Collection-level description: from theory to practice

Minerva project meeting Paris, 24 January 2003

Pete JohnstonUKOLN, University of BathBath, BA2 7AY

UKOLN is supported by:

Emailp.johnston@ukoln.ac.ukURLhttp://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

Minerva project meeting, Paris, 24 January 2003

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CLD : from theory to practice

• Collection Description Focus• Why collection-level description?

– resource discovery– resource management

• Some recent CLD initiatives

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Collection Description Focus

• Improve consistency, compatibility of approaches to collection-level description

• Funded by– British Library– Research Libraries Programme (RSLP)

– enhanced access to/improved management of (library/archive) collections for academic researchers

– Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)– integrated access to distributed digital resources for

Higher/Further Education community– Re:source: libraries/museums/archives

– disclosure, access and management– cross-domain collaboration

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Collection Description Focus

• Based at UKOLN, University of Bath• Experience of RSLP Collection

Description project (1999-2000)– model (Michael Heaney) and schema (Andy

Powell)• Benefit from collaboration with

– Interoperability Focus– JISC Information Environment architecture

team – NOF-Digitise Technical Advisory Service

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Collection Description Focus

• Developing consensus– Gathering information– Building a community– Facilitating dialogue

• Disseminating good practice– Organising events

– workshops, briefing days– Giving presentations– Publishing articles and papers– Developing training resources

– recommendations, guidelines

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Collection Description Focus

• Supporting implementers– point of contact, advice– support for CLD in programmes

• Providing tools– mappings

• Maintaining links with related activity– funders have (primarily) UK focus– CIMI (museums), DCMI, Minerva etc

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Why collection-level description?

• Enable collection provider to– disclose information about collections to users

• Enable user to – discover/locate collections– select collections to explore/search on basis of

summary description– compare collections as broadly similar objects

(even where items heterogeneous)– understand conditions of access & use– interpret collections

• Enable software agents to – select collections to search on behalf of user – control searches across multiple collections

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Collection of physicalobjects

Collection ofmetadata records

Collection of books

Collection of digitalitems

Database of CLDs

CLDs provide high-level “map” of landscape for user, researcher, visitor….

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Why collection-level description?

• Enable collection provider to– manage own collections

– control/audit/review holdings internally– identify collections at risk– assess priorities for item-level cataloguing

– manage in collaboration with other providers– identify, record, share information on strengths and

weaknesses– suggest areas where co-ordination possible

– inform strategic planning – institutional, cross-institutional, regional, sectoral,

national, ….

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• NOF-Digitise– making heritage (more) accessible – £50m content creation programme– supporting strategy for social inclusion, lifelong

learning– digitised objects, learning materials

• Portal– CLD as overview, entry point– subset of RSLP CD schema– controlled vocabularies– CLD reusable in other services

NOF-digtise programme

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The JISC Information Environment

• JISC seeking to provide more seamless discovery / access

• Distributed resources, heterogeneous items• The “portal” problem

– Portal constructs a “landscape” of resources for user

– Needs to find/identify relevant content collections– What digital collections are available?

– Needs to access metadata records through appropriate structured network service

– What network services available for collection?– What interface/protocol used by service? – What instance-specific parameters?

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The JISC IE service registry

• Service registry as part of framework of machine-oriented services

• Database of– Collection-level descriptions– Service descriptions

– informational services – access to collections– transactional services – e.g.authentication,

resolution services, terminology mapping, schema mapping etc

• Primarily for use by software tools (e.g. portals, aggregators, brokers)

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End-user is “automatically” presented with relevant resources through relevant channels)

User Profiles

Resolver

The JISC IE service registry

The vision….

Collection DescriptionService Description

Service Registry

Web Web Web Web

Content

End-user

Authentication

Authorisation

Portal

Broker or Aggregator

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The JISC IE service registry

• Pilot project established at MIMAS, University of Manchester

• Fits with Web services paradigm, but (for pilot)…

– …informational services, but not transactional services

– …probably no “generic” SOAP-based services described (will include SRW services)

– …probably no UDDI interface– Concerns about complexity

http://www.mimas.ac.uk/iesr/

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From theory to practice

• Emergence of useful services built on CLD• “Surveying the landscape”• CLD not a substitute for item-level description

– but a complement to item-level description

• RSLP model/schema proving useful basis• Granularity issues

– What is (and is not) a collection?

• Collection/catalogue/service relationships• Terminologies/vocabularies• CLD and (re)use: purpose, audience

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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/

COMING SOON!!!!

Collection Description Focus 5th Regional Workshop

30th January 2003 at Hughes Hall, Cambridge

Theme - User Requirements