GLAM metadata interoperability

Abstract

Both digitised and born-digital images are a valuable part of cultural heritage collections in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM). Efforts have been put into aggregating these distributed resources. High quality and consistent metadata practice across these institutions are necessary to ensure interoperability and the optimum retrieval of digital images. This paper reports on a study that involves interviews with staff members from ten institutions from the GLAM sector in New Zealand, who are responsible for creating metadata for digital images. The objective is to understand how GLAM institutions have gone about creating metadata for their image collections to facilitate access and interoperability (if any) and the rationale for their practice, as well as the factors affecting the current practice. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.