Metadata and its importance in supporting access to digital archival content: an empirical atudy on the national archives websites

Abstract

This study aims to analyze and evaluate the metadata on the National Archives Websites, and the extent of the keenness of the National Archives on quality in creating metadata compared to the international standards in this regard, and practices adopted in the National Archives in developed countries (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, ...etc.)
The analysis included (57) National Archives; and it revealed the weakness of using metadata tags in these Archives in general and in Arab National Archives in particular. 26 Archives Only (45.6% of Archives analyzed in this study) included their site (1-2) metadata tage(s); and the Archives that established most of metadata tags are National Archives of Canada, United Kingdom, Spain and Australia, respectively. However, the most commonly used metadata tags in National Archives websites are the "Title" tag in a percentage of 26%, the "Description" tag in a percentage of 10.6%, the "keywords" tag in a percentage of 8.8%, and the "Generator" tag in a percentage of 5.8%. Some metadata tags also contained non-reflective values of the Website objective content. The study concluded by offering several recommendations that could contribute to tackle the deficiencies it previously revealed, and which affect the ultimate use of digital content of the National Archives Websites, and to ensure an efficient accessibility by search engines.