Collections and collectionlevel description CIMI Members meeting, Boston, MA, USA 2223 April 2002

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Collections and collection-level
descriptionCIMI Members meeting, Boston, MA,
USA 22-23 April 2002

• Pete Johnston
• UKOLN, University of Bath
• Bath, BA2 7AY

Email cd-focus_at_ukoln.ac.uk URL http//www.ukoln.ac
.uk/
UKOLN is supported by
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Collections and collection-level description

• Collections, collection description
  collection-level description
• CLD at UKOLN
• RSLP CD project
• Collection Description Focus
• CIMI/CD Focus survey
• What next?

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Collections, collection description and
collection-level description
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What is a collection?

• Collection
• an aggregation of physical and/or digital items
• Aggregates of, e.g.
• natural objects fossils, mineral samples
• created objects artefacts, documents, records
• digital resources documents, images, multimedia
  objects, data, software
• digital surrogates of physical objects
  documents, images
• metadata catalogue records, item descriptions,
  collection-level descriptions (!)

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What is a collection?

• Various criteria for aggregation, e.g.
• By location
• By type/form of item
• By provenance of item
• By source/ownership of item
• By nature of item content
• .
• Permanent, temporary
• Discrete, distributed

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Collection description collection-level
description

• Collection description
• Michael Heaneys analytic model
• Unitary
• info about collection as whole, not about items
• Hierarchic
• info about collection as whole, and about items
  (and relationships between items and whole)
• Analytic
• info about items in collection
• Indexing
• info derived from items in collection

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Collection description collection-level
description

• Collection-level description
• unitary
• RSLP CD schema provides basis for unitary
  descriptions
• Collection-level description
• what level/type of aggregation is
  collection-level in this context?
• functional granularity

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Why collection-level description?

• 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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Why collection-level description?

• Cross-domain
• Different ideas of collections
• Different criteria for defining collections
• Different ways of describing collections
• But useful/possible to agree on broadly shared
  view?
• Permit user to compare broadly similar high-level
  objects
• even where items heterogeneous

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CLDs as resource discovery metadata

• CLD as an overview of aggregate of items
• useful in many different contexts, for many
  purposes
• 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)

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Collection-level description work at UKOLN
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Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP)

• Support for academic researchers
• disclosure of collections
• discovery of/access to collections
• collaborative management of collections
• Collections in RSLP
• projects describing primarily (but not
  exclusively) collections of physical items
• projects also describing digital catalogues
  (which describe physical items) i.e. collections
  of metadata records
• projects creating new digital collections of
  collection descriptions

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RSLP collection description project

• Project
• Sept 1999 Sept 2000
• funded by RSLP, with support from OCLC
• collaboration between UKOLN (Andy Powell, Michael
  Day) and Michael Heaney (Oxford)
• Aims
• means of consistent collection description in
  RSLP
• minimise duplication of effort in projects
• simple, high-level, aligned with other work

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RSLP Model of collection

• Michael Heaney, An Analytic Model of Collections
  and their Catalogues
• Independent of implementation
• Identifies
• Entities
• Attributes/properties of entities
• Relationships between entities
• Based primarily on library/archival view
• but applicable across wide range of collection
  types?

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RSLP Model (simplified view)
Collection
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RSLP CD Schema

• structured set of metadata attributes
• concerned with the simple description of subset
  of entities in RSLP model
• Collections
• Locations
• Agents
• collectors
• owners
• administrators
• based on Dublin Core where possible

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RSLP CD Schema

• XML syntax uses RDF
• non-RDF XML syntax under consideration
• Several RDBMS implementations by RSLP projects
• Not
• a replacement for existing detailed collection
  description formats (e.g. EAD)
• a replacement for MARC
• A Dublin Core for collection description?

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Schema vs. model
Creator
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Collection Description Focus

• Since June 2001
• Funded by
• RSLP
• JISC/DNER
• British Library
• Benefit from collaboration with
• Interoperability Focus
• JISC Information Environment architecture team
• Dublin Core Collection Description WG
• CIMI
• Improve consistency, compatibility of approaches
  to CLD

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Collection Description Focus

• Point of contact, advice
• support for CLD in programmes
• Gather information on existing practice
• survey questionnaire, implementer visits
• Consensus-building
• CD Forum
• Disseminate good practice
• workshops, briefing days
• publications
• recommendations, guidelines

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CIMI/ CD Focus survey
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CIMI/ CD Focus survey

• CD Focus interested in
• current activity in CLD
• standards/specifications used for CLD
• schemas
• terminologies, thesauri etc
• how schemas/specs used/deployed
• approaches/technologies/tools
• problems
• Not limited to CDF funder communities
• Discussion at CIMI, June 2001

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CIMI/ CD Focus survey

• Survey questionnaire, Sep/Oct 2001
• 106 respondents
• only 22 working in museum domain
• Emphasis on library/archive collections (Q11,
  Q15)
• Use of CLD for resource disclosure/ resource
  discovery (Q17)
• Considerable sharing of CLDs in union
  catalogues (Q18)

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CIMI/ CD Focus survey

• Outside archival community, range of descriptive
  schemas (Q20)
• local schemas
• legacy (unstructured?) CLDs
• Unfamiliar concepts?
• Granularity
• Relationships
• collection-item
• collection-service
• collection-agents

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CIMI/ CD Focus survey

• Subject as access point (Q23-25)
• LCSH most widespread
• but terminologies problematic
• Cross-domain v domain-specific?
• Personal/corporate names as access point (Q26-28)
• especially for archival collections

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CIMI/ CD Focus survey

• Implementation section (Q33-37) least successful
• wide variation beyond e.g. RSLP
• CLDs as data or document
• c.f. recent discussions re EAD
• Requirements
• more information on CLD
• audience - user or manager
• forum for discussion
• interest in standardisation?

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What next?

• Survey revealed limited information for CLD in
  museums
• Focus on description of object
• But more generally, interest in CLD for resource
  disclosure/discovery?
• Is CLD useful for museums?
• Is it an area for CIMI to explore further?
• In what form?

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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/