Merging metadata: a sociotechnical study of crosswalking and interoperability

Digital library interoperability relies on the use of a common metadata format. However, implementing a common metadata format among multiple digital libraries is not always a straightforward exercise. This paper reviews some of the metadata issues that arose during the merger of two digital libraries, the Internet Public Library and the Librarian's Internet Index. As part of the merger, each library's metadata was crosswalked to Dublin Core. This required considerable work. A sociotechnical analysis suggests that the metadata for each library had been shaped in complex ways over time by local factors, and that this complexity negatively impacted the efficiency of the crosswalk. Some implications of this finding for digital library interoperability are discussed.