Metadata

Metadata is Lyra’s surface for managing the vocabularies that items reference. It’s the place to fix “Tolkien, J.R.R.” vs “Tolkien, J. R. R.” once, instead of editing every item by hand.

All Metadata operations are library-scoped: a rename or merge applies within the library you’re working in. A school with multiple libraries will see each library’s vocabularies separately.

What Metadata manages

Five vocabularies, with different underlying shapes:

• Authors. Personal names. Lyra draws no distinction between personal and corporate authors, and a MARC import reads only the personal-name fields (100/700) — a corporate name in a record arrives as nothing at all.
• Topics. What a book is about. Uncontrolled by design (see below).
• Tags. Free-form labels for grouping items your own way.
• Series. Multi-volume sets, named series, reading orders.
• Locations. Shelving locations within a library.

Each vocabulary supports three operations:

• Rename. Change “Tolkien, J.R.R.” to “Tolkien, J. R. R.” across every item in the library in one operation. Items that used the old form now use the new form.
• Merge. Fold one term into another. “Sci-Fi” merged into “Science Fiction” for example.
• Delete. Remove a term entirely. It’s stripped from every item (or copy) that used it.

Where to find it

Go to Library level navigation path: Catalog then Metadata, with a tab for each vocabulary (tab: Authors, tab: Series, tab: Topics, tab: Tags, tab: Locations). All three operations are library-manager actions — staff without the grant see the lists but not the row actions or selection controls.

• Rename — open a term’s row menu item: ⋯ menu and choose menu item: Rename…, then enter the new name and select button: Rename.
• Merge — select two or more terms and choose button: Merge in the selection bar. Enter the name they fold into (it starts as the first term you selected) and select button: Merge. Every item on the selected terms is reassigned to that name, and the old terms are dropped.
• Delete — choose menu item: Delete author, menu item: Delete series, and so on from a term’s row menu item: ⋯ menu, or select terms and choose button: Delete in the selection bar; you’ll be asked to confirm. The term is removed from every item that used it, or for a location, from every copy shelved there.

To merge or delete every term a search turned up, check the header box and select all matching, which checks every row the search kept, not just the ones on this page.

Controlled vs uncontrolled

A vocabulary is controlled when there’s a fixed list of allowed values and items must reference one of them. Lyra is uncontrolled by design. Books can have any topic.

The Metadata surface is the cleanup tool. It’s a post-hoc consolidation surface for librarians who want to enforce consistency.

If you need a controlled vocabulary

Some schools want authors or topics to be controlled. Lyra doesn’t enforce that, but you can approximate it by running periodic Metadata sweeps: open the list of authors or topics, sort alphabetically, and merge near-duplicates as you spot them.

How items reference vocabularies

Vocabulary	Scope	Notes
Authors	Per-item, multiple, books only	Books can have many authors; non-book items don’t carry them.
Topics	Per-item, multiple, books only	Non-book items don’t carry topics.
Tags	Per-item, multiple, all items	Any item type can carry tags, not just books.
Locations	Per-copy, single	A copy has one location; items don’t have locations.
Series	Per-item, books only, optional	Books can belong to at most one series.

See also

• Finding anything — these vocabularies double as filter values in the header search, so a tag or author name jumps straight to the items using it.
• Lists cover another way to group items — curated rows on the OPAC homepage — for display rather than cataloging.
• The per-ILS migration pages explain how subject headings, authority files, and Authority Control concepts from your old system land in Lyra’s Metadata.