Collections and collection-level description CIMI Members’ meeting, Boston, MA, USA 22-23 April 2002 Pete Johnston UKOLN, University of Bath Bath, BA2

Collections and collection-level description

CIMI Members’ meeting, Boston, MA, USA

22-23 April 2002

Pete Johnston

UKOLN, University of Bath

Bath, BA2 7AY

UKOLN is supported by:

[email protected]://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

Collections & Collection-level description, Boston, 22-23 April 2002

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Collections and collection-level description

• Collections, collection description & collection-level description

• CLD at UKOLN– RSLP CD project– Collection Description Focus

• CIMI/CD Focus survey• What next?

Collections, collection description and collection-level description


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What is a collection?

• Collection– “an aggregation of physical and/or digital items”

• Aggregates of, e.g.– natural objects: fossils, mineral samples…– created objects: artefacts, documents, records…– digital resources: documents, images, multimedia

objects, data, software…– digital surrogates of physical objects: documents,

images…– metadata: catalogue records, item descriptions,

collection-level descriptions (!)…


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What is a collection?

• Various criteria for aggregation, e.g.– By location– By type/form of item– By provenance of item– By source/ownership of item– By nature of item content– ….

• Permanent, temporary• Discrete, distributed


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Collection description & collection-level description

• Collection description– Michael Heaney’s analytic model

• Unitary– info about collection as whole, not about items

• Hierarchic– info about collection as whole, and about items

(and relationships between items and whole)

• Analytic– info about items in collection

• Indexing– info derived from items in collection


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Collection description & collection-level description

• Collection-level description– unitary

• RSLP CD schema provides basis for unitary descriptions

• Collection-level description– what level/type of aggregation is

“collection-level” in this context? – functional granularity


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Why collection-level description?

• Collection-level description might– Disclose information about collections– Provide overview of otherwise

uncatalogued items– Enable user to select collections to search

on basis of summary description– Enable software agents to select

collections to search on behalf of user– Support controlled searching of multiple

collections


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Why collection-level description?

• Cross-domain– Different ideas of “collections”– Different criteria for defining “collections”– Different ways of describing “collections”– But useful/possible to agree on broadly

shared view…?

• Permit user to compare broadly similar high-level objects

– even where items heterogeneous


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CLDs as resource discovery metadata

• CLD as an overview of aggregate of items

– useful in many different contexts, for many purposes

• CLDs support “survey of information landscape”

– “to identify areas rather than specific features - to identify rainforest rather than to retrieve an analysis of the canopy fauna of the Amazon basin”

(Heaney, 2000)

Collection-level description work at UKOLN


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Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP)

• Support for academic researchers– disclosure of collections– discovery of/access to collections– collaborative management of collections

• Collections in RSLP– projects describing primarily (but not exclusively)

collections of physical items– projects also describing digital catalogues (which

describe physical items) i.e. collections of metadata records

– projects creating new digital collections of collection descriptions


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RSLP collection description project

• Project– Sept 1999 – Sept 2000– funded by RSLP, with support from OCLC– collaboration between UKOLN (Andy

Powell, Michael Day) and Michael Heaney (Oxford)

• Aims– means of consistent collection description

in RSLP– minimise duplication of effort in projects– simple, high-level, aligned with other work


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RSLP Model of collection

• Michael Heaney, An Analytic Model of Collections and their Catalogues

– Independent of implementation

• Identifies– Entities– Attributes/properties of entities– Relationships between entities

• Based primarily on library/archival view– but applicable across wide range of

collection types?


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Content

ItemProducer

Creator

Administrator Location

RSLP Model (simplified view)

CollectionCollector

Owner


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RSLP CD Schema

• structured set of metadata attributes• concerned with the simple description

of subset of entities in RSLP model– Collections– Locations– Agents

– collectors– owners– administrators

• based on Dublin Core where possible


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RSLP CD Schema

• XML syntax uses RDF– non-RDF XML syntax under consideration

• Several RDBMS implementations by RSLP projects

• Not– a replacement for existing detailed

collection description formats (e.g. EAD)– a replacement for MARC

• A “Dublin Core for collection description”?


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Administrator Location

Schema vs. model

Collection

Item

Content

Collector

Owner

Producer

Creator


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Collection Description Focus

• Since June 2001• Funded by

– RSLP– JISC/DNER– British Library

• Benefit from collaboration with– Interoperability Focus– JISC Information Environment architecture team – Dublin Core Collection Description WG– CIMI

• Improve consistency, compatibility of approaches to CLD


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Collection Description Focus

• Point of contact, advice– support for CLD in programmes

• Gather information on existing practice– survey questionnaire, implementer visits

• Consensus-building– CD Forum

• Disseminate good practice– workshops, briefing days– publications– recommendations, guidelines

CIMI/ CD Focus survey


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• CD Focus interested in– current activity in CLD– standards/specifications used for CLD

– schemas– terminologies, thesauri etc

– how schemas/specs used/deployed– approaches/technologies/tools– problems

• Not limited to CDF funder communities• Discussion at CIMI, June 2001


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• Survey questionnaire, Sep/Oct 2001• 106 respondents

– only 22 working in museum domain

• Emphasis on library/archive collections (Q11, Q15)

• Use of CLD for resource disclosure/ resource discovery (Q17)

• Considerable sharing of CLDs in “union catalogues” (Q18)


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• Outside archival community, range of descriptive schemas (Q20)

– local schemas

– legacy (unstructured?) CLDs

• Unfamiliar concepts?• Granularity• Relationships

– collection-item

– collection-service

– collection-”agents”


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• Subject as access point (Q23-25)– LCSH most widespread– but terminologies problematic

• Cross-domain v domain-specific?• Personal/corporate names as access

point (Q26-28)– especially for archival collections


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• Implementation section (Q33-37) least successful

– wide variation beyond e.g. RSLP

• CLDs as data or document– c.f. recent discussions re EAD

• Requirements– more information on CLD– audience - user or manager– forum for discussion– interest in standardisation?


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What next?

• Survey revealed limited information for CLD in museums

– Focus on description of object

• But more generally, interest in CLD for resource disclosure/discovery?

• Is CLD useful for museums?• Is it an area for CIMI to explore

further?• In what form?


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Acknowledgements

UKOLN is funded by Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK higher and further 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.

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

Documents

Collections and collection-level description CIMI Members’ meeting, Boston, MA, USA 22-23 April 2002 Pete Johnston UKOLN, University of Bath Bath, BA2