MS/LIS student Katie Colson and Cora Godfrey (MS/LIS '22) won first prize for their paper at the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) conference's student forum. The conference, which supports innovation in metadata design and best practices across the metadata ecology, was held virtually on October 3-7.
In the paper, "Makerspace Metadata Schema," the students discussed their project to use metadata to create a more navigable workspace for the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab. For the project, they developed a metadata schema—labeling system used for recording cataloging information—that will create a structure and organization to allow findability, while remaining simple to use for Fab Lab staff and patrons. Teaching Assistant Professor Inkyung Choi served as supervisor for their work.
"From our content analysis of the Fab Lab's resources, we were able to develop a guideline that would help staff know what information to collect in order to help their resources become more findable," said Godfrey, who is now working as a library specialist at the University of Texas at Austin.
The students focused on developing the guideline outside of any hosting platform to allow for flexibility. Colson, who continues to work with the Fab Lab on the project, will use the schema they created as information architecture for the lab's website and establish metadata that will allow for nuanced searching of their terms.
"I was excited to pursue this project because my area of interest is in knowledge organization, specifically working to find the best way to create a web of information to connect people to resources," she said. "I want to pursue that goal through cataloging or metadata work with the goal of helping libraries move into the future. I envision an interconnected library with the ability to connect patrons easily to diverse, in-depth, multi-perspective, and accurate resources."