Making Lemonade: The Potential of Increased Peer Metadata Training among Cultural Heritage Professionals

This paper explores training in metadata creation for digital collections among cultural heritage communities in the context of the current economic and professional development climate. It is the author’s experience that many cultural heritage professionals from smaller institutions have not had the resources to obtain training in the standards and best practices necessary for building and maintaining digital collections that are robust and interoperable outside of their local context. This paper draws on personal experience and theory to propose that larger institutions should assist their smaller counterparts through peer training programs, and that the benefits drawn from these programs may position cultural heritage institutions to better innovate and adapt to the ever-changing information landscape.