Inheriting Messy Metadata: Acquiring an Institutional Repository from Non-Librarians
In early 2024, the University of Nevada, Reno Libraries began the process of acquiring the university’s Institutional Repository (IR) from a separate campus entity that was not associated with the Libraries. As a part of the acquisition process, the Libraries assessed the IR’s current content management system and metadata, migrated the repository to a newer version of DSpace, created new workflows for the submission and ingest process, and rebranded the system. The new IR was officially launched in October 2024 with the understanding that work on the system would continue through 2025.
This presentation will specifically examine the metadata cleanup process conducted by the Libraries, with the unique perspective of acquiring an IR from non-information professionals. It will discuss: assessing and standardizing metadata in OpenRefine, reorganizing collections and objects, and implementing quality checking within the submission/ingest process. The presenter will reflect on what did and did not work during the process and make suggestions on how to effectively handle and IR migration that requires large amounts of metadata cleanup.