Raising standards for collection description: subjects and strength in CLDs Collection Description Focus Workshop 3 Edinburgh, 21 March 2002

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Raising standards for collection
descriptionsubjects and strength in
CLDsCollection Description Focus Workshop 3
Edinburgh, 21 March 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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Raising standards for collection description

• Collection Description Focus
• CLDs as metadata
• resource discovery
• resource management
• Raising standards

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Collection Description Focus

• Funded by
• RSLP
• JISC/DNER
• British Library
• UKOLN experience of RSLP Collection Description
• Benefit from collaboration with
• Interoperability Focus
• JISC Information Environment architecture team
• CIMI (museums)
• Dublin Core Collection Description WG

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Collection Description Focus

• Improve consistency, compatibility of approaches
• 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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CLDs as metadata

• 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
• A collection is a type of resource CLDs are
  metadata records
• Support
• resource discovery
• resource management
• Used by
• human agents, software agents

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CLDs as resource discovery metadata

• Resource users wish to
• search across, interpret, and compare resource
  descriptions from different provider communities
• Resource providers wish to
• disseminate resource descriptions widely
• Resource discovery metadata is
• used beyond its creator community
• combined with metadata from other communities
  (aggregated or cross-searched)
• challenge of semantic interoperability

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CLDs as resource discovery metadata

• 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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CLDs as resource discovery metadata

• Find
• to locate entities corresponding to user criteria
  
• provision of access points for effective search
• Identify
• to confirm that entity is entity sought,
  distinguish similar entities
• sufficient level of description to differentiate
• Select
• to choose entity appropriate to requirements
• sufficient level of description to indicate
  content, use requirements
• (Obtain)

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CLDs as resource management metadata

• 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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Raising standards

• Subject terms and subject schemes
• access point for resource discovery (find)
• subject of collection v subject of content/items
  in collection?
• subject schemes for CLD v subject schemes for
  item-level description?
• domain-specific v cross-domain?
• Strength indicators
• resource management
• also resource discovery (select)
• how to measure strength?
• relationship with subject schemes?

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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/