A Model and Roles of a Common Terminology to Improve Metadata Interoperability

Interoperability issues pose a barrier to sharing and exchanging information among digital libraries and repositories. This is due to the use of diverse metadata standards, and their different degrees of generality or specificity. This causes loss of information at all metadata model levels (e.g., schema, schema language, record, and repository). As a possible solution, the roles for a Common Terminology (CT) based on the DCMI abstract model are proposed. The Common Terminology (CT) improves interoperability by allowing communities to use their own standards while providing uniformity to searching. Taking commonly used standards (MARC, MODS, DC, and QDC) as bases, CT reduces the gaps among them, minimizing loss of information at multiple levels. Empirical evaluations of the CT are conducted with Harvard (MARC), MIT (QDC), and UIUC (MARCXML) metadata records through cooperation of three universities in the USA.