Organization of Knowledge and Information in Digital Archives of Language Materials

Abstract Language archives are repositories of language data: material about or in a set of languages, including audio and video recordings, transcriptions, translations, and linguistic annotations. Beyond their value for academic applications, digital availability of language data holds potential to support language and cultural revitalization and maintenance. Until recently, language archives have not been considered in information science research. This article reports the first empirical investigation of various dimensions of organization and representation of recorded knowledge and information in language archives. The study used a combination of semi-structured interviews and content analysis. Results demonstrate that, while some of the phenomena related to organization of information in language archives are specific to these types of archives, others are more typical and have been addressed by libraries in past research and practice. For example, authority control, sustainability, and software interoperability are among the primary issues identified by our study. This paper discusses the metadata-related opportunities and challenges for language archive managers and depositors observed in this study, and suggests directions for future research in this area.