Japanese E-resource Metadata Issues

Haruko Nakamura Yale University Library

Workshop on Electronic Resources Standards and Best PracticesCEAL annual meeting pre-conference workshop, 25 March 2014, Philadelphia

Outline

Issues: Lack of resources and awareness

Scarce e-resources / contents

No/Poor metadata ebooks aggregated databases

Lack of proper procedures and communication

Scarce e-resources / contentsIndexing databases are still dominantSmall number of e-books and e-journalsVery few front list titles ( 新刊 ) are published as

ebooks

↓Majority of e-books have been already published in

print and many libraries already own them. Therefore, not many libraries purchase e-books, thus

they are not yet familiar with the Japanese e-book market.

Metadata & FunctionsLack of individual links of e-journals and e-

books providedFew vendors provide MARC records for OPACGood MARC records, but poor interface

function Confusion of diverse presentation of e-

resources (interfaces, access points, metadata, etc.)

eBooks Around 10,000 Japanese commercial e-books

available and still growing (mostly science subjects) Availability of MARC records is not consistent

(Many Japanese university libraries use CATP format records instead of MARC records)

Good MARC records, but poor interface function Transliterated headings Series headings Volume number Subject headings Collections base links

MARC record sample – Beautiful!

No transliterations

No series access pointsNo subject access points

No volume numbers

“ 新日本古典文学大系” as series

No Series access points

Aggregated Databases e-books and e-journals in one database No MARC records are providedProvides metadata in discovery tools, but..No direct links to individual titles or to

several individual interfaces Insufficient metadata?

No ISBN, published year, transliterated titles, etc.

Lack of proper procedures and communicationContent updates (added, deleted and

changes of titles, etc.)Who takes care of this and what?

Communication with e-resources librarians (internal)

Vendors and publishersJapanese resources in databases purchased by

outside of East Asia Library? (ex. Medical*Online, Factiva)

Annals of Gunma University Graduate School of Health

Sciences [Ja] ( 群馬保健学紀要 )

Other e-resource issues

Certain contents in database are not available outside Japan

Users have to install client softwareDifficult license agreementsUsage statistics not being availablePrice

Future Access at Yale Univ.

Knowledge base

Discovery Service

E-journal and E-book MARC

records in catalog

E-journal A-Z list

Database A-Z list Link Resolver

Conclusion - Working Together WithLibrarians (liaison to users)

andPublishers and Vendors (content creators)

↓ Increase access points of e-resources Improve awareness of e-resources among users Increase the use of e-resources Librarians can justify subscriptions of e-

resources Everyone wins!

Thank you!