Happy Summer, everyone! (Lol. And by everyone, I mean the 2.5 people who read this because they’re too polite not to. Shout-out to my roommates and my Mom!)
Today we’re talking about Metadata Allowables, because my friend Pam said she didn’t know what they were and I simply cannot allow her to continue living in ignorant bliss. A lot of people get kinda nervous/twitchy when you mention metadata allowables, but only because it’s a phrase that makes the concept seem fancier than it actually is. Plus, nobody knows what it really means. (Unless they are already IM professionals. Or a librarian with a score to settle.)
Let’s say you work at Blockbuster (because I’m feeling whimsical tonight.) A shipment of new release DVDs are delivered. You are entering these new release DVDs into the system. You have to enter the title of the DVD, the director, and the genre. When you get to Genre, there is a drop-down menu and you have to select from the options the drop-down menu gives you (i.e Romance, Horror, Comedy, Drama, Documentary, etc.) The drop-down menu is the metadata allowables. It literally means “the data that’s allowed.”
Another way to understand it is this : You are a harried mother who works full time and you rush home to make your children dinner. Your children are fussy and you are exhausted. Hoping to curtail the chaos, you offer them either mac & cheese or spaghetti. They start offering up their own suggestions as to what you might make for them (ice cream! Cake! Chicken cordon bleu!) And you say, guess what, you tiny tyrants, this ain’t a discussion. I’ve told you what’s on the menu and I’m not making any additions or changes. You’ve made a decision, based on what you have in the house and what your children’s nutritional needs are.
Metadata allowables work much the same way. By keeping the options limited and particular, you’ve steered the ship away from chaos and into order. You’re a hero now! Let the townspeople rejoice!
Additionally, here are some other benefits of metadata allowables :
Improved integrity of your metadata - This is crucial if you are an employee who wants to cut down on the amount of time you spend searching for the data you need to do your job
It makes your information easier to search and faster to analyze
Higher productivity
Higher consistency of data
Cuts down on data loss
Cuts down on company costs
So if you’re a company looking to create or update your metadata allowables, here are my three most important tips :
Involve your Records & Information Department. If you do not have one, hire an IM Consultant.
Hold working sessions with the necessary players to a) get everyone on board and b) get everyone’s input – sometimes when creating metadata allowables, there will be things that upper management doesn’t know that people on the frontlines do know (and vice versa)
Decide where the metadata allowables will be – once that’s decided, you can decide what the metadata allowables will be
Insist on user adoption training, QC checks, and crack down on employees who aren’t utilizing the metadata properly. If you have half of your employees doing it right and the other half not.
That's all for now! Let me know if this explanation made sense or if you are still woefully muddled.
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