Metadata
Working Group

The Metadata Working Group will explore and share the ways in which AI technologies can be applied to the creation and enhancement of metadata for cultural heritage resources. It will also address the role of metadata in collecting, curating, and describing the resources needed for AI, machine learning, and data science more broadly.

AI technologies are transforming how metadata in libraries, archives, and museums is created, enriched, and critically evaluated, enhancing both access to collections and the understanding of AI systems themselves.

Over the years, libraries, archives, and museums have invested significant resources into creating metadata to describe and manage their collections. AI technologies may provide opportunities to enrich the collective metadata of LAM institutions and foster enhanced functionality, including discovery of these institutions’ collections and services. Generative AI facilitates the creation and generation of new metadata, making workflows more efficient and enabling novel forms of access to content. Conversely, metadata professionals can bring their expertise in resource description to bear on the AI domain itself, describing and documenting AI and ML models and datasets and identifying areas of bias that could harm already marginalized groups and evaluating the output of AI.