Falling through the Cracks: Metadata Inadequacies in Rock Climbing Research

Abstract The purpose of this study is to analyze and assess existing controlled vocabularies for rock climbing-related scholarship compared to climbing definitions and rating systems, improve metadata in the J. Willard Marriott Library Digital Library collections, and propose solutions to more accurately describe these materials. The project took a multifaceted approach to review climbing metadata across a variety of information formats, including scholarly research literature and audiovisual media. First, the subject headings were aligned to the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS), a rating system used by climbers to distinguish between hiking, scrambling, and easy-to-difficult climbing. A corpora of climbing-related scholarly research articles’ from PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, and SportDiscus was created and analyzed for the frequency and accuracy of outdoor recreation subject headings compared to YDS definitions. Locally, the Digital Library collections were reviewed and analyzed with the YDS. Over a hundred of images depicting climbing related sports were updated with correct metadata during the remediation process. Nationally, multiple help tickets were submitted to suggest changes to existing controlled vocabularies and an openly accessible website with best practices was created. The Climbing Metadata website aims to educate non-climber metadata practitioners about accurate terminology, which will improve the discovery of climbing scholarship and materials.