Developing Metadata for Intranets-Reply Summaries

[Absher, Linda (absher)]

[Cross posted to DIGLIBNS]

	Approximately two weeks ago I posted a message looking for libraries
that have gone through the process of developing metadata for their
intranets, preferably ones that have developed their own subject terms and
document type metadata.  The message generated enough responses for me to
post replies I've received; unfortunately, it's not much, with one exception:

Ken Varnun with Ford Motor Company's Research Library writes:

>We...did a large project like this last summer.  We went through a fairly
lengthy iterative process >of building a taxonomy, trying to fit our
resources into it, then creating narrower terms where >actual data showed we
had too broad a concept, and broader terms where there was nothing to put in.
>The original taxonomy was based strongly on how our users looked for
information when they walked >into the physical library or e-mailed
questions.

>We relied on our expertise to develop the rough hierarchy (we ended up with
a fairly small thesaurus, >using only about 30 terms), deciding that, for our
users needs, it was better to err on the side of >too much information per
topic than too little.  Experience with our users showed that they tended to
>give up if they didn't find something - anything - in the first place they
looked.  Thus, the >relatively broad subject areas.

>Other organizations within Ford who have formal responsibility for
organizing the Intranet have much >more detailed thesaurus and metadata
taxonomies, which we used as a starting point but did not feel >met our
needs.

>I think the important thing we learned was to let the way the users want to
use the site drive its >organization.  The tendency among us librarians here
was to create a thorough and carefully designed >thesaurus first, and less to
be concerned with the way it would impact our users.  

I received a few citations for articles about metadata:

Doran, Kelly. "Metadata for a Corporate Intranet", Online, Jan/Feb 1999, v.
23, no. 1.  pp. 43-50.

and

Stanek, William Robert. "Meta Tags Target Your Pages", PC Magazine, July 1,
1999, p.253.

I also received queries about what we are doing; of particular interest is
that we have developed an in-house tool that attaches metadata to all
documents published on our intranet.  Publishers must run the tool and fill
out the metadata fields before publishing documents, otherwise they will not
display.  A more detailed description will appear in an article in the
Sept/Oct 1999 issue of IntraNet Professional  We also have a website that has
links to handouts, notes and a presentation about our metadata and intranet
at 
http://www.teleport.com/~petlin/onlinenw99/

LInda

--
Linda Absher / absher at sequent.com / 503.578.3485
Intranet Librarian / Sequent Computer Systems / Beaverton, OR
"The more I read, the more questions I have. Every time I pass a library I
get an anxiety attack."  --SeaQuest DSV