Come and hear about an experimental collaboration between the Harvard Library Metadata Management team and a small group of academic and literary publishers to pilot the use of an experimental, open source, web-based Author Questionnaire tool that captures, prior to publication of new works, author-supplied metadata about Author names and identity. The data outputs of the tool are structured to support the business needs of both publishers and libraries, including publishers’ marketing needs and libraries’ interest in supporting discovery, identification and differentiation of authors and their works in library catalogs. The system will funnel appropriate metadata to each community for its uses, will be secure and easy to use by authors, will be brandable by publishers for seamless integration with publishers’ other websites, and will improve discoverability of an author by leveraging author-supplied information that will enrich library catalogs for readers and researchers early in the publication cycle for a new work.
The project will focus on building a system that meets the needs of publishers and libraries so that incentives for adoption by the larger community are high. As a step toward transforming how libraries work with partner communities, this project will move the library toward working in a linked data environment where Author identifiers will uniquely identify content creators. The project will seek intersections wherever possible with ORCID, ISNI or other current initiatives involved in establishing Author unique identifiers. An immediate project goal is to improve efficiency in existing publisher and library workflows, freeing up staff resources in both communities, while also looking toward the future by forging relationships that will serve us in developing next-generation linked data systems to support and promote discovery of authors’ works.