Metadata is cataloguing

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Metadata is cataloguing??????????

• Pat Bell
• HM Customs and Excise

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What Im going to say

• Librarians and the rise of metadata
• Cataloguing and metadata compared
• Practical implications

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Librarians and the rise of metadata

• A personal view

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Early 1990s- rise of online databases

• Expensive- needed intermediaries
• Search techniques
• Less emphasis on cataloguing / indexing /
  abstracting

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The rise of the web
Full text searching- and anyone can do it
The librarians response

• Expert searching
• Training in search techniques
• Lists of useful sites

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The web reveals its limitations

• Poor search results
• Semantic web
• XML
• Metadata

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The web reveals its limitations

• Poor search results
• Semantic web
• XML
• Metadata

The librarians response Thats my line We
told you so
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A new role for librarians

• Increasing prominence in government intranets,
  web sites
• Influence on Metadata Working Group
• Freedom of information
• Publication schemes
• EDRM

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Cataloguing and metadata compared
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Cataloguing

• Until 1980s- big, quiet department producing
  cards with five or six elements
• The rise of MARC and the online catalogue- huge
  expansion in potential

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Cataloguing is not the norm

• Not just a library specialism- a specialism
  within librarianship
• Detailed rules
• Thick MARC manual
• 4 volumes of Dewey
• 600 pages of AACR

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(No Transcript)
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Other people have their own sensibilities

• Librarians
• Web publishing
• Information technologists
• Records managers

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Cataloguing is metadata

• Cataloguing
• Filing
• Tagging
• Indexing
• Resource description

Metadata as Esperanto?
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Managing the document life cycle

• In search of metadata that works

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Separating baby and bath water

• Baby
• Importance of indexing
• Bathwater
• Specialist indexers
• Detailed rules

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Dressing the baby

• Context
• Subject expertise

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Using the context
Content management systems EDRM

• Automatic entry
• Folder structure
• Document templates
• User profiles

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Metadata and the document lifecycle

• Commissioning
• Drafting
• Publication
• Review
• Revision
• Storage
• Disposal

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Finally

• Metadata could work, but not necessarily on the
  WWW
• Big cultural, organisational and technical issues
  to overcome
• The word metadata may not be the best way to
  overcome
• And a huge standard may not be the best way to
  manage it

pat.bell_at_hmce.gsi.gov.uk