Introducing Mod Librarian: Content & Metadata Strategy

As many of you know, my role as a Staff Taxonomist at Spotify was eliminated in the mass reduction in force back in December of 2023. I’ve spent a few months doing a little traveling and a lot of yoga, but the majority of my time was spent trying to figure out what is next for my information career.

I’ve been fortunate to speak to several amazing companies and to have had the time to personally catch up with many connections over Zooms and coffees and lunches and cocktails.

And while I am certain that I will eventually land a more permanent gig in the future, right now one thing is clear to me. I should never again operate on a single income stream. In other words, I should always have a side hustle.

Just like in college, when I not only worked at the local library, but also bartended at The Battered Mug and sold theater subscriptions for the Little Theatre of Wilke Barre, I need to find more ways to help organizations small and large solve metadata, content and taxonomy problems.

Side hustles are a fine way to expand skill sets and learn different domains while staying current on technology and innovation. Project-based work can also provide an opportunity to remain connected to the things we all loved about becoming information professionals in the first place, like traditional archiving and digitization efforts (I’m talking to you, Century 21 Digital Collection at The Seattle Public Library).

So, since I can’t make any artsy craftsy items for an Etsy store, nor do I know how to turn my penchant for apartment decorating into an income stream, I am officially launching Mod Librarian as a content and metadata strategy consultancy.

I’m looking forward to helping you with everything from setting up digital asset management systems to creating tagging taxonomies, performing content audits, designing information architecture strategies, improving training sets for machine learning, digitizing photos or optimizing metadata.

As an added bonus, you can brag about how your freelancer used to work at Spotify, Adobe, Getty Images or McGraw Hill. I am also very proud to announce that my first client is Scholastic, home of Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Please reach out to tell me about your project and let’s work together! My email is tracyforzaglia@gmail.com and I have an Upwork profile, LinkedIn page and profile for additional context and convenience.