Metadata Element Set Research Articles

Application Profile Development for Consortial Digital Libraries

In 2002, OhioLINK’s consortia of libraries recognized the need to restructure and standardize the metadata used in the OhioLINK Digital Media Center as a step in the development of a general purpose digital object repository. The authors explore the concept of digital object repositories and mechanisms used to develop complex data structures in a cooperative environment, report the findings and recommendations of the OhioLINK Database Management and Standards Committee (DMSC) Metadata Task Force, and identify lessons learned, addressing data structures as well as data content standards. A significant result of the work was the creation of the OhioLINK Digital Media Center (DMC) Metadata Application Profile and the implementation of a core set of metadata elements and Dublin Core Metadata Element Set mappings for use in OhioLINK digital projects. The profile and core set of metatadata elements are described.

Preserving perpetual access to electronic journals: A Korean consortial approach

This study describes the key findings of the Korean Electronic Site License Initiative (KESLI), established by the National Digital Science Library to develop a digital archive of electronic journals in Korea. Research and relevant activities included developing a system architecture, suggesting journal selection criteria and publisher selection criteria, choosing a set of metadata elements, and addressing stakeholders' concerns. Recommendations for further tasks have been made in order to have the system fully operating by December 2007.

Harnessing NASA Goddard’s Grey Literature: The Power of a Repository Framework

The NASA Goddard Library collaborated with several projects on-Center to create a framework for the development of web-accessible repositories of grey literature. Tools and methods for collaboration were developed through a series of prototypes with a variety of Goddard projects based on the Library's Digital Asset System (DAS), a repository to describe and provide access to project information including images, videos, web sites, and technical reports. Metadata is a key component of this framework. The Goddard Core Metadata Element Set, an extension of the Dublin Core, is used to describe these resources. Additional elements include project name, project code and instrument name. A taxonomy of controlled subject terms has been developed which can also be extended and tailored for each project. This provides consistent searching across the DAS, while at the same time enhancing the search precision for each project collection when it is accessed as a separate collection in the DAS or through its own web site. To-date, the Library has used the framework with a number of different projects. A commemorative CD with key documents, web sites and oral histories by the project managers was developed for the Hitchhiker Project as it was being disbanded. Metadata from the Swift project library was transformed and made more accessible with pointers to documents in the Swift project library. The Landsat Legacy Project, a joint project with the Landsat Program Science Office, the US Geological Survey, and the NASA History Office, is creating an archive of essential technical-, policy-, and science-related documentation. To gather significant documentation from the over 35-year-multi-agency history of Landsat, the Library added components for external submission of documents for potential inclusion in the new repository and for scanning paper documents. In addition, video histories are being captured from Landsat veterans. Through these projects, the NASA Goddard Library has developed a methodology for collaborating with different kinds of projects. It involves procedures for analyzing the needs of a project and determining how the metadata, taxonomy, and interface might need to change, while remaining consistent with the DAS framework for cross-repository access. Ultimately, the Library plans to extend the effort to other projects. (At any given point in time, Goddard has more than 30 projects in various stages of completion.) As part of Goddard's knowledge management activities, the DAS provides a framework for sharing grey literature that would otherwise be scattered across independent project libraries. Benefits include the ability to more quickly find and reuse information to decrease project costs, enhance safety and promote innovation.

Microformatos: web 2.0 para el Dublin Core

This paper describes the use of Dublin Core (DC) microformats that allow the DC Metadata Element Set to be marked up in a style commonly applied in web 2.0. Microformats allow the semantic expression inside xhtml pages to be displayed in a manner visible to the user, thereby enabling a high level of description for specific types of resources (business cards, events, etc.). This particular use of DC microformats offers great potential for resource description in general, and is especially suitable for describing bibliographic resources. Also presented in this paper is a simple way for encoding DC in microformats using the Dublin Core Metadata Gen software, as well as an application that allows information included in the microformats to be displayed using the Mozilla Firefox extension, created for this purpose.

The Development and Use of Metadata Application Profiles

ABSTRACT A metadata application profile identifies the metadata elements used in a particular domain or application and describes how they have been customized for that use. A metadata application profile facilitates information exchange and element re-use. In practice, the development and use of metadata application profiles present a number of challenges. This paper investigates these issues by examining the definition and function of a metadata application profile, interoperability challenges, and the evolution of thinking about metadata elements, element sets, and application profiles. The authors draw on their experience in the Government of Canada to discuss these issues and suggest rections.

New Discoveries in the André Savine Collection: Examining the Author-Generated Metadata Contained in the Bibliographic and Biographical Record of André Savine

SUMMARY This article describes the André Savine collection, recently acquired by the University of North Carolina, and reports on an analysis of author-generated metadata contained in a portion of the bibliographic/biographical record compiled by the late André Savine. For this study, the contents of 368 index cards created by Savine were analyzed for core bibliographic elements (author-generated descriptive metadata). Elements were identified and conceptually mapped to the English and Russian versions of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES). Results of this study indicate that Savine created extensive descriptive metadata and that ten of these data elements map to the DCMES. Other key metadata elements that do not map to DC were also identified. It is recommended that these additional elements also be incorporated into the schema used to facilitate resource discovery of Savine's index cards. The descriptive metadata extracted from Savine's bibliographic and biographical information provide a model metadata scheme that can be used with similar projects in the future.

Using web logs transactions to assess a metadata registry system's use: the case of MetaForm

Purpose – MetaForm is a database that hosts metadata element sets, descriptions and guidelines for their use. It is the focal point of the Metadata Server at SUB Gottingen for anyone who is using metadata to describe networked resources or would like to familiarise themselves with metadata element sets, in particular Dublin Core, and their application. This paper proposes to present findings on the use of the MetaForm metadata registry system based on data from web logs transactions. It aims to broaden understanding of how metadata registries are used, particularly as indicated by their own users.Design/methodology/approach – The paper analyses web log transactions of more than six years (1 July 1998 to 10 November 2004). The focus of this paper is in three areas: use presented on a daily, monthly and yearly basis; (trends in use (increasing/decreasing) over a period of more than six years; and users of the metadata registry system as shown through the domain and directory reports.Findings – Presents the ...

디지털자원의 보존 메타데이터 요소세트 개발에 관한 연구

디지털자원의 영구보존을 효율적으로 수행하기 위해서는 디지털자원의 고유의 속성과 변화를 설명해주는 지적 정보 즉 보존 메타데이터가 구조적으로 그리고 체계적으로 표기되어야 한다. 보존 메타데이터는 외부적/내부적 변화와 상관없이 사용자가 보다 쉽게 원하는 진본 데이터에 접근하여 검색할 수 있도록 하며 관리자는 보다 효율적으로 정보자원을 관리하고 보존할 수 있도록 한다. 따라서 202년 OAIS 참조모형(ISO 14721 )이 보존 메타데이터 표준을 권고한 이후 외국의 여러 국가 디지털도서관에서는 각 나라의 실정에 맞게 보존 메타데이것이다. 본 연구는 먼저 OAIS가 권고한 정보모델과 디지털자원의 장기적 보존을 위해서 외국 도서관에서 개발된 보존 메타데이터 요소세트에 대해서 비교 분석하였고, 우리나라 대학도서관에서는 어떻게 보존 메타데이터를 구축하고 활용하고 있으며, 어떠한 보존 메타데이터 요소들이 대학도서관에 적합한지를 조사하였다. 이를 기반으디지털자원의 보존 메타데이터 요소세트를 제안하였다.

Practical Preservation: The PREMIS Experience

In 2003 the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) and Research Libraries Group (RLG) established an international working group to develop a common, implementable core set of metadata elements for digital preservation. Most published specifications for preservation-related metadata are either implementation specific or broadly theoretical. PREMIS (Preservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies) was charged to define a set of semantic units that are implementation independent, practically oriented, and likely to be needed by most preservation repositories. The semantic units will be represented in a data dictionary and in a METS-compatible XML schema. In the course of this work, the group also developed a glossary of terms and concepts, a data model, and a typology of relationships. Existing preservation repositories were surveyed about their architectural models and metadata practices, and some attempt was made to identify best practices. This article outlines the history and methods of the PREMIS Working Group and describes its deliverables. It explains major assumptions and decisions made by the group and examines some of the more difficult issues encountered.

The Governmental Markup Language (GovML)

Abstract The value of public sector information can be significantly increased by employing standards. For example, the use of a metadata standard for describing governmental resources allows citizens and businesses to locate and retrieve these resources in a more efficient and effective way. Furthermore, the use of a common document template for describing elementary and integrated public services (such as life events) can also substantially improve management and reuse of information and increase citizens' satisfaction. This paper proposes a metadata element set for governmental resources and a template for describing life events and public services. The proposed metadata element set can be used to facilitate the search and retrieval of governmental resources such as electronic documents. The proposed document template, termed the Governmental Markup Language (GovML), is a recommendation for describing public services and life events. It is anticipated that both public organizations and consumers of public services (citizens, businesses and other public organizations) would benefit from such a common information structure. Public authorities will be able to better manage (i.e., create, modify, store, etc.), exchange and reuse their information. Citizens and businesses will enjoy better services when searching for information regarding public services and life events. From a more technical perspective, GovML data vocabularies are proposed XML patterns, validated against an appropriate XML schema. Interoperability among public authorities is ensured as the rules that dominate the document syntax are common. Moreover, GovML-com-pliant information exploits XML potential; thus it can be displayed in multiple formats and devices, such as Web browsers, PDAs and mobile phones.

PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies

PREservation Metadata: Implementation Strategies, or PREMIS, is an activity jointly sponsored by OCLC and RLG, focusing on issues associated with implementing preservation metadata in digital archiving systems. It was established to develop a common, implementable core set of metadata elements for digital preservation, since most published specifications for preservation-related metadata are either implementation-specific or broadly theoretical. PREMIS is composed of nearly 30 international experts representing national and university libraries, museums, archives, government agencies, and the private sector. PREMIS was charged to define a set of semantic units that are implementation-independent, practically-oriented, and likely to be needed by most preservation repositories as well as to identify and evaluate alternative strategies for encoding, storing, managing, and exchanging the core elements within a digital archiving system.Initiated in June 2003, PREMIS will conclude its activities in early 2005. This paper will report on the findings and conclusions of the PREMIS working group. The deliverables of the group consist of a survey of existing preservation repositories, a final report, and a data dictionary.As part of the PREMIS work, existing preservation repositories were surveyed about their architectural models and metadata practices. This paper will summarize the results of this survey which addressed the mission, policy, economic, and technical aspects of digital repositories, as well as current practices for creating, managing, and maintaining preservation metadata within the repository environment. Analysis of the survey responses suggests that the digital preservation community is beginning to coalesce around several emerging trends and best practices in the use and management of preservation metadata, which will be enumerated.The second deliverable of the group is a data dictionary and final report. The semantic units that support long term preservation are represented in a data dictionary with implementation details and in METS-compatible XML schemas. In the course of this work, the group also developed a glossary of terms and concepts, a data model, and a typology of relationships. The paper will discuss the data model as well as key issues that arose in the consensusbuilding process during the development of the data dictionary.The PREMIS working group report and data dictionary will be issued in March 2005, with the XML schemas to follow shortly thereafter. In addition to providing the data dictionary and accompanying documentation, the paper will also suggest follow-on activities to test the PREMIS data element set.

文化科学研究分野における情報資源共有化について

We are now in feasibility studies on the project for information resource sharing among many National Research Institutes on the humanity sciences in Japan. The project is collaboration with National Institute of Japanese Literature, National Museum of Ethnology, National Museum of Japanese History, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, The Historiographical Institute of University of Tokyo, Center for Southeast Asian Studies of Kyoto University, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, and so on. It has an objective of developing system and technologies on seamless access to the individual databases held in these Institutes. We use the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set for metadata system and the Z39.50 protocol for information retrieval system and the HTML for user interface.

Enhancing the MeSH thesaurus to retrieve French online health resources in a quality‐controlled gateway

The amount of health information available on the Internet is considerable. In this context, several health gateways have been developed. Among them, CISMeF (Catalogue and Index of Health Resources in French) was designed to catalogue and index health resources in French. The goal of this article is to describe the various enhancements to the MeSH thesaurus developed by the CISMeF team to adapt this terminology to the broader field of health Internet resources instead of scientific articles for the medline bibliographic database. CISMeF uses two standard tools for organizing information: the MeSH thesaurus and several metadata element sets, in particular the Dublin Core metadata format. The heterogeneity of Internet health resources led the CISMeF team to enhance the MeSH thesaurus with the introduction of two new concepts, respectively, resource types and metaterms. CISMeF resource types are a generalization of the publication types of medline. A resource type describes the nature of the resource and MeSH keyword/qualifier pairs describe the subject of the resource. A metaterm is generally a medical specialty or a biological science, which has semantic links with one or more MeSH keywords, qualifiers and resource types. The CISMeF terminology is exploited for several tasks: resource indexing performed manually, resource categorization performed automatically, visualization and navigation through the concept hierarchies and information retrieval using the Doc'CISMeF search engine. The CISMeF health gateway uses several MeSH thesaurus enhancements to optimize information retrieval, hierarchy navigation and automatic indexing.

Distributed learning metadata standards

SIGNIFICANT ECONOMIES can be achieved in distributed learning systems architected with a focus on interoperability and reuse. The key building blocks of an efficient distributed learning architecture are the use of standards and XML technologies. The goal of plug and play capability among various components of a distributed learning system requires the specification of standards for each component. Here we examine one component in distributed learning system architecture, namely, the metadata for the learning object. Metadata enables the cataloging and discovery of educational materials. Two metadata standards are LOM (Learning Object Metadata) and Dublin Core Metadata Element Set. LOM was released as IEEE 14.12.1 in June 2002. Dublin Core was ratified by the International Standards Organization (ISO) in January 2003 as ISO 15836. Interoperability of components across platforms, languages, and systems utilizes XML technologies to implement the distributed learning standards. We include an explanation of the fundamentals of XML and explore the role of XML technologies in distributed learning.

Standard Metadata Applied to Software Retrieval

This paper discusses the use of standardized bibliographic metadata sets for the retrieval of software components. Their proven success, and the assumption that software components are a sort of dynamic document, leads to the assumption that it could be effective to adopt bibliographic metadata element sets for resource discovery of software components. Stemming from four sets, viz. the Dublin Core, EAD, ISAD(G) and MARC, a metadata element set for software components was constructed. The resulting set, an extended Dublin Core set for software components (XDCSC), implemented in XML, can be used for component retrieval and thus supports software reuse. A first test was performed with components of the BETADE research group. It demonstrates that the retrieval of software can be addressed in this way, XDC-SC is useful as a source of metadata for software components. XDC-SC could serve as a basis for a standard.

Unqualified Dublin Core usage in OAI‐PMH data providers

This research describes an empirical study of how the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) is used by 100 data providers (DPs) registered with the Open Archives Initiative (OAI). The research was conducted to determine whether or not the DCMES is used to its full capabilities. Of 100 DPs, 82 have metadata records available for analysis; the DC elements used in each record were parsed and counted. Of the 15 elements, five – creator, identifier, title, date, and type – are used 71 per cent of the time and 54 per cent of the 82 DPs used only the creator and identifier elements for approximately half of their overall DCMES usage. The results show the DCMES is not used to its fullest extent within DPs registered with OAI.

Standards - Metadata standards for educational resources

In the 1990s, recognition of the potential economies of reusing educational materials spawned the development of metadata standards for sharing and storing learning objects. Metadata is data that describes a physical or electronic resource and can be used to manage collections of documents, images, and other information in a repository such as an archive or museum. Some metadata elements, such as title, description, subject, and keywords, are similar to those that libraries use to catalog their holdings. Other elements, such as the uniform resource identifier (URI), are specific to a digital, Web-based environment. Metadata can be stored in a digital library or repository that provides services to search or browse for educational materials. The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set and IEEE Learning Object Metadata are two popular metadata standards that facilitate cataloging, searching, and reuse of such resources.

Metadata for the description of broadcast assets. Sponsored by SIG CR, DL, HCI

AbstractThe Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and public broadcasters consider Media Asset Management (MAM) of critical importance since without a concerted and cooperative plan to manage their vast library of content, broadcasters are unable to reach their potential for service in the digital age. The concerns for Media Asset Managmœnt, human and technical, are myriad. Media Asset Management is the framework upon which many of the largest technology projects will be built, including the future interconnection system between and among CPB member stations. It is CPB's hope that its licensees and their partners in university, museum, and library communities, will work together to contribute to Media Asset Management solutions. These issues are not unique to Public Broadcasters. Similar issues are faced by all networks at different levels of complexity.This panel will present efforts by broadcasters and media companies to deal with the creation and maintenance of metadata, indexing and controlled vocabularies required for effective Media Asset Management of broadcasts.Panelist will provide perspectives of their organization or project, for example, the CPB's PB Core metadata element set, which is currently under development; the Disney Nomenclature Registry at Disney Corporation; and the ViDe (video access group) MPEG‐7 and Dublin Core mapping.

Are ISO 15489‐1:2001 and ISAD(G) compatible? Part 2

Part 1 of this article presented a provisional set of metadata elements for the implementation of ISO 15489‐1 Information and Documentation – Records Management. In Part 2 the elements are mapped to the General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD(G)) to establish the extent to which the two standards are compatible and the degree to which ISO 15489‐1 metadata can be transferred directly from a current records management system to an archival description system. The mapping reveals a large degree of correlation between the metadata that should be captured as part of a records management system to satisfy ISO 15489‐1, and the information required to compile an ISAD(G)‐compliant archival description. Most of the compatible information comes from the description area of ISO 15489‐1 metadata elements rather than the management area. Out of the six mandatory elements for ISAD(G) interoperability, five, i.e. reference code, title, dates, extent, and creator, are present in the ISO 15489‐1 metadata element set, albeit often in an abbreviated form.

Are ISO 15489‐1:2001 and ISAD(G) compatible? Part 1

Part 1 of this article presents a provisional set of metadata elements for the implementation of ISO 15489‐1:2001 Information and Documentation – Records Management. In Part 2 the elements are mapped to the General International Standard Archival Description (2nd edition, 2000) (ISAD(G)) to establish the extent to which the two standards are compatible and the degree to which ISO 15489‐1 metadata can be transferred directly from a current records management system to an archival description system. Metadata systematically captured during the current life of the record and transferred to an archive with the record should simplify the process of archival description and prevent the loss of context. The mapping reveals a large degree of correlation between the metadata that should be captured as part of a records management system to satisfy ISO 15489‐1, and the information required to compile an ISAD(G) compliant archival description. Most of the compatible information comes from the Description Area of ISO 15489‐1 metadata elements rather than the management area. Five out of the six mandatory elements for ISAD(G) interoperability, i.e. reference code, title, dates, extent and creator, are present in the ISO 15489‐1 metadata element set, albeit often in an abbreviated form. This is encouraging and perhaps not very surprising, since senior records and archives professionals were involved in the drafting of both standards.