Survey results

Thanks to those who completed the survey! I’ve uploaded an Excel spreadsheet if you’d like to view the complete findings. Read on for a summary.

Summary: Topics

73% of respondents indicated that they wished to discuss resources that addressed a mix of introductory and abstract metadata concepts, as opposed to discussing resources that provide an introductory study (23%) or resources that provide an abstract argument (3%).

Survey respondents were asked to rate their interest in listed metadata topics as either “very interested,” “interested,” or “not interested.” Survey respondents are most interested in linked data, FRBR, the relationship between authority control and linked data. Other topics of interest include legacy data, user-contributed metadata, cloud computing, archives metadata, special collections metadata, still and moving image metadata, among others.

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Summary: Format

Survey respondents were asked to rate their interest in meeting formats as either “very interested,” “interested,” or “not interested.” 71% of respondents answering the question are “very interested” in viewing and discussing a metadata creation tool. Results indicate that respondents are amenable to most other meeting formats. Reading an article and discussing it received the most “not interested” (23%) responses, with 8% “very interested” and 70% “interested.”

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Summary: Venue

An overwhelming majority (93%) felt that meeting locations should meet the needs of that month’s topic and format, regardless of location. Each of the three free-text comments recommended that multimedia be incorporated into meetings, which would require a computer with projector.

Of specific venues listed (respondents could choose one or more), 16 respondents selected Wells Library 043. Wells Library W302 (selected by 13 respondents), Wells Library Staff Lounge (selected by 11 respondents) and Wells Library E174 (selected by 10 respondents) were also popular venue choices. Free-text responses for “Other” indicated no opinion (1) or that the location should be dependent upon topic and/or equipment needs (4).

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Summary: Group engagement

The final questions gauged usage and awareness of the Metadata Discussion Group listserv and blog, as well as frequency of meeting attendance and opinions on whether the group should consider a name change. There were seven free-text responses to the group name question. Three name suggestions were “Metadata Spectrum,” “Metadata Interest Group,” and “Metadata Roundtable.” The rest of the comments fell into two categories: the respondent did not have a suggestion (3) or that the current name uninteresting (1).

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Attendance frequency - Click to view larger	Group name change - Click to view larger