Increasing metadata usability for the New Zealand Cartoon Archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library

Abstract

Twenty-first-century researchers are applying new methods of computational analysis, such as topic modelling, to data retrieved from library catalogues. Consequently, libraries should understand the way in which their metadata delivery decisions impact on the potential use of the collection. This article is an account of digital humanities research in the collection of the New Zealand Cartoon Archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library, using the Digital New Zealand application program interface to test the current metadata delivery system. The article is therefore essentially a case study with some suggestions that may have wider applicability. Greater transparency needs to occur in the nature and extent of the digital offering, the data offered needs to be checked for usability and it needs to be considered as one of many offerings made to researchers. We propose listening to researcher feedback, thereby extending the life cycle of digital data beyond monodirectional delivery. Furthermore, because many issues are not discovered until metadata is unlocked for reuse, we argue that it is beholden on libraries either to seek the feedback of researchers analysing their data or to road-test their own metadata’s structure and delivery.