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The Guide presents an overview of metadata practices in publishing and related initiatives aimed at standardizing how metadata is structured and disseminated online. Metadata in publishing can be classified according to specific functions, such as technical metadata, rights metadata, and preservation metadata. The authors focus on descriptive metadata that characterizes the content itself. The Guide covers metadata's relationship to XML and to identifiers, why metadata is important to publishers and the reader, and then covers several metadata practices in the publishing industry including ONIX, JWP, CrossRef, and OAI. The authors conclude that metadata is an essential part of the publishing process and provides an extensive list of information resources on electronic publishing.
Metadata initiatives for six CENDI agencies are described. The emphasis is on metadata for non-traditional projects such as multimedia, curriculum and educational materials, and web site cataloging. Issues and concerns are identified along with recommendations for CENDI follow-up.
A metadata format used by federal agencies, including science agencies, to identify government resources at various levels. Required by OMB Circular A-130 (Paperwork Reduction Act) and FIPS 192. GILS is also used internationally.
A metadata format for geospatial data required within the federal government by Executive Order when the original information can be referenced geospatially (i.e., by latitude and longtitude coordinates).
This site describes the history of the Dublin Core metadata element project, gives definitions and technical details about the scheme, points to sites and projects that are using the Dublin Core scheme, and identifies outstanding issues being addressed by the working groups.
An international association of national library associations and other related information centers. Provides organization information, calendar and links to sites of interest to the constituency including a site that provides links and a bibliography on metadata.
This general news article introduces metadata as a tool to support access to quality information on the Web, describes the value of applying the metadata field "resource type" for users, lists numbers of sites by resource types cataloged in Signposts (the index to Scout Reports), and recommends avoiding temptation to further granularize this category of metadata.
This working paper suggests a standard set of genre types to be used in the Dublin Core metadata element "resource type".
This site introduces the IMS project for managing online learning resources (people, educational service companies, content, tools and activities) under development by EduCom and the NLII initiative and gives an overview of the concept of meta-data. A detailed description of the IMS metadata specification is presented in the IMS Meta-data Dictionary which describes each field according to the ISO Standard 11179. Fields correlating to Dublin Core are "starred". The Meta-data Tool software, Forum, and Meta-data Listserv are linked to the site. The IMS project represents a major initiative for managing learning resources on the Web by the academic and other communities. The crosswalk to Dublin Core indicates potential for Web-based resource sharing among communities who adhere to common standards.
The workshop addresses information server technologies, search technologies and directory and online services. Participants are proponents of repository interface standards for distributed indexing and searching. The report begins with a two page summary of topics and outcomes. Three technical sessions were held on Distributed Data Collection, Data Transfer Formats, and Distributed Search Architectures. Follow-on discussion was on indexing and collecting information needed for indexing. Slides, session notes, outcomes, and quotes are included. Participant and position papers are available in PDF, Postscript and Word format. Standards to support searching and metadata tags were among topics discussed.
This is the final report from the Task Force that was established with five charges: analyze the resource description needs of libraries, build a conceptual map of the resource description landscape and develop models for accessing and using metadata, devise a definition of metadata and investigate the interoperability of emerging schemes with current MARC rules, recommend ways that libraries could best incorporate metadata schemes into current library practices, and recommend rules revisions to AACR2. The charges are addressed in this summary document. It also contains links to prototype systems, a glossary of terms, and concludes by handing over its results to the ALCTS standing Committee on Networked Resources and Metadata.
The creation of the FGDC through Circular A-16 (1990) was described. Almost every executive agency produces geographic data of some sort. The FGDC's outreach activities, technology, policies, and standards are discussed. The current status and standards activities related to the FGDC Metadata Content standard was outlined. The FGDC's activities with cooperating universities and the National Spatial Data Infrastructure is also described.
In 1994, the Council for Preservation and Access funded a project calle The Yale Social Science Data Preservation Project. This report of that project discusses mechanisms for preserving and archiving social science data and its documentation. Issues addressed include technology migration, hardware/software independent formats, and user accessibility. While the emphasis is on social science data, it is expected that the information in this report would be of value to scientific numberic data as well.
This white papers presents the key issues involved in the development of crosswalks between different metadata standards. It promotes the idea of harmonization when developing standards, so that families of standards are created that are more easily crosswalked. The paper calls for the development of a Metadata Specification Language (MSL) that would provide a consistent format and language for the documentation of a metadata standard.
This article describes an analysis of 466 Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata records stored in the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) section of the FGDC's Clearinghouse, and reviews issues regarding conversion of these records into MARC21 and Dublin Core. Special attention is paid to the length of fields as well as length of all the records analyzed.
Gateway to the independent USA Federal agency that helps preserve USA's history by overseeing the management of all USA Federal records. Links are available to grants, employment, internships and volunteering opportunities.
This Web site provides access to OCLC's Annual Review of Research which covers OCLC Internet Services, PURLS, Digital Libraries, Copyright and a host of other library related research topics. Back issues of these reports are available from 1994.
The article discusses the approach taken by Arc (a federated digital library that is compliant with the Open Archives Initiative) in harvesting data from heterogeneous digital repositories. Because of the variability of metadata quality, Arc created an interface allowing both keyword and advanced searching as well as through an interactive approach.
This Conference Web site provides access to the papers and discussions presented at the November conference held at the Library of Congress. The goal of this conference was to develop an overall strategy to address the challenges of improved access to Web resources through library catalogs and applications of metadata. Another goal was to identify actions that would achieve the objectives of the overall strategy. One of the main topics at the conference was a discussion of current library standards for bibliographic control and web access. The recommendations and fulltext papers from the conference are available at this site.
Ms. Marsh provides a report from a presentation by Dr. McIlwaine, professor of library and information studies at the University of London at OCLC on October 26, 1999. Dr. Mcllwaine discussed the merits of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) system and noted that its prinicipal difference from Dewey (DDC) was its flexibility. However its greatest strength-flexibility is also its greatest weakness because it lacks uniformity across libraries. Although bibliographic classifications are the basis of the UDC and the DDC, information classification is not limited to these systems. Librarians are urged to examine many different systems when constructing retrieval tools. She urged all to make greater efforts to coordinate what we are doing with the work of specialists in order to create adequate retrieval tools for the information that is available to us. We must reach some common agreement on both the systematic arrangements of concepts and vocabulary control. This will in turn improve communication and facilitate universal access to information.
Minutes from a presentation by Melanie Gardner (AgNIC Coordinator) and Dr. John Kane (Computer Scientist, NAL) at the CENDI meeting on December 6, 2000. Ms. Gardner discussed the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC), a system which acts as a portal for quality agricultural information on the Internet. AgNIC is comprised of 38 distributed partners. The presentation discussed the history of AgNIC, the responsibilities of the partners, and the standards that are used to support interoperability.
JoDi is a peer-reviewed Web journal that focuses on information in digital environments. JoDi is supported by the British Computer Society and Oxford University Press. Occassionally special issues are published that focus on a specific topic such as networked knowledge organization systems in volume 1, issue 8, April 2001 issue. At the current time the journal is free, however, as the site becomes more developed, a fee will be charged. Jodi also offers a free alert service for notification of new issues of the journal.
The Digital Knowledge Center (DKC) at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library of The Johns Hopkins University is developing a workflow management system aimed at reducing the amount of human labor and time needed for large-scale digitization projects such as the one currently underway with the Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music. This paper covers the second phase of that project (Levy II). The goals of the second phase are to: reduce costs for incorporating large digitization projects into the collection by creating processes, tools, and interfaces for workflow management; increase access capabilities to the digitized collection via research tools; and to demonstrate the utility of the workflow mangement system. In order to incorporate the newly digitized material into the existing collection in a cost efficient manner, automated tools were developed to reduce the amount of human labor involved in creating the metadata and increased access to the new material. An automated name authority control system (ANAC) was developed to enhance access to the Levy Collection by introducing authorized name searching. The ANAC would also reduce labor costs and improve interoperability of Levy metadata with other collections by using standard data sources and format. This system would also produce a name match confidence value so that managers can establish thresholds that trigger manual intervention. The search engine that is being developed augments metadata searching with unique search capabilities for lyrics and music. Secondary and parallel indices provide a versatile means of searching a variety of documents. The use of partitions on metadata fields allows for metadata-based searching and retrieval and a way to segment documents. Although the workflow management system was developed specifically for the Levy sheet music collection, the authors feel that the tools are generalized enough so that other collections can benefit from them.
Mr. Dillon addresses the challenge of how libraries can gain bibliographic control over resources on the Web. He believes that the cataloging function in libraries will have to be re-defined because of the shift from paper to digital forms for representing knowledge and the shift to the Web as the primary distributor of these resources. He provides definitions and indepth discussions on metadata. He also outlines some general issues with metadata on the Web including rights management, Resource Description Framework, Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) and metadata systems, tags, descriptiors. One interesting issue with the term "metadata" is that it can refer to tags that define a set of fields and its contents or it can refer to the contents of certain fields that act as descriptors for other resources. Mr. Dillon also discusses some issues with Dublin Core including degree of completeness, institutional support, documentation, implementation guidelines, and extensibility rules. The role of libraries in Web Resource Description will have to be clearly defined. Although search technology is constantly improving, he believes that libraries will still have roles in supplying wrong, obscure, or missing information for Web descriptors, coordinating and differentiating names for authority control, and selecting the appropriate pages to search for information on the Web. In conclusion he argues that it is the responsibility of the library to provide effective access to knowledge resources on the Web and recommends that a MARC version of the Dublin Core be developed with instructions and examples.
The Open Archives Initiative's Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) was designed to facilitate the discovery of distributed resources. In this article, the authors describe three innovative applications of this protocol: the GSAFD Thesaurus; the Digital Library Usage Logs, and the OpenURL Registry. The authors conclude that the OAI-PMH can be used as a mechanism to maintain state in distributed systems and the simple user interfaces can be implemented by the use of OAI-PMH requests and responses.
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