OCLC has released part two (of three) of the research report, Social Metadata for Libraries, Archives and Museums. Part I: Site Reviews was released in September. Part II: Survey Analysis was released this month.
If you don’t have time to read the whole 73-page report, the Overview and Trends and Themes are worth a look. A few findings that jumped out at me:
- Sites are increasingly multi-media; although still images and text predominate among the responding sites, more than a third also offer moving images and audio. Archives are a predominant source of content.
- More than half of the survey respondents use a controlled vocabulary on their sites.
- Only half of respondents indicated that they show users tags already in the system. A third combine user-contributed tags with their own controlled terms.
- Most respondents index user-supplied metadata; most user-supplied content is searchable. More than half correct existing metadata as the result of user contributions. However, a minority incorporates metadata into their own description workflows and incorporates user-contributed content into their own sites.
- A number of respondents are integrating their sites into institution’s production services rather than being dependent on external or temporary funding sources.
- Usability testing tends to be done later in a site’s life cycle rather than as part of the development stage.