Goldminers of the Digital Age:

How Libraries Are Selecting,

Presenting, and Distributing

Metadata via Institutional

Repositories

Eli Windchy

VP, Consulting Services

bepress

Butler Family Letters

Bepress

Founded in 1999 by scholars from UC Berkeley

Provider of Digital Commons

Former publisher of academic journals

- known for liberal re-use and guest access

policies

Serving scholars and almost 400 institutions

Wide range of subject expertise and types of

scholarship

What Is an Institutional Repository?

"...a set of services that a university offers

to members of its community for the

management and dissemination of digital

materials created by the institution and its

community members."

Scholarly Lifecycle – Past

Research

Writing

Submission

Publication

Repository

for “management

and dissemination”

2 3 45

Scholarly Lifecycle – Present

Research

Writing

Submission

Publication in a

repository or other venue

23

4

Let’s Begin

1. Prospecting for metadata

2. Toolkit for metadata

3. Legacy - where does the metadata go?

4. ROMI - return on metadata investment

- Sheldon Shufelt, 1850

"It is found along the banks of the streams & in the beds

of the same, & in almost every little ravine putting into the

streams. And often from 10 to 50 ft. from the beds up the

bank. We sometimes have to dig several feet deep before

we find any, in other places all the dirt & clay will pay to

wash, but generally the clay pays best. If there is no clay,

then it is found down on the rock. All the lumps are found

on the rock--& most of the fine gold. We tell when it will

pay by trying the dirt with a pan. This is called prospecting

here.”

Part 1: Prospecting

Part 1: Prospecting

Where to Begin Collecting Metadata?

Faculty

Reporting

Systems

Where Is the Metadata?

Part 1: Prospecting

Authors Campus Publishers Aggregators

Gaps Arise From

Part 1: Prospecting

• Interdependent but not interlocking needs

• Real world exceptions

• Fluid nature, constant state of system

realignment

Bridge the Gap!

Focus and Reiterate the Library’s Goals

Part 1: Prospecting

• Provide services to campus?

• Global readership?

• Contribution to the field?

And Build Bridges to More Content

Part 1: Prospecting

Libraries are using bepress to capture a

wider array of materials, the way the

library wants it

Articles

Books

Conference

proceedings

Course catalogs

Data

ETDs

Grants

Images

Lab notes

Lectures

Monographs

Multimedia

Newspapers and

newsletters

Presentations

Reports

Special

collections

Syllabi

Symposia

Working papers

Yearbooks

Advantages of the Wider Bridge

Part 1: Prospecting

1. Richer, descriptive metadata, straight from the

authors

2. > Intake = < fixing later

3. Relationships outside the library

4. Closer alignment with library and potentially

university’s strategic goals

How Can Vendors Support

Libraries?

Part 1: Prospecting

• Success-as-a-Service model

• Economies of scale

• Mass representation

Part Two: Tools

“The gold will be a bit harder to get to, but modern

technology provides many advantages the old-time

prospectors couldn't fathom.”

“Sutter [Gold Mining Co.] plans to use gravity

floatation to recover the gold out and will not use

toxic chemicals on site.”

Flexibility

Part 2: Toolkit

Part 2: Toolkit

Hard tools:Admin-only fields

Audit trail per record

Batch export

Batch upload/revision

Controlled taxonomies

Default values

Manual upload/revision

OAI/PMH

OpenURLs

Peer-review tools

Required fields

Versioning

Sample Toolkit for Metadata:On a collection basis

Soft tools:Developing expertise in:• Copyright

• Data

• Documentation

• ETDs

• Images

• Multimedia

• Outreach

• Publishing

• Reporting

• Scholarly communications

• SEO

Dublin Institute of TechnologyPart 2: Toolkit

Scholarly gyre: imagine those are stars

are golden nuggets

Part 3: Legacy - Where Does It Go?

Andrew Wesolek. "Who Uses this Stuff, Anyway?" North American

Serials Interest Group.. Jun. 2012.

Available at: http://works.bepress.com/andrew_wesolek/3

Leary, Heather, "Digital Commons Annual Report: Year

Two 2009-2010" (2010). Digital Commons

Reports. Paper 2.

http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/dcreports/2

Know the Terrain of Readership

Common Internal Destinations of IR

Metadata

Library catalogs

Discovery systems

Faculty profile pages

Department and center websites

Faculty reporting systems

LOCKSS or other preservation solution

Part 3: Legacy

Common External Destinations of IR

Metadata

General: WorldCat

Major search engines:

e.g., Google, Google

Scholar

DC Network

International portals

Govt-mandated systems

LOCKSS

CLOCKSS

ROAR

SHARE

Part 3: Legacy

Specific:• Subject matter databases:

ERIC, REPEC, MEDLINE

• Undergraduate Research

Commons

• Council on Undergraduate

Research

• NDLTD

• ProQuest

• Library Archive Canada

• Portico

• DOAJ

• DPLA

Metadata for Legacy

Part 3: Legacy

Optimize for search engines = big audiences

Choose destinations strategically

Batch revise, as warranted

Check reports to gauge your success.

Add/remove destinations.

Part 4: ROMI, Maximizing Value

Thieves ram original Wells Fargo in San Francisco,

grab gold nuggets

Part 4: ROMI

Presentation and Promotion? But

I’m Not a Publisher!

• Metadata can’t do it alone

• Think of presentation and promotion as usability

and readership

• You’ll get the hang of it! Enlist help.

• Professional design: includes good accessibility

standards and support for mobile devices

• Best practices for SEO

• Campus or other promotions periodically

• Reports, internal and external – examples

available at

http://digitalcommons.bepress.com/usagereports/

Part 4: ROMI

Key Attributes

What Does This Look Like?Part 4: ROMI

Thank you!

Eli Windchy

VP, Consulting Services, bepress

ewindchy@bepress.com

510-665-1200, ext. 136