Highlights of the Survey on Metadata Standards and Best Practices for Chinese E-Resources

1. Highlights of the Survey on Metadata Standards and Best Practices for Chinese E-Resources Susan Xue, UC Berkeley March 25, 2014

2. Background • CEAL established the Task Force on Metadata Standard and Best Practice (CEAL ERMB) in November 2013 to tackle issues related to discovering and accessing CJK e-resources • The ERMB conducted a survey between January 24 – February 21, 2014 • Vendor/Publisher version of the Survey was sent to 33 vendors in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the U.S., 10 responses received • Library version of the survey was sent via CEAL and CALA and other listserv, 54 responses (Chinese studies) received

3. Findings in four areas • Metadata provided by vendors and wish to receive by librarians, for non-index databases and continuing databases • Vendors and librarians’ view on relationship between metadata and link resolution services • What standards and best practices followed by vendors and what standards and best practices librarians wish them to follow • Difficulties in promoting metadata standards and best practices

4. Findings – metadata services provided and received • Most vendors provide basic metadata, such as current title list, author, data and place of publication, and publisher for non-index databases; and newly added titles for continuing databases • Few vendors provide either “Free brief Marc” or “Fee-based Marc” records • For non-index databases, librarians’ top 5 in wish-list is different from what vendors provided: full-level Marc records, automatic error report mechanism, subject headings and URL checking services • For metadata other than current title list and URL, librarians’ wish list is almost the same with what vendors provided but in different order • For continuing resources, there is a large distance between what tracking metadata vendors have provided and what tracking metadata librarians wish to receive

5. Highlights of vendors’ responses – metadata services provided

6. Librarians’ responses – metadata received and wish to receive Top 5 Top 5

7. Librarians’ responses – metadata other than current titles and URL received and wish to receive Top 10 Top 10

8. Librarians’ responses – tracking metadata received and wish to receive

9. Findings – relationship between metadata and link resolution services • It seems a new area to both vendors and librarians. 50% of the vendors never interacted with such services; 40% of librarians have not used or not clear about such service • When knowing the services, vendors are willing to provide metadata at some level either free or with a fee • 44% of librarians surveyed used records created by such services, which seems not widely used

10. Findings – what standards to follow • Some of the standards that vendors are following was ranked low in librarians list, such as AACR2, and other classification (Chinese classification scheme?) • There is discrepancy between what standards vendors followed and what standards librarians thought vendors followed • RDA is a new standard implemented in North America that vendors may be not aware of • Library of Congress Subject heading is a standard that is important to librarians but ranked low in vendors list

11. Highlights of vendors’ responses – standards followed & are interested in following Top 5 Top 5

12. Librarians responses – standards followed and hope vendors to follow Top 5 Top 5

13. Findings – difficulties in promoting metadata standards • Both vendors (50%) and librarians (65%) agree that complying with standards will increase product cost • Both vendors (30%) and librarians (55%) thought that vendors have no metadata expertise to provide certain metadata or follow the standards • Majority (59%) of librarians and 1/3 vendors surveyed thought it would be more feasible to comply with standards for future products, not for existing ones • About half the librarians (48%) and vendors (40%) surveyed thought such metadata don’t accommodate the needs of CJK resources/scripts • Many librarians (42%) and 1/3 vendor surveyed thought such metadata don’t necessarily eliminate problems • Majority of the librarians (63%) surveyed agree that it is tough to communicate with CJK vendors in making changes

14. Vendors and librarians’ responses – reasons not to follow standards