The goal of this study is to explore how information is currently organized in digital cultural heritage collections in Arabian Gulf countries. it focused on Alqabas – a Kuwaiti institution with a strong reputation of early adopter of digital archiving and developer of major digital collections in Arab Gulf counties, accumulated experience in knowledge management. The mixed-methods study combined semi-structured interview of the Alqabas archive manager and in-depth content analysis of a sample of metadata records that represent items in Alqabas digital collections for accuracy, completeness, consistency, use of knowledge organization systems. The study reveals high metadata quality overall but lack of consistency for many metadata fields, explained in part by the absence of metadata creation guidelines and professional training for metadata creators. This indicates potential barriers to metadata interoperability in an aggregated environment for future projects similar to DPLA or Europeana.

Recent years have seen the development of quite a few measures of wisdom (e.g. Ardelt (2003); Glück (2017); Staudinger and Pasupathi (2003); Sternberg (1998); Webster (2003)). With a focus on information professionals working in the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) sector, this study is unique in the way it translated the quantitative measures used in previous study into a qualitative instrument that can allow wisdom aspects to be explored through interviews. Thus the purpose of this research was to investigate the key characteristics of wisdom for professionals working in the GLAM sector.