[Sigia-l] Sanity Check, part 2: citations of "user centered metadata"

[kalbach at scils.rutgers.edu]

Peter,

I don't know of specific references to help you, but this might shed some
light into why you're having difficulty searching through more traditional
library/indexing literature (as Tanya mentioned):

1. Most librarians don't create new classification/metadata schemes. They
are focused on mastering existing systems (e.g. Dewey, LC, LCSH, etc.)

2. Librarianship has traditionally taken a content-centered approach to
organisation/classification, not a user-centered approach.

(These are two key differences between IA work and librarianship, BTW.)

You'll find mentions of "asking people" and such in Dublic Core literature
and elsewere (I think the NISO standard for thesauri has a sentence or
two), but there are no grand theories of "user-centered metadata" coming
from the library world that I know of. I believe it's really up to IAs to
further define and move the concept forward, (which we seem to be doing).

Cheers,
Jim