Contexts.

The Digital Library North project has been designed with a number of different research contexts in mind. The following pages outline these contexts in detail.

Digital Libraries ~ Metadata ~ Information Needs ~ Cultural Heritage ~ Multilingual User Interfaces ~ User Evaluation ~ Community-Driven Research ~ Partnerships ~ Bibliography

Metadata.

Metadata is an integral part of digital libraries. The National Information Standards Organization (2004) defines metadata as, “structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use, or manage an information resource. Metadata is often called ‘data about data’ or ‘information about information’” (Pope & Holley 2011; see also Parandjuk 2010; Ma 2009; Comeaux 2007). Greenberg (2005) lists the following types of metadata: identification and description, administrative, terms and conditions, content rating, provenance, linkage relationship, and structural. Several metadata standards and formats exist, which include Machine-Readable Cataloguing (MARC), Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) and Encoded Archival Description (EAD) (Shiri & Rathi 2012). Metadata allow users to search the material in digital libraries through multiple access points (e.g. topics, media type, title, authors, etc.), and they are often part of basic or advanced search features. (Parandjuk 2010). There is no ‘one-sizefits- all’ standard for all digital library collections, although efforts have been made to develop and customize elements for knowledge organization purposes. For example, metadata systems developed and studied with specific cultures in mind include: Maori subject headings (NLNZ 2012); Project Naming, created by Library and Archives Canada and the Inuit, the Traditional Micronesian Navigation Collection at the University of Hawaii Library (Smith 2008); the Inuit Tuktu and Nogak project (Thorpe et al. 2001); the Innuinait geographic knowledge project (Collignon & Muller-Wille 2006); Ulukhaktot literacies in the NWT (Balanoff et al. 2009) and a study of the appropriateness of the Brian Deer Classification System to Canadian Indigenous materials (Lee 2011). Nakata et al. (2008) argued that metadata choices need to protect the interests of Indigenous peoples. Although current standards can be used as a basis in the proposed digital library, a study of the suitability and applicability of those standards needs to be conducted to develop a comprehensive, culturally sensitive-and-aware metadata scheme.