How Serious Is the Special-Collections Legacy-Metadata Problem?

p strongSpecial collections recognize that legacy metadata limits discovery, but half of surveyed departments have no active remediation project./strong/p p Primary Research Group found that no respondent was very satisfied with legacy-metadata quality. A total of 34.62% were satisfied, 38.46% neutral, 19.23% dissatisfied and 7.69% very dissatisfied. At institutions enrolling more than 40,000 students, two-thirds were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied./p p Remediation capacity is limited. Only 19.23% had an active project with adequate status, while 30.77% had an active but under-resourced project and 50% had none. More than one-third reported that at least one-quarter of their metadata required remediation. Staffing was thin: 34.62% had less than one full-time-equivalent employee for creation or remediation./p p Programs should not wait for a perfect collection-wide cleanup. Search logs, reference questions, teaching use and digitization plans can identify the records where better names, dates, rights statements or structure would have the greatest effect. Documenting rules and examples helps temporary staff contribute without creating another inconsistent layer./p p Legacy metadata is not only a technical debt. It determines which people and collections researchers can find. A prioritized remediation plan can therefore improve access, equity and the return on digitization at the same time./p p  /p