Cataloging and Metadata Commons^™

Searching Smarter, Connecting Better, Abby Veiman

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: White Papers

In Searching Smarter, Connecting Better, Abby Veiman reflects on her experience as a data-driven researcher to reimagine the future of research libraries. Drawing from her work as an Ameritas Research Assistant in Actuarial Science and Risk Management, she highlights how modern research is increasingly digital, analytical, and dependent on technological infrastructure rather than physical materials. Veiman argues that libraries must continue evolving beyond access to databases by strengthening technological capacity, supporting responsible AI integration, and providing clearer guidance on the effective and ethical use of emerging research tools. She emphasizes the need for libraries to serve as trusted institutions …

An Autoethnographic Study Of A Technical Services Librarian’S Teaching Journey During The Tenure Track: “Define Myself For Myself To Both Survive And Thrive”, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

This autoethnographic study explores the disorienting dilemma that a technical services librarian experienced while alternating between working behind the scenes to fulfill professional responsibilities and teaching in the library to meet organizational expectations as a faculty member. The analysis of personal data accumulated during the tenure track period reveals three themes: teaching as learning to become, teaching as learning to challenge the system, and teaching as learning to research. Reflection focuses on three themes interconnected by the concept and practice of mindful learning. With the acknowledgement of limitations, this autoethnography concludes it was the self-reflective lifelong learning mindset that helped …

Session E: Engaging Community In The Creation Of Gen Ai Tools, Alexis Braun Marks, Lee Dotson, Jennifer Saville

Learning Together at the Forefront of Change: GenAI Summit 2026

In February 2025 the Eastern Michigan University Archives joined the JSTOR initiative Project Odyssey as a beta community partner. The intention of Project Odyssey was to: “leverage generative AI to assist libraries and archives in processing their digital collections. This solution addresses frequent bottlenecks in the creation of descriptive metadata—a vital component for preserving and making collections discoverable.”

Two members of the JSTOR team, Jennifer Saville and Lee Dotson, will join EMU Archivist Alexis Braun Marks to share the experience of working with the tool; how JSTOR involves community members in the creation, testing and evolution of tools; and the …

A Sample Teaching Portfolio For Technical Services Librarians, Junli Diao

Open Educational Resources

This teaching portfolio only includes the author’s perspectives and practices on one-shot library classes, workshops, and LibGuides. The goal is to offer technical services librarians some insights.

Reawakening Waⁿdat: Community Research & Reclamation, Darcy Allred

Theses and Dissertations

The Wyandot(te) have undergone language dormancy due to settler colonial impacts of warfare, refugee relocation, forced removals, and U.S. assimilation projects. One of the most pressing priorities among our people today is reawakening our ancestral language, Waⁿdat. The common follow-up question is: how? Through the conduit of Waⁿdat language reclamation, this project grapples with the above question in collaboration with the Wyandot(te) community, and in adherence to the tribal sovereignty of the Wyandotte Nation. The project engages with diasporic perspectives, community-based pedagogy design, and tribally specific research protocols and policies. The living collective knowledgebase with which I engage in this …

Dataset For "Ground-Truthing The Core Competencies In Cataloging And Metadata", Michael J. Monaco

University Research

This is the dataset for a research article submitted to Cataloging & Classification Quarterly. It consists of 109 anonymized cataloging and metadata job advertisements published from 2019-2021 in various online venues such as ALA JobList or distributed via email in discussion lists such as AUTOCAT, CODE4LIB, TSLIBRARIANS, etc. These ads were read and scored for their inclusion of the ALCTS Core Competencies for Cataloging and Metadata Professionals (CCC&M) as well as for some additional elements for analysis (type of job, type of institution) and other preferred or required qualifications, as well as whether salaries or remote work options were mentioned. …

A Digitized History Of Undergraduate Student Government At The University Of Akron, Samuel Stillion

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The digitization process of a representative sample of the physical records of the University of Akron's Undergraduate Student Government held in the University Archives and Special Collections, including notes for future archive projects with the larger records of Undergraduate Student Government

Generative Ai For Born-Digital Collections: A Case Study For Metadata Management In An Institutional Repository, Tang (Cindy) Tian

Journal Articles

This case study examines the application of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, specifically ChatGPT-4o, ChatGPT-5, and Google Gemini 2.5 Flash, to streamline metadata extraction and creation for a born-digital collection within a digital repository environment. Testing four descriptive metadata elements—titles, abstracts, keywords, and full-text URLs—the study shows that AI improves efficiency in structured tasks but remains limited in semantic ones such as keyword matching. Results demonstrate that AI can streamline metadata workflows for small or resource-constrained institutions while emphasizing the continuing importance of human oversight and ethical responsibility in AI-assisted metadata workflows.

The Hunt For "Dragon Shards Of Knowledge": A Study On The Information Needs Of The Mmorpg Community, Jessamy Hallie

School of Information Student Research Journal

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the information needs and information-seeking behaviors of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) information community. To evaluate and define these needs and behaviors a literature review of research contributions published by established information professionals studying MMORPG and video game players was performed. The results showed that the MMORPG community is considerably understudied and lacking sufficient library programming and educational opportunities compared to other communities. It also revealed their dependence on collaboration and the promotion of social connection between members. Their shared goals and common interests helped to facilitate members’ information-seeking and …

Why Every Librarian Is A Ux Librarian, Alison Johnson

School of Information Student Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Guiding Scholarship, Together: A Collaborative Accomplishment, Pearl Kim

School of Information Student Research Journal

No abstract provided.

How To Describe A Massacre? A Collaborative Metadata Justice Project, Bailey Hoffner, Eugene Albin, Jennifer Watson, Jay Shorten, Jacquelyn Slater Reese, Todd Fuller, Karie Antell

Collaborative Librarianship

Throughout the summer of 2020 and into the following fall, a cross-unit working group at the University of Oklahoma Libraries (OU Libraries) collaborated to compile and submit a proposal to change the Library of Congress Subject Heading (LCSH) Tulsa Race Riot, Tulsa, Okla., 1921 to Tulsa Race Massacre, Tulsa, Okla., 1921. The working group members situated this project in the context of the metadata justice movement, which seeks to correct problematic descriptions. They also see this proposal as part of the broader work undertaken over many decades by Tulsa activists and community leaders. This successful proposal required working group …

Archives West At Twenty Years: Sustainability Through Community, Jodi Allison-Bunnell, Maija Anderson, Trevor J. Bond

Collaborative Librarianship

Archives West is a regional aggregation of descriptions of archival collections held by institutions in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West. While many similar regional aggregations have struggled to reach sustainability, Archives West is one of a few that is fully funded by its participants, and continues to grow in both scale and scope. We hypothesize that there are unique cultural qualities of the Archives West community that have supported its growth, including a philosophy of empowering participants, transparent budget processes, clear statement of value to resource providers, and maintaining expectations that all institutions will contribute through service and fees.

Volume 45, Number 4, December 2025 Olac Newsletter, Laura Kane Mcelfresh, Lora Ericson, Michael Herrick, Tanesa G. King, Amanda Mack, Jan Mayo, Lisa Romano, Janelle Zetty

OLAC Newsletters

December 2025 issue of the OLAC Newsletter.

Accuracy Matters: Evaluating The Value Of Ai Tools For Summaries In Metadata, Emily Baldoni, Angela Yon

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

Since the introduction of ChatGPT in 2022, the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence on library workflows has been a topic of immense interest—and sometimes anxiety—in the library profession. In the area of cataloging and metadata, one frequently cited potential use for AI (particularly Large Language Models (LLMs)) is constructing summaries and abstracts of information resources. However, very little systematic assessment has been done of the characteristics, quality, and utility of AI-generated abstracts for library materials, leaving information professionals with little evidence on which to make data-driven decisions as to how, if at all, to implement AI-assisted workflows for this aspect …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Tracking Removed And At-Risk Government Information, Molly Blake, Sanga Sung, Ben Amata, Jenny Mcburney

SJSU Open Access Conference

The current U.S. administration is intentionally undermining public access to information as well as scholarly research by removing documents, reports, datasets, images, and language from government websites. In doing so, this administration is withholding publicly-funded information that we have a right to access, including data from government-sponsored research, historical information about marginalized groups, and speech transcripts. In removing these materials, the government is also deliberately sabotaging research related to topics it does not like, such as LGBTQ health, COVID, and climate change.

It is difficult to grasp the scope of this problem: how do we know when something is gone, …

Access Denied: Defending Research In A Shrinking Scholarly Landscape, Emily Kingsland

SJSU Open Access Conference

In early 2025, the U.S. Department of Education announced a reduction in the indexing of key journals in the ERIC database. As government censorship increasingly threatens the accessibility of educational research, librarians are emerging as critical defenders of open access and research transparency. This presentation reports on the proactive efforts of a Canadian academic librarian who developed actionable workarounds to address the disappearance of articles from ERIC. These missing records pose a significant challenge to researchers conducting knowledge syntheses, who face a reporting and reproducibility crisis when search results fluctuate or shrink without explanation. The implications are profound: systematic reviews …

Navigating Nih’S Revised Public Access Policy: On-The-Ground Experiences From Librarians And Researchers, Anneliese Taylor, Katie Fortney, Tim Vollmer

SJSU Open Access Conference

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) rolled out its revised Public Access Policy on July 1, 2025, in accordance with the 2022 Office of Science and Technology Policy Nelson Memo. The Nelson Memo calls on all U.S. federal funders to implement a policy requiring immediate public access to published articles and supporting datasets resulting from federal grants. On the surface, NIH’s new policy is a public good, ensuring that federally funded research outputs will no longer be held back from public access for 12 months after publication. But the implementation mechanisms of this new policy for researchers and publishers …

Metadata Wrangling At Scale: One Librarian's Quest To Tame Our Electronic Theses Collection, Zeineb Yousif

Librarian Posters and Presentations

What does eight years, partnerships with your ILL and Cataloging departments, and several student workers get you? Amazing progress on your quest to digitize 140 years worth of theses and dissertations completed at your university! But also...real quality control struggles. This presentation will share lessons learned from a large scale retrospective digitization project including how to coordinate across departments and staffing changes, avoid duplicating effort, and use digital tools like Excel and OpenRefine to identify and correct metadata errors after the fact.