Vamp It Up and Make It Better: Auditing and Upgrading Metadata in the UH Digital Library

Since 2009 the University of Houston Libraries have expanded access to the rare and special collections through the University of Houston Digital Library (UHDL). Three years and nearly 50,000 digital items later, UHDL has the potential to be a powerful resource for researchers of all kinds. To facilitate this kind of research, users rely on UHDL metadata to be robust, reliable, retrievable and sharable. While the current state of metadata in the digital library allows for browsing and searching, missing and inconsistent metadata restrict both discoverability and interoperability. As a result of these barriers, the Metadata and Bibliographic Services Department is initiating a project to audit and upgrade the existing metadata produced for the UHDL. This presentation outlines the audit and upgrade process to date. It provides an overview of our methodology, including focus group interviews, data inspection, and benchmarking. It also identifies key recommendations and strategies for upgrading the existing UHDL metadata, including guidelines for future UHDL metadata creation. The presentation is designed to offer suggestions to other institutions interested in conducting a metadata audit. It also encourages audience members to share other tools and techniques to implement an audit.