Erin Jerome (Massachusetts)

Mysteries of Discoverability

Embroidery
Stitched and lettered by Erin Jerome / Mystic Sky (PAT0724S) pattern available from DMC

“As an institutional repository manager, I’m not technically a cataloger, but I’m definitely metadata adjacent. When asked by potential submitters how users will find their work in the repository, I find myself repeating the same things over and over again–the more metadata you give me, the more findable it will be. If they don’t give me keywords or other descriptive metadata, I will fill in all the gaps myself. And when folks get their monthly readership reports, they’re thrilled! At the end of the day, it really does make me feel like a bit of a magician.”

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Erin Jerome is the open access and institutional repository librarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Erin’s piece shows an open hand with stars, moons, a sun and lightning bolt arching above in blue and yellow floss. There is a white and blue cloud below the hand. The text below the cloud reads “Keywords are magic and I’m the magician.”