Tracking Metadata Use for Digital Collections

Abstract

We are investigating how resource developers can best represent digital collections and items to meet the requirements of divergent service providers and user communities. Our first goal is to establish a baseline that describes the institutions, collections, and initial metadata schemes of Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership Grant (NLG) digital collection projects. This research is a component of the larger Digital Collections and Content (DCC) Project, funded by IMLS to build a collection registry and metadata repository for the NLG collections. Collection registries organize large aggregations of digital content from multiple institutions to make relevant resources easier to find and more visible to end-users.