A Theory of Metadata Enriching and Filtering

What is it about?

This paper presents a new theory of metadata enriching and filtering. The theory emerged from a rigorous grounded theory data analysis of 57 in-depth interviews with metadata experts, library and information science researchers, librarians as well as academic library users (G. Alemu, A Theory of Digital Library Metadata: The Emergence of Enriching and Filtering, University of Portsmouth PhD thesis, Portsmouth, 2014). Partly due to the novelty of Web 2.0 approaches and mainly due to the absence of foundational theories to underpin socially constructed metadata approaches, this research adapted a social constructivist philosophical approach and a constructivist grounded theory method (K. Charmaz, Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis, SAGE Publications, London, 2006). The theory espouses the importance of enriching information objects with descriptions pertaining to the about-ness of information objects. Such richness and diversity of descriptions, it is argued, could chiefly be achieved by involving users in the metadata creation process. The theory includes four overarching metadata principles – metadata enriching, linking, openness and filtering. The theory proposes a mixed metadata approach where metadata experts provide the requisite basic descriptive metadata, structure and interoperability (a priori metadata) while users continually enrich it with their own interpretations (post-hoc metadata). Enriched metadata is inter- and cross-linked (the principle of linking), made openly accessible (the principle of openness) and presented (the principle of filtering) according to user needs.

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