Digital stewardship and art librarianship

In the vein of “Hack your MLIS program: Art Librarianship,” we want to gage the interest of those of you who are working with digital collections (including visual resources) and those of you who want to work with digital collections in art librarianship.

For me, I knew I wanted to work with digital collections and digital projects, and luckily there was a digital librarianship track in my MLIS program. Integrating art librarianship into my track was not difficult with numerous digitization projects happening at museums, libraries, and archives. My current position involves cataloging digital collections (the visual resources collection included) and supervision of digitization projects.

Metadata is a big part of my job and there are a lot of opportunities to learn more about it outside of your MLIS program. However, it’s not just about understanding the multitude of different schemas/standards/vocabularies/ontologies/taxonomies/etc. but understanding crosswalks and how to represent the data in different languages. Currently, my workplace is migrating to Linked Open Data (LOD) and much of the field (both “traditional,” MARC-focused metadata and metadata for digital objects) is moving toward functionality with the semantic web. In order to keep up, I’m taking the Certificate in XML and RDF-Based Systems from Library Juice Academy. There is also the Mechanics of Metadata Series for those of you who might be interested.

Coursework preparation

What are you learning about managing/cataloging digital collections in your classes (or outside of your program)? What do you want to learn? Do you have a digital librarianship track or similar coursework requirements?

I only had one metadata class in my MLIS program but all of my other classes supplemented that knowledge with hands-on practice. There were also a variety of classes that dealt with cataloging items of cultural heritage or data management for larger data gathering projects. Most of what I know about metadata and managing digital collections came from my internships and jobs, however, where institutional standards and practices were also important considerations.

“Real world” preparation

What are you working on in your internships and/or positions? Do you feel prepared to enter the professional field? Or, were you prepared?

Also, many metadata and digital initiatives positions are requiring more technical knowledge, as well as experience with MARC and RDA cataloging. What do you think about this? My coursework and professional experienced has been geared towards management of digital objects with little experience cataloging books and other monographic items. Also, my IT classes were focused on web publishing and design rather than markup languages, which are necessary skills for metadata librarian positions!

Thoughts? Please let us know your experience and share any advice you have!

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