Transcript Collection-Level Description: potential and reality Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2

Collection-Level Description:
potential and reality
Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2
British Library, St Pancras, London
14 May 2002
Pete Johnston
UKOLN, University of Bath
Bath, BA2 7AY
UKOLN is supported by:
Email
[email protected]
URL
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Realising the potential of
collection-level description
• Collection Description Focus
• CLDs as metadata
– resource management
– resource discovery
• Potential to reality
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
Collection Description Focus
• Funded by
– RSLP
– JISC/DNER
– British Library
• UKOLN experience of RSLP Collection
Description
• Benefit from collaboration with
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Interoperability Focus
JISC Information Environment architecture team
CIMI (museums)
Dublin Core Collection Description WG
Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
Collection Description Focus
• Improve consistency, compatibility of
approaches
• Point of contact, advice
– support for CLD in programmes
– recommendations, guidelines
• Gather information on existing practice
– implementer visits
– survey questionnaire
• Consensus-building
• Disseminate good practice
– workshops, briefing days
– publications
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
Collection Description Focus
• Ongoing
– ….
• Future
– practical support for CLD in programmes
– JISC Information Environment
– NOF-digitise
– Resource Regional Cross-Domain research projects
– integrating existing work
– international initiatives
– domain-specific: CIMI, EAD implementers
– cross-domain: DCMI, OAI
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
CLDs as metadata records
• Metadata
– “Machine understandable information about web
resources or other things” (Berners-Lee, 1997)
– Structured data about resources that can be used
to help support a wide range of operations
• Collection as type of resource; CLD as
metadata record
• Support
– resource management
– resource discovery
• Used by
– human agents, software agents
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
CLDs for resource management
• Use CLDs to establish control of resources
– multi-level description
• CLDs support collaborative collection
management
– how to reconcile growing number/cost of
publications with shrinking resources
– partners co-operate on approach to collection
development
– share information
– avoid unnecessary duplication
– co-ordinate expensive purchases
– CLDs to improve decision making
– identify & record strengths, weaknesses
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
CLDs for resource discovery
• Resource users wish to
– search across, interpret, and compare resource
descriptions from different provider communities
• CLDs support “survey of information
landscape”
– “to identify areas rather than specific features - to
identify rainforest rather than to retrieve an analysis
of the canopy fauna of the Amazon basin”
(Heaney, 2000)
• CLD as overview of aggregate of items
• Not a substitute for item-level description
– but CLD may be useful in contexts where itemlevel description inappropriate/unavailable
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
CLDs for resource discovery
• Cross-domain
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Different ideas of “collections”
Different ways of talking about “collections”
Different criteria for defining “collections”
Different ways of describing “collections”
But useful/possible to agree on broadly common
view…?
– Within context of a service…?
• Permit user to compare broadly similar highlevel objects
– even where items heterogeneous
• RSLP CD Schema as a “Dublin Core” for
collections?
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
CLDs for resource discovery
• Collection-level description might
– Disclose information about collections
– Provide overview of otherwise uncatalogued items
– Enable user to select collections to search on basis
of summary description
– Enable software agents to select collections to
search on behalf of user
– Support controlled searching of multiple collections
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
Potential to reality
• Archives Hub, Access to Archives
– collaboration on domain-specific CLD services
• RSLP, BL CPP
– project-based CLD services
– subject-specific; regional-based
– RSLP scoping study on aggregation/search
• Cornucopia
– museums, extending to cross-domain?
• CAIRNS
– CLDs to build “landscapes” for item-level search
• JISC Information Environment
• NOF-digitise portal
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
Potential to reality
• Potential being realised?
• Within the context of specific
services?
• But scope of services is broadening to
meet user expectations…
• … facing and addressing challenges of
cross-domain working
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002
Acknowledgements
UKOLN is funded by Resource: the Council for
Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information
Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK higher and further
education funding councils, as well as by project funding
from the JISC and the European Union.
UKOLN also receives support from the University of
Bath where it is based.
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
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Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2, 14 May 2002