Evaluation of metadata change in authority data over time: An effect of a standard evolution

Abstract

Information community creates, maintains and shares authority data through large‐scale databases of standardized digital records that describe persons, institutions, places, events, and works, as well as relations between them. This submission presents some results of the content analysis study that explores the authority data change over time in response to change in standards. We analysed over 400 thousand of authority records that comply to the new standard, Resource Description and Access (RDA) and are available through the OCLC database. Records were obtained at two data collection points, with an interval of 22 months. Our analysis identified RDA‐based authority data elements that are widely applied and the ones that need more attention by record creators. Findings reveal a significant increase over time in the level of application of some data elements, including several of the Linked Data‐enabling elements. This study contributes to the understanding of metadata change and its relation to functionality of authority records and improved information access. Directions for future research are suggested.

Patterns of Subject Metadata Change in MARC 21 Bibliographic Records for Video Recordings

“…Major changes in metadata standards usually prompt change in existing metadata records to bring them to conformance with the new standards (e.g., Thornburg & Oskins, 2007). Several studies examined the change in small samples of library metadata records in response to transition to RDA (Zavalina, Shakeri, & Kizhakkethil, 2015; Zavalina, Zavalin, & Miksa, 2016b; Zavalina and Zavalin, 2018). The only study so far that focused specifically on change over time in subject metadata in RDA‐based bibliographic records (Zavalina, Shakeri, & Kizhakkethil, 2016a) relied on a small sample and did not examine any changes in records after 2015.…”