SubjectsPersonalities



Information available on the library’s websites

The National Library of the Netherlands provided little information about the collection.

We improved it by looking for more information in the Library’s website, extracting from it the Collection Level Metadata and building a general description for TEL.

10Collection Description Process in TEL


Information available on the library’s websites (in native language)

The Austrian National Library provided little information about the collection.

On the Library’s website the description was available in the native language (German), we therefore translated it and extracted Collection Level Metadata and built a detailed description in English.



Analysing the items within a digital collection

The Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of the Italian Libraries did not deliver a description for their ‘Pamphlet’ collection.

No collection descriptions are available on the official website.



Analysing the items within a digital collection

We therefore enriched metadata and created a detailed description by analasyng the items within the collection.

Publishing Process Publishing Process

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TEL Database Acceptance Portal Review by Libraries Live Portal

Collection Description Enrichment Process in TEL

Strengths of the Current ApproachStrengths of the Current Approach


There is a dedicated point of reference for libraries regarding their collections descriptions in TEL;

Libraries can quality-check their metadata for possible errors or lack of information

Since the collections officer is dedicated to the task, most of collections have high-quality and analytical descriptions and they are constantly updated;

Partners do not need to commit someone to work on collections descriptions for TEL;

Weaknesses of the Current Weaknesses of the Current ApproachApproach


The problem of finding a way to constantly communicate with libraries (email, surveys, web tool, etc..);

There is a complex workflow: locating information about a given collection – entering data in TEL database - making it available on the acceptance server - reviewing by libraries – editing the CD based on library’s feedback - publishing on the live portal.

The Collections Officer creates CLDs in first place but no one knows its own collections better than the Library;

Questions?Questions?


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Collection Description Enrichment Process in The European Library

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