Bespoke metadata creation tools are commonplace

RLG Programs has conducted a survey of partner institutions which have “multiple metadata creation centers” to:

...gain a baseline understanding of current descriptive metadata practices and dependencies, the first project in our program to change metadata creation processes.

Some intriguing statements in this summary post (I look forward to getting hold of the report when it's completed). For example:

76 listed the tools they used to create metadata. Guess how many tools were named? Over 270 in total, 88 different ones. And the most common? A custom system. Besides an integrated library system, the tool most frequently cited was MS Access. In several cases, a single institution used more than a dozen different tools.

In the complex world of metadata standards, it is perhaps not surprising that the range of tools used to author metadata is broad. Is this a permanent state of affairs? I wonder if this says anything about the maturity of this space - or is this just the nature of this particular beast? Read more at hangingtogether.org