Metadata Interoperability Part 2

Extensibility also affects interoperability semantics. Extensibility refers to the ability to include additional metadata elements specific to the needs of a community. The individual metadata creators subjectively determine these inclusions and exclusions. Consequently, extensibility usually exhibits an inverse relationship to interoperability in that the additional metadata elements often cause the metadata to become less understandable to other systems (Taylor, 2004, p. 144).

Incompatible vocabularies are another common factor affecting interoperability that is most apparent when users try to search across metadata or among different institutions such as libraries, archives, and museums. Different organizations often use different or highly specialized vocabularies. For example, one institution, such as a public library, may index a resource using common names whereas another institution, such as a medical lab, may index using scientific names. As a result, the use of more specialized vocabularies must be taken into consideration when working with metadata. In addition to vocabulary, multiple languages also affect interoperability, especially when searching the world wide web. Controlled vocabularies and translations via multilingual thesauri are effective yet limited in their ability to remedy discrepancies (Caplan, 2003, p. 42).

The representation of the metadata elements can also differ, even when the element definitions are identical, since data can be recorded various ways. For example, one set of metadata records may depict an author’s name as “Smith, Jane A.” whereas another set of metadata records may use “Smith, J.A.” for the same author. Consequently, a keyword search on “Jane Smith” would only retrieve records from the first set of metadata records, not the second (Caplan, 2003, p. 42).


References

Caplan, P. (2003). Metadata fundamentals for all libraries. Chicago: American Library Association.
Taylor, A.G. (2004). The organization of information (2nd ed.). Westport, CN: Libraries Unlimited.