CEN/ISSS DC workshop, January 2000

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The UK approach to subject gateways

Rachel Heery <r.heery@ukoln.ac.uk>

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

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!

Time passes…. 1999

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Gateways in productionGateways

• 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

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

SOSIG

RDNCRDNC

SOSIGSOSIG

BIOMEBIOME

EMCEMC

Hubs

Centre

• HUMBUL• SciGate• Creative Arts

and Industries• ...

• HUMBUL• SciGate• Creative Arts

and Industries• ...

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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

EMC

BIOME

RDNC Broker‘ResourceFinder’

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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

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 workspace:BIBLINK, CORC

• Sharing metadata

- import/export:SOSIG 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/