The Digital Library Federation has been given a $18,000 by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation grant to investigate the use of metadata tools to improve access to cultural heritage materials.
Here's an excerpt from the press release:
The assessment will be done within DLF Aquifer, a Digital Library Federation initiative focused on making digital content—especially cultural heritage materials pertinent to American culture and life—easier for scholars to find and use. The grant will enable a metadata librarian and a library school intern to identify tools that could be used to improve metadata for digital material that is difficult to find and use . . . .
DLF Aquifer has developed a set of implementation guidelines designed to make metadata more effective in aggregations. To assist libraries, archives, and other cultural heritage organizations in meeting the guidelines, DLF Aquifer proposes to offer a range of mapping and remediation services. Although a number of discrete prototypes such as date normalization and topical clustering tools have been developed, these tools are not yet robust enough to be used in production for reliable results. DLF proposes to inventory existing tools and examine the feasibility of developing these tools into production services.
