1. Utility of an OAI Service Provider Search Portal
________________
JCDL 2003 Rice University, Houston, Texas May 29, 2003 ____________________ By Sarah L. Shreeves, Christine Kirkham, Joanne Kaczmarek, Timothy W. Cole University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
May 29, JCDL 2003

2. Univ. of Illinois OAI Metadata Harvesting Project (http://oai.grainger.uiuc.edu)
Funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation ( )
Create & demonstrate OAI harvesting tools
Build portal to aggregated cultural heritage metadata
Initially – For testing purposes
Long-term – As a sustained resource
Investigate using EAD metadata in OAI context
Investigate usability & utility of aggregated metadata
May 29, JCDL 2003

3. Content of the repository
1.1 million original Dublin Core records
Representing born-digital and analog resources
2.5 million including records derived from EAD finding aids
Metadata originating from 39 data providers
Academic & digital libraries, museums, archives
Included metadata from 580 institutions
May 29, JCDL 2003

4. Challenges of Aggregated Metadata
Variations in use of DC
SUBJECT
DESCRIPTION
Digital libraries
(10 total, 122,719 records)
78%
36%
Museums, hist. societies, etc. (6 total, 255,800 records)
93%
Academic libraries
(7 total, 235,294 records)
15%
13%
Many different controlled and local vocabularies in use
Granularity: a record may describe a collection of coins — or one coin
May 29, JCDL 2003

5. Strategies for working with heterogeneous metadata
Normalize some aspects (dates) using scripts
Build indexes based on type of resource (image, text, physical object), not institution
Derive item-level descriptions from 8,000 EAD finding aids
________________
Create metadata for interoperability
May 29, JCDL 2003

6. Original interface
Portal has two search pages—simple (keyword) and advanced.
May 29, JCDL 2003

7. Pilot user study with student teachers
23 users in honors-level C&I class
Assignment: Use the site in preparing a lesson plan (high school social studies)
__________
Introduced to “aggregated metadata” concept
Focus group interviews conducted
Students’ papers examined
Transaction logs analyzed
May 29, JCDL 2003

8. Results
1. Users expected that links in all search results would point to digital objects
Some records point to finding aids
Some records point to collection’s web site
Some records represent analog objects
2. Users unable to make use of search results
Keyword searches produced 1000s of results, unranked
Advanced search (with limits) rarely used
3. Owning institutions accorded equal credibility
May 29, JCDL 2003

9. What does “online access” mean?
To librarian & curator
To student teacher
May 29, JCDL 2003

10. Response to test results
EAD-derived records moved to separate portal
All-analog collections excluded
Categories of resource types reduced to 3:
Images and Video
Text, Sheet Music, and Websites
Museums and Archival Collections
May 29, JCDL 2003

11. Revised interface Keyword + advanced search on one page
Clarify “online access”
Natural language in Boolean operators
May 29, JCDL 2003

12. Revised search results
Link goes to finding aid or collection page? “Learn more.”
Link displays object? “View item.”
Subj/Desc expanded
May 29, JCDL 2003

13. Conclusions
Distinction between portal and data providers unimportant to users
Need better definitions of “online access”
More consistent practice in metadata authoring will help users
Continue testing with users
May 29, JCDL 2003

14. Related projects
LSTA-funded Yellow Brick Roads: Developing a Digital Shortcut to Statewide Information (
IMLS Digital Collections and Content (
Build registry of NLG collections with digital content
Build repository of NLG item-level metadata
Research metadata practice & develop models for aggregating metadata from diverse projects
See also
May 29, JCDL 2003

15. Contacts
Univ. of Illinois OAI Metadata Harvesting Project (
Timothy W. Cole, Principal Investigator
Sarah Shreeves, IMLS DCC Project Coordinator
Joanne Kaczmarek, Archivist for Electronic Records
Christine Kirkham, Graduate Assistant
May 29, JCDL 2003