Unlocking the Past: Advancing Discoverability of Gale Primary Sources

|By Magaly Taylor, Discovery and Usage Product Manager, Gale│

Archives provide valuable access to the past, enabling educators and researchers in the humanities and social sciences to incorporate historical collections into their work. Primary source archives products are invaluable for research and learning, encapsulating entire historical periods through diverse content like manuscripts, images, and publications.

This blog post explores the use of metadata to discover primary source content and Gale’s activities to enhance the discoverability of their eResources.

Access to Archives

Access to archives materials is a complex issue. When digitisation began around the 2000s, it was widely viewed as a way to improve access for individuals who cannot physically access them for whatever reason, i.e., distance, mobility, eligibility, etc.

With time, other benefits of digitisation have arisen. It has served as a conservation tool, allowing viewing of documents while protecting the originals. Additionally, digitisation supports researchers by enabling data mining exercises crucial for uncovering hidden treasures within an archive.

The Gale Primary Sources portfolio contains over 170 million pages of historical documents in 96 collections and 495 Archives Unbound modules. Gale’s portfolio features content from well-known publishers, newspapers, original first-hand material, and continually launches new content.

Gale’s products encompass various content types sourced from private collections, organisational collections, state collections, self-published materials, and independent collections. The portfolio includes content in 30 different languages, including native American. Notably, the oldest document from the Sabin Americana archive, dates back to 1476.

In the transition from print to electronic archives, we can identify four key points that enhance discoverability:

1. The Archives Themselves: Access to archives is only possible if they exist. Therefore, it is fundamental to acknowledge the essential role of archivists in establishing and maintaining archives.
2. The Platforms Hosting Digital Archives: The interaction between end users and the content hosted on these platforms is critical.  Alfier & Feliciati¹ studied web-based archives, emphasising their quality and characterising them as complex interdisciplinary spaces designed to improve access and usability. According to the authors, these web-based archives engage with multiple fields, including archival science, cognitive science, information science, human-computer interaction, user-centered design, and information and communication representation techniques. These disciplines work together to advance beyond traditional methods of archival mediation.
3. Metadata for the Archives: Metadata plays a vital role in providing consistent descriptions of resources. Alemu & Stevens² noted that “metadata standards improve the findability, identification, selection, acquisition, and exploration of information resources, thereby enhancing their discoverability and usability”. In archives and records management, “metadata captures essential details such as descriptions, context, ownership, provenance, access rights, and preservation attributes. This ensures records’ authenticity, reliability, and integrity, primarily focusing on descriptions and the development of finding tools”³. Other authors, such as Marcuccio ⁴ and DePasquale⁵, detail descriptions of metadata and content types in archives collections.
4. Online archive content as part of library collections for management and discoverability: This emphasises how archives can be embedded into existing electronic resource systems to enhance access and discoverability.

The Incorporation of Online Archives into Library Workflows

In academic settings, online archival collections are treated as electronic library resources. Managing archives within these electronic resources has faced several challenges.

Access and discovery are essential for uncovering potential information within an archive. Digitisation projects and online archives introduce new assets into library workflows, thereby enhancing discoverability. Below are some observations regarding how libraries have adapted archive materials into their processes.

1. The archive’s content includes both a large number and a diversity of formats and layouts (manuscripts, primary sources, newspaper articles, etc.). Quantity and format are two aspects of the archives’ collections that influence management and decision-making.
2. Integrating digitised archives introduces a distinct body of content that adheres to two sets of rules and requirements: those for archives and those for electronic resource management systems (e-RM). These two corpora have different management methodologies for example, archival mediation on the one hand and user independence on the other.
3. Libraries have mainly used two approaches to managing these types of products in their collections: at the database level, where the availability is highlighted, but the discovery of the content is left to the end users to locate in the hosting platform (e.g. A-Z lists), and at the item level, where efforts are made to integrate the content alongside other E-RRs using tools like catalogues and Discovery Services.
4. Library systems, such as catalogues, knowledge bases, and Discovery Services, have been designed and evolved to manage content from journals and books. However, they may or may not be adaptable to other content types.

It seems clear that regardless of the success of digitalisation projects, the fact that these collections are only partially integrated into the e-resource workflow rendered them ineffective.

Schaffner notes the invisibility of archives, manuscripts, and special collections.⁶ She believes that library patrons expect to find archives and special collections online using the same search techniques they apply to other types of information.

She emphasises that metadata is crucial for the discovery of archive collections and suggests adjusting our practices to disclose information about collections more effectively: “By reducing the mediation required for users, we can increase the likelihood of discovery through search engines, significantly enhancing the visibility of these “hidden collections.”⁷

Metadata for Archives and Discovery

Metadata plays a crucial role in enhancing the discoverability of collections within academic libraries’ technological frameworks. Alemu⁸ emphasises its importance in discovery and collection management: “Insufficient metadata can render valuable resources invisible, hindering their discoverability, access, and use.”  

In terms of metadata formats for electronic resources management and discovery of archives content we have found:

• Metadata for archives’ finding aids. Finding aids are the guide or inventory of the contents of an archival collection. Finding aids are created by archivists to give researchers a description of the items in the collection and where to locate them⁹. Imhof observed, “When archival inventories are combined with catalogue data from libraries, for example, the archives’ content stays inhomogeneous to the libraries’ content.”¹⁰
• MARC records remain valuable and reliable for locating archival resources, especially given the challenges with relevance rankings at the network level within catalogues. However, issues arise regarding their viability for managing large materials, such as manuscripts.
• From a discovery perspective, accurate metadata is essential in KBART to effectively populate knowledge-based tools. However, KBART is unsuitable for primary sources and archival materials, as its structure primarily focuses on describing books and journals.

The need for a sustainable metadata format for archives content as an electronic resource in libraries is evident.

Gale Primary Sources Metadata and Discovery Project

In common with libraries and discovery partners, Gale is dedicated to enhancing the discoverability of its content and recognises the importance of strong metadata in addressing this challenge. Based on feedback from our library and discovery partners, we have prioritised developing alternative metadata solutions for Gale Primary Sources content. To improve accessibility, we created metadata outputs in the form of title lists.

We identified several key use cases for different stakeholders:

Researchers: To explore the product’s content without needing platform access.

Librarians: To review the content before or after acquiring it.

Discovery partners: To index and display the content for end users.

We formed a project team that included representatives from Editorial, Discovery Product Management, and Production to define the project’s scope:

1. Identify available and extractable metadata.

2. Create four metadata templates for our top-level content types: Manuscripts, Monographs, Publications (Series), and Publications (Issues).

3. Gather and incorporate feedback from our user groups.

4. Produce and disseminate the title lists.

We aimed to create accurate and complete lists serving both systems and users.

We developed multiple templates to recognise that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work for metadata. Different content types require different metadata fields, giving users greater flexibility.

We produced two title list formats: one for discovery integration and one for user-friendly presentation. Both sets include the same metadata and follow the same production process; however, the user-friendly set features an additional layer of formatting that integrates all content types into a single workbook for an improved user experience.

Gale archive title lists provide descriptive and linking information about the content they describe. This information helps to identify the items, provides context about the material, and enables you to determine the “who, what, where, and when?”. In the title list, you will find several key metadata elements, including:

• Document Title
• Date
• Author
• Publisher
• URL
• Proprietary identifiers – A unique ID assigned to the items

In addition, when relevant, you will also find:

• Publication Date – The date that the material was published.
• Imprint – A string that contains the publication location, publisher name, and publication date.
• Pages – The number of pages in the described item.
• Language – The language in which the document is written.
• Physical Description – A description of the physical material.
• Source Institution – The institution where the document was sourced.
• Place of Publication – City or Country where the content was produced
• Manuscript-related data – including Manuscript Number/Box Number/Folder Number

The production process involved query calculations, Q&A processes, and additional formatting. We have established a demanding production schedule and have already completed many lists while continuing our work on the remaining ones.

The finalised title lists are now available for customers and partners. We are pleased to share that discussions with our discovery partners have made some of this metadata available in a knowledge base, with plans for discovery indexes to ingest the metadata. Each discovery partner has its own approach, but a significant benefit of this project is that it has enabled us to engage in meaningful conversations. The more experience we gather with this metadata output, the more we will all learn.

The Quest for Discoverability

There is still much to determine in our quest to enhance the discoverability of archives in libraries and their tools, but we are proud of the improvements we have made. This project serves as a vital stepping stone, and there is nothing quite like a clean and structured set of metadata to facilitate collaboration with partners and customers.

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If you enjoyed reading about advancing discovery in libraries, check out these posts:

• Ways to improve Discoverability at Your Library
• Hacking History with Gale Scholar Lab
• Gale Accelerate: The Best of Gale for You

Blog post cover image citation: “Photographs. Amateur Theatricals, 1890.” The Papers of Vera “Jack” Holme, Gale, 1890. Archives of Sexuality and Gender, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/KTZOJB122729727/GDCS?u=gale&sid=bookmark-GDCS&xid=249c5e0f&pg=1

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1. Alfier, A. &  Feliciati. P. (2017)  “Gli archivi  online  per  gli  utenti:  premesse  per  un  modello  di  gestione  della  qualità”. JLIS.it 8,  1: 22-38. doi:10.4403/jlis.it-12269
2. Alemu, G. & Stevens, B. (2015). An Emergent Theory of Digital Library Metadata. Enrich Then Filter. Elsevier
3. Alemu, G. (2022). The future of enriched, linked, open and filtered metadata : making sense of IFLA, LRM, RDA, Linked Data and BIBFRAME. Facet Publishing.
4. Marcuccio, R.  Il catalogo elettronico dei manoscritti della Biblioteca Sormani. Un adattamento user friendly di Manus 3.0. Biblioteche oggi, 23 (2005), 8, p. 60-64.
5. De Pasquale, Andrea. 2019. “Private Archives in the Library. Types, Acquisition, Treatment and Description”. JLIS.It 10 (3):34-46. https://doi.org/10.4403/jlis.it-12569
6. Schaffner, Jennifer. 2009. “The Metadata is the Interface: Better Description for Better Discovery of Archives and Special Collections, Synthesized from User Studies.” Dublin, OH: OCLC Research. https://doi.org/10.25333/dp1k-3348.
7. Idem.
8. Alemu, G. (2022). Op. cit.
9. “Various standards used for archival description include ISAD(G), EAD, Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS), Rules for Archival Description (RAD), International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families (ISAAR(CPF)), Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) and Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies (PREMIS).”Alemu, G. (2022). Idem
10. Imhof, A. (2008) « Using International Standards to Develop a Union Catalogue for Archives in Germany: Aspects to Consider Regarding Interoperability between Libraries and Archives”. D-Lib Magazine 14, 9/10. Doi : 10.1045/september2008-imhof