The Three Metadata Systems Comparison

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Table of Contents

National Library of Medicine
National Archives Catalog
Metadata Standards
Metadata Elements
Metadata Contents
Comparison
User Perspective
Works Cited

National Library of Medicine

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is the largest biomedical library in the world. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, it is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which started as a collection of medical journals and books in the U.S. Army Surgeon General’s office in 1836 (The NIH Almanac, 2020). As a computational health informatics research leader, NLM “plays a pivotal role in translating biomedical research into practice” (The NIH Almanac, 2020, para. 1). Its information and research services support health care, scientific discovery, and public health. The library contributes to the development of new ways of making biomedical information and data more accessible. It helps create a diverse, competent, and data-skilled workforce, building tools for efficient data management (The NIH Almanac, 2020). In general, NLM enables clinicians, healthcare providers, researchers, and public members from all over the world to use the largest amount of biomedical data in order to improve health.

Millions of people address the library’s online information resources on a daily basis to translate the results of their research into new treatments, improve clinical decision-making, develop new products, and contribute to the development of public health. Moreover, NLM leads, supports, and conducts research training in information science, biomedical informatics, and data science in educational facilities in the United States. Its training programs and cutting-edge research focus on biomedical informatics, computational biology, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and health data standards (The NIH Almanac, 2020). In the present day, they catalyze the data-driven discovery, basic biomedical science, and high-quality healthcare delivery.

NLM acquires, organizes, preserves, and provides free access to scholarly literature dedicated to biomedicine for online users worldwide. Moreover, in partnership with more than 8,000 members of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, it provides access to health information and biomedical data across the country (The NIH Almanac, 2020). The library conducts research on communications systems and the methods and technologies of information dissemination among patients, healthcare professionals, and the public. Its major divisions include the Extramural Programs Division, the Intramural Research Program, the Division of Library Operations, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the Lister Hill Center for Biomedical Communications, and the Office of Computer and Communications Systems (The NIH Almanac, 2020). The library’s information services “are among the most visited websites in the Federal Government” (The NIH Almanac, 2020, para. 5). Thus, throughout its history, NLM ministers the development and application of innovative approaches to collect, organize, and deliver biomedical data across the world.

National Archives Catalog

The National Archives Catalog is defined as the online portal that provides access to the National Archives’ presidential, federal, and congressional records and information about them. It holds government documents of the United States received or created by Congress, the President, Federal government agencies, and the Federal courts “in the course of their official duties” (The National Archives Catalog, 2021, para. 1). The National Archives Catalog includes descriptions for the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) nationwide holdings in Presidential Libraries, regional facilities, and the Washington, DC area (The National Archives Catalog, 2021). As with any archives catalog, it has a hierarchical structure according to which materials are arranged in particular levels – from the broadest to the narrowest ones. This arrangement help researchers overview the whole collection and examine the aspects of interest in detail.

In the National Archives Catalog, 95% of records are described, and work is still in progress. Thus, new item descriptions, file units, and digital files are added every week. The National Archives Catalog is accessible for people all over the world to research a particular topic or their ancestry through electronic and digitized records, archival descriptions, web pages, and authority records. It may be used in combination with the library of the United States Census Bureau (n.d.), which provides insight into family histories as well. In addition, the portal allows contributing to historical records through transcription and tagging.

Metadata Standards

In general, the term metadata is applied to bibliographic description activities that aim to classify electronic resources. It is standardized descriptive information related to all types of resources (Joudrey & Taylor, 2017). The metadata schema of NLM is based on particular metadata terms established by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative and includes encoding schemes, elements, element refinements, and vocabulary terms (“Creating metadata,” n.d.). It incorporates the DC-Library Application Profile practice recommendations as well. The schema is designed to be applied to the library’s electronic resources and includes additional qualifiers and elements required by NLM, such as permanence ratings for every resource.

NLM has created a set of metadata elements on the basis of standards of descriptive cataloging that are used with all library-published electronic resources. Descriptive cataloging is organized on the basis of DA: Resource Description and Access, and standards are supplemented by the LC-PCC Policy Statements that appeared in the RDA Toolkit (“Standards used in cataloging,” 2020). MARC21 Format for Bibliographic Data is used for the formatting of bibliographic records of the library (“Standards used in cataloging,” 2020). Corporate and personal access points that appear in the majority of cataloging records follow RDA guidelines or previously used Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed. (AACR2) (“Standards used in cataloging,” 2020). At the same time, some headings may reflect cataloging practices used earlier.

All authority records are submitted by NLM to the Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO). In addition, the library applies multi-level description to monographs’ cataloging, including Bibliographic Standard Record (BSR)-level cataloging on the basis of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) standards, full-level descriptive cataloging, and the minimal level of limited cataloging (“Standards used in cataloging,” 2020). Finally, serials are cataloged according to NLM’s minimal level cataloging standard or the guidelines of the CONSER Standard Record (CSR). The details of description levels used by the library in the cataloging of serials and monographs may be found in NLM Cataloging Section: Definition of Cataloging Levels.

Similar to other archival institutions, the National Archives Catalog supports multi-level descriptions. At NARA, “the description of databases, their context and components (data files and documentation files) are organized into a multi-level structure” (Niu, 2016, p. 77). That is why users can follow hyperlinks and navigate the hierarchical structure. The metadata standard of the National Archives Catalog is based on The Lifecycle Data Requirements Guide (LCDRG) provided for archivists to describe organizations, digital objects, persons, and archival records. Applied to the descriptions of authorities and permanent archival materials, it ensures their completeness and consistency.

Metadata Elements

The required elements of NLM metadata schema include title, publisher, date issued, identifier (URL), permanence level, permanence guarantor, language, type, rights, and contact information (e-mail). In turn, optional elements are alternative title, subject (keyword, MeSH, class number, name, title), date created, date original form created, major revision date, identifier (URI, NLM Bib UI, ISSN, ISBN), contributor, mandate, notes, table of contents, edition, abstract, geographical coverage, temporal coverage, audience, all elements of relation, format, contact information (personal name, section affiliation), and change history (“NLM metadata schema,” 2015). The date of the last update and expiration date are elements that are required if applicable. The majority of elements are either approved Dublin Core elements and qualifiers or approved Dublin Core elements with NLM-defined qualifiers (“NLM metadata schema,” 2015). The exceptions are permanence level, permanence guarantor, mandate, contact information (personal name, section affiliation), and change history which are NLM-defined elements.

In the case of the National Archives Catalog, LCDRG contains metadata elements developed for the description of records’ lifecycle. These elements were created on the basis of NARA’s previous standard called Data Elements 800 (DE 800) (“Lifecycle Data Requirements Guide,” 2021). However, as projects are constantly developing, current elements are revised and new ones are added regularly. Similar to other government open portals, the National Archives Catalog uses Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network (CKAN), open-source software that supports a two-level description (Niu, 2016). As a matter of fact, The Catalog’s primary unit is a dataset, and every item within it may be described as well. These items traditionally include data, documentation, and metadata files, and other relevant components. For the dataset level, metadata elements include title, contact, publisher, number of views, access and use information, and so on (Niu, 2016). In turn, for the item level, metadata elements are URL, source, rating, format, number of views, license, creation date, the date of the last update, and so on.

Archival records have several levels of aggregation for their description, including items, file units, series, record groups, and collections. Metadata elements used for the description of materials are traditionally divided into intellectual, physical occurrence, and media occurrence (“Archival materials and related elements,” 2016). The intellectual elements are used for the description of the materials’ content. They include the title, function and use, arrangements, scope and content, control numbers, access and use restrictions, dates, and other access points such as language, subject, geography, and record types (“Archival materials and related elements,” 2016). The physical occurrence elements aim to describe each version or copy of materials and their physical characteristics: the amount, location, containers, and reference unit (“Archival materials and related elements,” 2016). If materials contain media, every piece of it is described with the use of the media occurrence elements. They include the type of media, dimensions, piece and reproduction count, color, and format (“Archival materials and related elements,” 2016). There is a list of mandatory elements for every level.

Metadata Contents

In NLM metadata schema, every metadata element has its content or description. For instance, the element of the alternative title is described as “substitute or alternative names given to the resource, including subtitles, acronyms, translations, etc.” (“NLM metadata schema,” 2015). In the catalog, each element’s framework consists of a table of characteristics, definition relationship, purpose, guidance statements, and examples when appropriate (“Archival materials and related elements,” 2016). Thus, an element’s characteristics may include whether or not it is mandatory, accessible for the public, and repeatable, its length and data type, and the level of availability.

Comparison

In general, both NLM and the National Archives Catalog use browsing structure and metadata-based catalogs to support efficient search and dataset discovery. Moreover, they both include metadata elements with their descriptions and support authority control, entity linking to catalogs, and multi-level description (Niu, 2016). Both metadata systems are accessible to the public all over the world. At the same time, the National Archives Catalog is characterized by a more complex structure and strict hierarchy when every level has its own set of metadata elements. It has a more extended range of metadata elements and this fact is justified by the presence of digital files and records. Nevertheless, the catalog has multiple options – with its user interface; any person may register his personal account, filter, sort, and export search results, download records, and contribute as a citizen archivist.

The metadata system of the National Archives Catalog is similar to other governmental archives’ systems and uses the same standards that may be applied to the description of any archival materials. In turn, NLM metadata schema may be regarded as customized for the library’s resources regardless of its terms is based on the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative standards. The majority of its elements include NLM-defined qualifiers or may be regarded as NLM-defined elements. In general, the structure of the NLM metadata schema is more flexible and specialized in relation to the organization and description of datasets compared with the system used by the National Archives Catalog. Flexibility is determined by the creation of queries that gather various studies into the collection on the basis of matching criteria (Burke, 2020). Moreover, NLM supports poly-hierarchy and provides more comprehensive and simple data access and use.

User Perspective

In general, the use of the NLM catalog may be regarded as slightly comprehensive for the first time due to the large amount of information. In addition, in order to use it, specific knowledge or skills in the area of biomedicine may be required. I have used filters in order to specify what kind of published resources I need and received coherent results. However, their number made me think that I have done something wrong and needed practice. In addition, the library has highly comprehensive guidelines that show how to use it step by step for everyone who is not familiar with electronic libraries. Another advantage of NLM is that it provides the electronic version of files free unless the access is limited.

Using the National Archives Catalog, I have received an opportunity to observe all aspects of this metadata system. Putting a particular concept on search, an individual may see all items, series, and collections related to it. In addition, it is possible to choose the categories of materials available online, web pages, and audio and video records. The description of every material is highly detailed and informative. The National Archives Catalog does not require specific knowledge; however, without practice and the examination of guidelines and recommendations, the initial search for resources may be challenging due to the system’s complexity. In general, the majority of individuals may use both metadata systems for their research. However, it is essential to remember that they both require a particular level of competency in their use. For instance, knowledge in the sphere of information retrieval may be beneficial (Chowdhury, 2019). In other words, it is recommended for any person to get acquainted before searching, as insufficient knowledge may become a barrier to appropriate results.

Works Cited

Archival materials and related elements. (2016,). National Archives.

Burke, J. (2020). Neal-Schuman library technology companion: A basic guide for library staff (6^th ed.). American Library Association.

Chowdhury, G. G. (2019). Introduction to modern information retrieval (3^rd ed.). Facet Publishing.

Creating metadata. (n.d.). Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.

Joudrey, D. N., & Taylor, A. G. (2017). The organization of information (4^th ed.). Library and Information Science Text Series.

Lifecycle Data Requirements Guide. (2021). National Archives.

Niu, J. (2016). Organization and description of datasets. Archives and Manuscripts, 44(2), 73-85.

NLM metadata schema. (2015). National Library of Medicine.

Standards used in cataloging. (2020). National Library of Medicine.

The National Archives Catalog. (2021). About the National Archives Catalog. National Archives.

The NIH Almanac. (2020). National Library of Medicine (NLM). National Institute of Health.

United States Census Bureau. (n.d.).

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