A comparative study on metadata collections of NDL Search and Europeana

Abstract

Some national libraries play a role not only as a web portal but also as a "platform", which delivers, via web APIs, various metadata aggregated from heterogeneous databases so that anyone can reuse. NDL Search is one of large-scale platforms for cultural and academic resources in Japan. This paper attempts a comparison of the metadata collections between NDL Search and Europeana. Results suggest features and challenges of NDL Search; although a huge amount of data is already available, standardization for metadata models, collection methods and development of a licensing framework are less advanced. In the near future, building sustainable relationships with content providers is one of key issues.