List of resources related to metadata, including how to select a metadata schema, as well as information on how to start a digital collection.
Discussion Groups
Organizations the provide guidelines for music and audio metadata
Publications
- Glossary of Metadata Standards by Jenn Riley
- Guidelines on the Production and Preservation of Digital Audio Objects, 2nd ed., edited by Bradley International Association of Sound and Audio Visual Archives, 2009
- Metadata for Phonograph Records: Facilitating New Forms of Use and Access to Analog Sound Recordings” by Catherine Lai, Ichiro Fujinaga, and Cynthia A. Leive
- Metadata Standards and Guidelines Relevant to Digital Audio, ALCTS PARS (Preservation and Reformatting Section)
Music Discovery Resources
- MLA Music Discovery Requirements Document Group, 2012
- Sound Directions by Mike Casey and Bruce Gordon, Indiana University and Harvard University, 2007
- The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States: A National Legacy at Risk in the Digital Age, Council on Library and Information Resources and the Library of Congress, August 2010
Articles
- Alvarez, M. (2009). Metadata in the music file world. Pacific Northwest Library Association Quarterly, 73(3), 7-12.
- Damm, D., Fremerey, C., Thomas, V., Clausen, M., Kurth, F., & Müller, Meinard. (2012). A digital library framework for heterogeneous music collections: From document acquisition to cross-modal interaction.International Journal on Digital Libraries, 12(2/3), 53-71.
- Madalli, Devika P., B. Preedip Balaji, and Amit Kumar Sarangi. “Faceted Ontological Representation for a Music Domain.” Knowledge Organization 42, no. 1 (February 2015): 8-24. Computers & Applied Sciences Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed March 5, 2016).
- McCourt, T. (2005). Collecting music in the digital realm. Popular Music and Society, 28(2), 249-252.
- Olson, D. (2009). Metadata: A primer for indexers. Key Words, 17(1), 18-20.
- Papadakis, J, & Douligeris. (2001). Design and architecture of a digital music library on the Web. New Review of Hypermedia & Multimedia, 7, 115-126.
- Park, J., Tosaka, Y., Maszaros, S., & Lu, C. (2010). From metadata creation to metadata quality control: Continuing education needs among cataloging and metadata professionals. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 51(3), 158-176.
- Park, J., & Tosaka, Y. (2010). Metadata creation practices in digital repositories and collections: Schemata, selection criteria, and interoperability. Information Technology and Libraries, 29(3), 104-116.
- Riley, J, & Dalmau, M. (2007). Developing a flexible metadata model for the description and discovery of sheet music. Electronic Library, 25(2), 132-147.
Metadata Standards Issuing Bodies
- Audio Engineering Society
- The Audio Engineering Society develops standards for audio engineering. They are devoted exclusively to audio technology for audio engineers, creative artists, scientists, and students worldwide by promoting advances in audio and disseminating new knowledge and research.
- European Broadcasting Union
- Consisting of 112 member organizations in 56 countries, the European Broadcasting Union is an alliance of public service media. The EBU owns and operates the Eurovision and Euroradio telecommunications networks and operates the daily Eurovision news exchange (EVN). The Media Information Management Strategic Prorgramme, of the EBU, currently manages five metadata projects: MM (Metadata Models), SCAIE (automatic extraction / generation of metadata), MDN (Metadata Developer Network), MIM FIMS project (FIMS user group) and XMLSubs defining recommendations for XML subtitling.
- Motion Pictures Expert Group
- Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is a working group of ISO/IEC in charge of the development of international standards for compression, decompression, processing, and coded representation of moving pictures, audio, and their combination. The current structure of the group includes three advisory groups and seven working groups.
Organizations
- Digital Library Federation
- A consortium of academic libraries, public libraries, and museums who strive to “advance research, learning, social justice, and the public good through the creative design and wise application of digital library technologies.” The DLF promotes work on initiatives such as digital library standards, software, and curation. They host the annual DLF Forum.
- International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives
- IASA provides documentation for sound and audiovisual archives. They publish the IASA Journal, IASA Cataloguing Guidelines, and additional guidelines on the preservation, handling, and storage of audio visual materials.
- Library of Congress Digital Preservation Outreach and Education
- The Library of Congress provides this calendar for digital preservation training organizers to list their events. In addition to the basic information, events are categorized by level (beginner/intermediate/advanced)and intended audience (executive/managerial/ practical).
Glossaries
- Glossary of Metadata Standards by Jenn Riley
- Provides a glossary of 104 metadata standards, published in 2010.
Documentation
- University of Maryland Digital Collections
- Basic documentation for adding metadata to University of Maryland’s “Administrative Tools” system for Digital Collections. It is an entirely homegrown system. Manual developed from inline help for University of Maryland’s “Administrative Tools” system for Digital Collections
- EBUCore / XML spec
- EBUCore is a metadata set to describe audio, video, and other resources for broadcasting applications. The latest version 1.10 takes into account developments from the Semantic Web and Linked Open Data communities. This document describes the EBUCore Metadata Set.
- Federal Agencies Digitization Guidelines Initiative
- FADGI articulates practices and guidelines for digitized and born digital content. Their guidelines focus on audio-visual and still image content and cover topics such as minimal guidance, embedded metadata in specific file formats, digitization, and specifics for born digital materials.
- Guidelines on the Production and Preservation of Digital Audio Objects
- Freely accessible web edition of the International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives’ best practices manual for digital audio preservation. Second edition, 2009, edited by Kevin Bradley.
- Library of Congress – Metadata for Digital Content
- The Metadata for Digital Content (MDC) Working Group is a body at the Library of Congress tasked with developing policies and standards for digital object metadata which can be applied consistently across the breadth of projects at LC. The products of this effort, available on the page linked here, include a master metadata element list with best practices, and individual profiles for specific projects and uses at LC.
- MLA Music Discovery Requirements
- The Music Discovery Requirements document the unique demands which music materials place on discovery systems, and provides recommendations to those developing these systems in order for music materials to be sufficiently accessible.
- Sound Directions by Mike Casey and Bruce Gordon
- The documentation resulting from research conducted by Indiana University and Harvard University in 2007 on preserving and providing access to digital media objects of cultural heritage.
- The State of Recorded Sound Preservation in the United States: A National Legacy at Risk in the Digital Age
- Digital version of the report put out by the Council on Library & Information Resources in August 2010 detailing the first ever nation-wide study of the state of audio recording preservation in the United States.
- University of Maryland Digital Collections
- Basic documentation for adding metadata to University of Maryland’s “Administrative Tools” system for Digital Collections. It is an entirely homegrown system. Manual developed from inline help for University of Maryland’s “Administrative Tools” system for Digital Collections
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- Presentation titled “Look What We Got! : How Inherited Data Drives Decision-Making (UNC-Chapel Hill’s 19th-Century American Sheet Music Collection)” by Renee McBride at the 2010 Music Library Association Annual Meeting.
- University of North Texas Digital Projects Unit
- The UNT Libraries Digital Projects Unit provides documentation of their own practices for digital objects metadata, including a quick-start guide, input guidelines, related documentation, and more.