OCLC Research @ U of Calgary: New directions for metadata workflows across libraries, archives, museums

Research

Scene setting: New directions for metadata workflows across libraries, archives, museums

Günter WaibelKaren Smith-YoshimuraMerrilee ProffittThom Hickey

University of CalgaryFebruary 10th 2010

ResearchUniversity of Calgary – February 10th 2010

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Taylor Family Digital Library


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Sheila CannellDirector, Library ServicesUniversity of Edinburgh

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Sheila CannellDirector, Library ServicesUniversity of Edinburgh

“I'm really quite convinced that what we have to do is to boost up the whole area of what would be called the intellectual capital of the university, which I think

happens within our special collections, within our

archives (both those that are older and those that are

being created now), and in our museums. I'm really

interested in how we reposition the traditional

library into that more general area.”

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Anne Van CampDirector, Smithsonian Institution Archives

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Anne Van CampDirector, Smithsonian Institution Archives

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We are 19 museums, 9 research centers that are

scattered across the world, we have 18 different archives, we have 1 library, but that library has 20 branches, and we have

1 zoo. So it's a rather complicated place, and you can imagine the challenge we face

in trying to bring all of this disparate information

together.


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Princeton

Smithsonian

Victoria & Albert

U of Edinburgh Yale

OCLC Research LAM Workshops


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Beth McKillopKeeper of Asia, Victoria & Albert Museum

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Beth McKillopKeeper of Asia, Victoria & Albert Museum

“The William Morris question remains with us. How do you show what the V&A has to offer to students interested in William Morris: designs by William Morris, archival materials by William Morris, and library books about William Morris.”

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V&A Core Systems Integration Project (CSIP)

Strategy• Data harvesting for

archival materials• Metasearch for library

and museum content


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Yale Office of Digital Assets and Infrastructure (ODAI)

slide courtesy of Meg Bellinger,Ann Green, Louis E. KingYale University's Model for Campus-wide Digital Content Strategy and Implementation (CNI 2009)

www.cni.org/tfms/2009b.fall/Presentations/cni_yale_bellinger.pdf


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Strategy• LAMs as OAI data

content providers• ODAI as harvester


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Outcome: SI Collections Search Center

Strategy• Central Index• Webservices


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Research

New Directions for Metadata Workflows

Karen [email protected] Research

University of CalgaryFebruary 10, 2010


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Current Descriptive Metadata Practices2007 survey of 18 RLG Partners in the US and the UK

that: • had “multiple metadata creation centers” on campus• had some interaction among them

Brigham Young U.Center for Jewish HistoryChemical Heritage FoundationEmory Getty Research InstituteHarvardMinnesota Historical SocietyPrinceton Smithsonian Institution

Syracuse UniversityU. AberdeenUC Los AngelesU. CambridgeU. EdinburghU. MichiganU. MinnesotaU. WashingtonYale


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Workplace environment


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Materials handled

78% handle both published and unpublished items


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Types of materials described


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Metadata description tools

• 65% Integrated Library System (Innovative Interfaces Millennium, Exlibris/Aleph or Voyager, VTLS/Virtua, SirsiDynix/Unicorn or Horizon, etc.)

• 41% Digital Collections software (CONTENTDM, Luna Insight, MDID, etc.)

• 31% Institutional Repository software (DSpace, Digital Commons, ePrints, etc.)

• 31% Collections Management system (TMS, KE Emu, Willoughby, etc.)

• 25% Digital Asset Management system (Portfolio, TEAMS, MediaBin, ClearStory, etc.)

• 17% Archival Management system (Archivists’ Toolkit, Archon, etc.


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Data structures used


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Thesauri and controlled vocabularies

• Two thirds or more use:o Library of Congress Subject Headings, LC/NACO Name Authority File,

Art & Architecture Thesaurus• More than 30% use:

o Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names, Thesaurus of Graphic Materials I: Subject Terms, Thesaurus of Graphic Materials II: Genre and Physical Characteristic Terms, Union List of Artist Names

• More than 10% use:o RBMS Controlled Vocabularies for Use in Rare Book and Special

Collections Cataloging, Geographic Names Information Services, Local

• Others used: o ICONCLASS, MeSH, LC Moving Image Materials, NCA Rules for

construction of personal and place names, UK Archival Thesaurus for subjects, Chemical Markup Language Dictionaries, Chicago Thesaurus, Universal Decimal Classification for Polar Libraries, Linnean names, UNESCO Thesaurus, International Astronomical Union’s Astronomy Thesaurus, British Educational Thesaurus, Society of American Archivists, Glossary of Archives and Records Terminology, Integrated Taxonomic Information Systems for archeological faunal collections


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45% build and maintain one or morelocal thesaurus

(especially archives, museums, institutional repositories, digital libraries)


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Image: from the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”

Who knows what’s hidden in our collections?


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What percentage of your collection do you estimate has not been adequately described – and is unlikely to be described without additional resources, funding, or both?

More than 50%31% to 50%11% to 30%0% - 10%

RLG Programs Descriptive Metadata Practices Survey Results: Data Supplement http://www.oclc.org/programs/publications/reports/2007-04.pdf

18%

35% 24%

22%


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Sharing guidelines and strategies with other units


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RLG Partners Metadata Creation Workflows Survey

Working Group conducted 2008 survey of RLG Partner heads or directors of units responsible for creating non-MARC metadata, either solely or in addition to MARC metadata.

• 134 responses from 67 RLG Partner institutions. • Two-thirds used the same staff to create both MARC and non-MARC metadata.• 80% reported that creating non-MARC metadata was part of their

“routine workflows”.


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Crosswalks between schemas used(70% have conversion tools)


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Streamlining metadata creation workflows• Descriptive metadata elements• Procedures• Standards• Tools• Authority control• Rights management• Repurposing data• Capturing data from other systems

Research

Harnessing the power of terminologies

Merrilee [email protected] Research



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Making soup from the alphabet

GSAFD FAST LCSH LCTGM LCNAF GMGPC MeSH AAT ULAN TGN

CSH


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Terminologies “summit,” September 2007• Establish priorities based on a “strawman”

• Search optimization• Support terminologies management & sharing (including

local terms)• Support “social interactions” that add value• Value added intelligence (creating relationships between

terminologies)

• 15 participants (45+ views!)• Lively discussion and prioritization


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Key findings

Enhancing search terms“End users should be our primary concern – if they

don’t find anything, they won’t be back” – Amy Lucker, New York University

Taking “local” global“No published terminologies are going to meet all

needs. The reason we have local terminologies is because contributing to published terminologies is so difficult.” Jenn Riley, Indiana University


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Enhancing search

• Using web services to…• Suggesting search terms• Adding related terms on the fly

• Depends on implementation (it’s up to you)

Query from institution in XML, passed to OCLC, XML passed back to institution, XML parsed by institution, presented in interface.


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“Local” terminologies

• Additional interviews conducted with institutions who maintained “local” terminologies

• Largely unstructured, some based on existing structures (primarily AAT)

• Maintaining local terms because…• Barriers to contributing to existing structures• Perception that terms were truly local

• All interested in a cloud environment • Ease creation and maintenance of terms• Allow terms to flow into local systems • Facilitate contribution to established terminologies

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Names, Identities Hub,VIAF, WorldCat Identities

Thom [email protected] Research



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Names touch everything….

AuthorsPublishersInstitutions

Musicians

Families

Government agencies

ArtistsFictional characters

Actors

Plant discoverers

Corporations

Pseudonyms

Illustrators

Editors

Translators

Correspondents

Historical figures

Directors

Scientists

Architects

Animals

Politicians

Inventors

Associations

Cartographers


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Names can be ambiguous…

“John Adams”… the US president? … the US composer?… the British

mathematician & astronomer?

… the British nuclear physicist?

… or someone else?


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Networking NamesAdvisory Group


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Cooperative Identities Hub• Framework to concatenate and merge

authoritative information• Gateway to all forms of names without

preferring one form over another

• Use social networking model• Provide a switch to extract relevant information for re-use in own contexts• Create federated trust environment to authenticate and authorize contributors


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Hub objectives• Increase metadata creation efficiency• Easier to identify identity regardless of

language or discipline

• Determine preferred form within own context• Enable contributing agencies to augment own data resources

• Expose information about personal and corporate bodies beyond original contexts


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Hub functions• Searches by both people and software

applications

• Edit: Add information, merge, split, flag for deletion

• Create new entities

• Batch update

• Discussion

• Audit trail and rollback


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Virtual International Authority File

• Matches names across 20 authority files• 12.5 million records• 10 million names


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One persona, many representations

http://viaf.org/viaf/95216565


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Other efforts

• ISNI• International Standard Name Identifier

• ORCID• Open Researcher and Contributor ID

• WorldCat Identities• A page for every name in WorldCat


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International StandardName Identifier• Driven by ‘rights’ holders• Need standard way to exchange information• OCLC

• Participating in standards effort• Matching of test files• VIAF may be used as base file


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Open Researcher and Contributor ID• Driven by scientific publishers• Need to exchange information, make systems

more usable• Mostly interested authors of journal literature• OCLC

• Participating in group• Possibly sharing metadata• Possibly working on matching


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WorldCat Identities

• A page for every name• 25 million personal names• 30 million names total• Includes imaginary characters, horses, etc.


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Collaboration Continuum