Discovery Metadata for Special CollectionsConcepts, Considerations, Choices

William E. Moen<wemoen@unt.edu>

School of Library and Information SciencesTexas Center for Digital Knowledge

University of North TexasDenton, TX 72603

2004 Texas Library Association Annual Conference, March 18, 2004, San Antonio, TX

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Terminology: Metadata

The result of processes (manual or automatic) performed on an object, where the result is a representation or derivative of salient features of the object

Structured data associated with an object that supports a variety of user tasks including: Resource discovery Information management

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Terminology: Discovery

Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) identified four tasks: To find materials that correspond to the user's stated

search criteria To identify an entity To select an entity that is appropriate to the user's needs To acquire or obtain access to the entity described

How do we represent objects through metadata to help users discover resources?

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Users and their needs Who are users of archives and special collection

End users• Researchers• Students• Local history aficionados

Staff• Metadata creators• Archivists• Librarians• Technologists

Software (e.g., search engines, metasearch applications, harvesters)

How will they interact with the metadata

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Conceptual & decision framework

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Metadata choices: EAD

Encoded Archival Description Standard method for presenting archival finding aids Includes two main parts:

Header – describes the finding aid Archival description – describes the archival collection

Uses Extensible Markup Language (XML) to mark up the finding aid

Sample

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Metadata choices: Library Catalog Record Uses traditional library cataloging practices Less detail than the finding aid approach Represented in MARC syntax Sample

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Metadata choices: Dublin Core

A simple resource description scheme geared towards discovery

Fifteen basic elements Can be stored as metadata records in a database or

embedded in HTML pages Sample

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Considerations: Standards, Rules, Quality Standard metadata schemes

Why invent your own? Rules for creating metadata

Often the standards provide guidelines and rules Consistent, complete, accurate metadata

How to assess quality? Diane Hillmann’s quality measures: Completeness Provenance Accuracy Conformance to expectations Logical consistency or coherence Timeliness Accessibility

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Considerations: Interoperability Use and reuse of metadata Different applications may want to process the

metadata Adherence to standard metadata element sets

EAD Library cataloging practices Dublin Core

Adherence to standards for encoding XML MARC HTML <Meta>

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Considerations: Making objects visible

Metadata can make objects visible for discovery Approaches

Native interface for searching (e.g., TARO, TSLAC catalog)

Web search engines Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting

• Exposing your metadata as Dublin Core records for harvesting via the OAI protocol

Library of Texas Resource Discovery Service• Metasearch application• Standards-based using Z39.50 information retrieval protocol

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TARO?

Your Archives?

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Choices & Decisions Who are your users and how will they discover your

resources? What standard metadata scheme best fits your

objects and users? How will you assure quality of your metadata? How will you make your metadata visible?

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Selected References Dublin Core Metadata

http://www.dublincore.org/ Encoded Archival Description (EAD)

http://www.loc.gov/ead/ Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records

http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.pdf http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.htm

Library of Texas Resource Discovery Service http://www.libraryoftexas.org/

Open Archives Initiative for Metadata Harvesting http://www.openarchives.org/

Hillmann & Bruce. The Continuum of Quality: Defining, Expressing, Exploiting (Draft preprint) http://content.nsdl.org/metadata_practice/hillmann_bruce_final.html