Data Standardization in Digital Libraries: An ETD Case in Turkey

Nowadays, data integrity and data standardization are significant topics for information retrieval systems and also for digital libraries. Although, many standards (such as VIAF, AACR2 and MARC) and institutional regulations developed for data standardization by the nature of library and information science field, consistency between different content resources is still a problem for today's information systems. It is also one of the most important steps for digital library projects especially for the ones who are planning to gather data from different content resources. As one of these projects, a digital library for electronic thesis and dissertations (ETD) for LIS in Turkey has been developed via a digital library project executed by PhD students of Hacettepe University Department of Information Management. In this direction, this paper aims to explain data standardization processes and limitations due to regulations, language and cultural characteristics of the country with examples from the indicated project. As a result of the project a standardized structure for ETD systems were created. In this context, author and advisor names, Turkish and English titles, keywords, access restrictions were determined as the main elements for standardization processes. In the end of the project, an authority file was created for advisors via VIAF, RDA and AACR2 in order to improve efficiency of access points by ensuring data integrity.