This chapter explores metadata technology integration as a panacea for effective learning in the 21st century libraries. The high influx of information resources into libraries necessitated a shift from printed to digitally web-based form of preserving and describing information, which affected users' access to information. This implies direct involvement of librarians in the cycle of influencers of open educational resources. In the review, ontology of metadata and repositories of learning object have demonstrated how UNESCO's proclamation about open educational resources has stimulated visible accessibility to information globally. Various ways of including librarians in the push for inclusive access to education have been highlighted.
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Metadata refers to a strategy used for organizing digital collections in a well-ordered format for supporting retrieval, long-term preservation, and interoperability (Chen, Chen, & Lin, 2003). For long, libraries are the organizers and managers of information resources in a structured way via catalogues (Han, 2012) that provide access to a multiplicity of information resources. These information resources usually organized in a hierarchically structured way; associatively or via employing enterprise databases, or in a pile of papers arranged in haphazard manner in offices (Mason, 2004). It is known that, Machine Readable Catalogue (MARC) because of the richness of semantics it has, allows for describing printed resources (i.e. circulation, reference and serials) without any problem (Han, 2012). The paradigm shift from traditional (print materials) to digitally sophisticated web-based medium affected the reading habits of information users (Soroya, & Ameen, 2020) and hence the description of these resources (Dervin, 1998). For instance, more than half of UK information resources are expected to be digitized by 2020 (British Library, 2010). Similarly, in US, about 95% of the populace accept e-books as a medium for readability (Library Journal, 2014). Furthermore, there is a remarkable improvement in terms of e-books’ user penetration from 24.5% in 2018 and probable increment to 26.5% by 2023 (Statista*, 2018). To buttress this point further, there is estimation that, e-book publishing contributed about $118.62 billion in 2018 and expected to reach $134.85 billion in 2022 (Statista, 2018). However, these developments are affected by poorly organized search results upsetting 53% of sites; poor information architecture distressing 32% of sites (Vividence Research, 2001) and having similar style-items on the web (English, Hearst, Sinha, Swearingen, & Yee, n.d). Because the trend has dramatically changed from print to audio-visual, electronic/digital resources, the need for other metadata standards other than MARC arose and in order to ensure maximum accessibility; systems other than Integrated Library System (ILSs) are needed (Han, 2012). As a result, Dublin Core, Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), Encoded Archival Description (EAD), and Visual Resource Association (VRA) Core are used for describing resources in digital formats (Han, 2012).