Creating Metadata for Children's Resources: Issues, Research, and Current Developments

Abstract

A key challenge to retrieval in any type of system is how to represent the resources appropriately so that the user(s) can fi nd what they are looking for. In systems being used by children, as well as those designed specifi cally for children, there exist two fundamental representation problems: (1) the metadata or representation scheme of the system may not be designed with this specifi c user group in mind, and (2) few age-appropriate controlled vocabularies exist for use in creating metadata. Existing research in these two problem areas and the impact on the users' information seeking and retrieval experiences are presented. Current projects and developments, and the contribution that the users themselves can provide, will give the reader further insight into the issues and potential opportunities for research and application.

Still a Lot to Lose: The Role of Controlled Vocabulary in Keyword Searching

“…June Abbas, in writing about the creation of metadata for children's resources, notes that there is a significant body of research into adults' use of information systems, but there is much less research into children's understandings of such systems, or into use of their search terms as a source for controlled vocabulary. 115 Abbas posits that development of age-appropriate representations of objects is necessary for good retrieval. 116 She describes a study using the ARTEMIS Digital Library, a collection designed to provide high-quality age-appropriate resources for middle and high school science students.…”

“There is a gorilla holding a key on the book cover”: Young children's known picture book search strategies

“…To simulate the information search process and provoke young children to provide more descriptions, we selected some “error return” picture books for each research picture book. According to related studies (Abbas, 2005; Beak, 2014; Druin et al, 2001) and our discussion with children's librarians, we selected picture books similar to the research picture books in the story, characters, book cover, shape, or paperback/hardback (see Figure 1).…”

“…Realizing that existing catalogs and classification schemes are not suitable for children (Abbas, 2005(Abbas, , 2008Cooper, 2002;Hutchinson et al, 2005;Kaplan et al, 2012), many researchers have proposed child-oriented book information organization methods and metadata.…”

“…At age 3, children begin to interact with information systems and conduct information searches (Danby et al, 2016;Given et al, 2016;Hutchinson et al, 2005;Spink et al, 2010). However, they often have trouble searching for information because the way information is organized does not match their abilities or needs (Abbas, 2005(Abbas, , 2008Beak, 2014;Beak & Olson, 2011). To develop information organization schemas appropriate for children, some researchers have attempted to uncover their information search strategies (Beak, 2014;Druin et al, 2001;Hutchinson et al, 2005).…”

An Exploratory Study of School-Age Children's Use of a Heterogeneous Resource Site

“…June Abbas investigated tagging (or "user-defined controlled vocabularies," in her terminology) as a means of improving searching for children. 11,12 She used children's search terms to develop a language of description of materials. This type of work is useful for developing hierarchical navigation systems and descriptions of documents that are more appropriate for young information seekers.…”