The UK approach to subject gateways

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The UK approach to subject gateways

• Rachel Heery ltr.heery_at_ukoln.ac.ukgt
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/

UKOLN is funded by the Library and Information
Commission, the Joint Information Systems
Committee (JISC) of the Higher 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.
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Outline

• In the beginning..SOSIG
• eLib gateways and ROADS
• RDN and DNER
• Issues funding structure, project culture, push
  for portals, opportunities

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In the beginning .
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Leading up to eLib

• SOSIG
• - pioneer service
• - community based
• - provided model

• Follett report 1993
• .. FIGIT
• eLib programme
• 1995

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The eLib subject gateways

• ADAM - Art, Media and Design
• BizEd - Business education
• EEVL - engineering
• OMNI - biomedical
• SOSIG - social sciences
• IHR - History
• ROADS - enabling software and support

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Subject gateway added value

• - Selection of high quality Internet resources
• - Service to specific disciplinary communities
• - Hand crafted descriptions
• - Subject access based on assigned classification
  and subject terms, links to thesauri

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ROADS objectives

• To develop shareable software for resource
  discovery services
• To support subject gateways with tools and
  guidelines
• To implement and test standards
• To enable information providers to describe
  their own resources

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ROADS choices

• Metadata format
• IAFA templates
• ROADS templates
• - fit for purpose
• - simple
• - text based
• - they were there!

• Search Protocol
• WHOIS
• - simple, lightweight
• - enabled query routing
• - Internet standard
• - not Z39.50!

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Time passes. 1999
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Gateways in production

• Gateways
• Collections of descriptions
• UK and international collections
• Integration with harvested metadata

• ROADS
• Cross searching incorporating query routing
• Involvement in Dublin Core, RDF activity
• Z39.50 add ons
• ROADS now open source software
• -

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Subject gateway environment

• eLib funding coming to end
• Most are not embedded in institution
• Operate within a project-based culture
• Policy fragmented across sectors
• In competition with each other and with private
  sector suppliers
• Innovative, enthusiastic, committed
• Interested collaborators across sectors

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The next step. RDN
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The Resource Discovery Network

• Extending coverage
• Integrating access
• Developing subject based portals for educational
  communities
• Establishing new organisational and business
  models

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Resource Discovery Network
BIOME
Hubs
SOSIG
SOSIG
RDNC
EMC

• HUMBUL
• SciGate
• Creative Artsand Industries
• ...

Centre
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Resource discovery network centre (RDNC)

• Promoting and developing the network
• Establishing a framework to ensure quality,
  consistency, and interoperability across the
  network
• Presenting gateways in various views to exploit
  their interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral value

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RDNC broker
SOSIG
SOSIG
BIOME
RDNC Broker ResourceFinder
EMC
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RDN Extending Collections

• harvested metadata
• pre-prints and grey literature
• unpublished data resources
• mirrors

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RDN Business Models

• Centralised funding (Netherlands)
• Shared public investment model (RDN)
• Co-operative development model (ISAAC)
• Membership model (OCLC)
• Commercial models (individual record sale,
  wholesale record exchange and subscription,
  subsidiary sale and advertising, etc.)

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RDN Interoperability framework

• Agreed protocol and profile Z39.50 with Bath
  profile
• Drawing up cataloguing guidelines rules for
  content, mandatory fields, schemes and qualifiers
• Ambition to provide common subject approach for
  cross browsing

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Future..
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DNER Portals...

• Extending gateways
• in breadth and depth
• customised user search tools and user profiling
• integration with teaching and learning
• .. while retaining existing strengths of the
  subject gateways.

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Collaborative cataloguing

• Collaboration between metadata creators -
  shared workspaceBIBLINK, CORC
• Sharing metadata
• - import/exportSOSIG and DutchESS
• Distributed metadata creation
• - linking metadata for same resource

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International Collaboration

• Renardus European networked subject gateway
  pilot service
• Partners include several national libraries and
  other large scale initiatives
• IMesh informal links with Europe, US and
  Australia
• IMesh toolkit architecture and toolkit for
  distributed subject gateways
• Internet Scout, UKOLN and ILRT

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Improved metadata management

• SCHEMAS project
• Support for implementers of schemas
• To provide focus for sharing information
• about metadata schemas
• To establish metadata registries to facilitate
  definition, mappings
• For use by human and software agents

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References (1)

• BIBLINK
• http//hosted.ukoln.ac.uk/biblink/
• ROADS
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/roads/
• RDN interoperability framework
• http//www.rdn.ac.uk/
• IMesh toolkit
• http//www.imesh.org/toolkit
• Renardus
• http//www.renardus.org/
• SCHEMAS
• http//www.schemasforum.org/
• DESIRE metadata registry
• http//desire.ukoln.ac.uk/registry/