From 8 miles high to ground zero: granularity in the information

landscape

Gordon Dunsire

Preamble

The information landscapeGranularity of metadata

ContentCarrier

Ground zero

Information landscape

Topology of the common information environmentSee AKM9, 2005, Porec (!)Seamless, joined-up services and widest range of

resources supporting the information-processing needs of all users in a community

Shaped by metadataLumps, clumps, aggregatesGranularity

Granularity of content

Global collection of all information resources

International and national collections

Institutional and organisational collections

Special, named and functional collections

Items

Granularity of metadata content

Union catalogue (is a collection of ...)

Catalogue/finding aid (is a collection of ...)

Record (is a collection of ...)

Metadata statement

Global finding aid (is a collection of ...)

Metadata statements

Google (web of documents)This resource (URL) contains terms “bagpipes, ...”

Only type of statement is contains terms

Archives, libraries, museums (semantic web)This set of letters (ID) has author “G. MacDonald”This book (ID) has subject “Bagpipes”This object (ID) is made of goat skin

100s of types of statement

Granularity and lumpiness

More granularity = finer detailsmoother landscape

easier, flexible navigationuse statements to navigate

Need more than one statement to identify and select a resource

set of statements = record

Ground zero = Chain reaction

Chain of metadata statementslinked (open) data

Linking Open Data cloud diagram, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-cloud.net/

Chain reaction

Controlled (not an explosion!)More like a (nuclear) power station

vs?

Thank you! gordon@gordondunsire.com

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