1. Metadata: An Overview Katie Dunn Technology & Metadata Librarian
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Slides, links, handout:
tinyurl.com/IIST602metadata

2. Metadata: An overview What is metadata?
Different standards for different types of resources and user groups
Different types of metadata
How is metadata implemented?
What do metadata librarians do?

3. Metadata: An overview What is metadata?
Different standards for different types of resources and user groups
Different types of metadata
How is metadata implemented?
What do metadata librarians do?

4. What is metadata? Definitions vary! Information about something
Usually digital resources
Structured
Fields, tags, etc.
Simple or complex

5. Metadata: An overview What is metadata?
Different metadata standards for different types of resources and user groups
Different types of metadata
How is metadata implemented?
What do metadata librarians do?

6. Different metadata standards for different types of resources and disciplines
General
Dublin Core
Specific
EAD
VRA Core
ISO 19115: Geographic information – Metadata
(These are all descriptive metadata)

7. Dublin Core: a general purpose descriptive metadata scheme
Originally: 15 elements
Title
Creator
Subject
Description
Publisher
Contributor
Date
Type
Format
Identifier
Source
Language
Relation
Coverage
Rights

8. Dublin Core: a general purpose descriptive metadata scheme
Now: 55 terms
Title - Alternative Title Creator Subject Description - Abstract - Table of Contents Publisher Contributor Date - Date Available - Date Created - Date Accepted - Date Copyrighted - Date Submitted - Date Issued - Date Valid - Date Modified Type Format - Extent - Medium Identifier - Bibliographic Citation Source Language Relation - Conforms To - Has Format / Is Format Of - Has Part / Is Part Of - Has Version / Is Version Of - References / Is Referenced By - Replaces / Is Replaced By - Requires / Is Required By Coverage - Spatial Coverage - Temporal Coverage Rights - Access Rights - License Rights Holder Accrual Method Accrual Periodicity Accrual Policy Audience - Audience Education Level - Mediator Instructional Method Provenance

9. Dublin Core: a general purpose descriptive metadata scheme
New terms refining Date Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource. - Date Available Date (often a range) that the resource became or will become available. - Date Created - Date Accepted - Date Copyrighted - Date Submitted - Date Issued - Date Valid - Date Modified

10. Dublin Core: a general purpose descriptive metadata scheme
New terms refining Format Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource. - Extent The size or duration of the resource. - Medium The material or physical carrier of the resource.

11. Dublin Core: a general purpose descriptive metadata scheme
New terms that didn’t refine any existing terms Rights Holder Accrual Method Accrual Periodicity Accrual Policy Audience - Audience Education Level - Mediator Instructional Method Provenance

12. Exercise: Autumn – On the Hudson River
Are you cataloging the work? The image? The webpage on which the image resides?
tinyurl.com/autumn-on-the-hudson

13. Exercise: Autumn – On the Hudson River
tinyurl.com/autumn-on-the-hudson
Create a Dublin Core description for this image using any of the 55 Dublin Core terms
Term definitions here: tinyurl.com/dcmi-terms
Elements may be repeated.
You don’t need to use all the elements.
Are you cataloging the work? The image? The webpage on which the image resides?

14. Dublin Core record for Autumn – On the Hudson

15. VRA Core description of this resource
tinyurl.com/vra-example (

16. Metadata: An overview What is metadata?
Different metadata standards for different types of resources and user groups
Different types of metadata
How is metadata implemented?
What do metadata librarians do?

17. Different types of metadata
Descriptive
Structural
Administrative

18. Different types of metadata
Descriptive
Structural:
Gathers parts of a resource and its different types of metadata
METS: A metadata wrapper
Administrative

19. Different types of metadata
Descriptive
Structural
Administrative: Data management
Preservation (Ex. PREMIS)
Technical
Rights
Possibly Structural (depending on how you think about it)

20. Seeing Standards: A Visualization of the Metadata Universe
Groups standards by:
Domain: what is described
Community: who uses it
Purpose: type of metadata (descriptive, preservation, etc.)
Function: what does the standard specify?

21. Metadata: An overview What is metadata?
Different metadata standards for different types of resources and user groups
Different types of metadata
How is metadata implemented?
What do metadata librarians do?

22. How is metadata implemented?
Standards and schemas
Data formats (most often XML, MARC)
Crosswalks
Harvesting
Best practices
Linked data

23. XML
Basic structure of XML: <book> <title>The very hungry caterpillar</title> <author>Eric Carle</author> </book>

24. XML XML Attributes: <book>
<title language=“en”>The very hungry caterpillar</title>
<author id=“
Eric Carle
</author>
</book>

25. XML
Transforming between MARC and XML

26. How is metadata implemented?
Standards and schemas
Data formats (most often XML, MARC)
Crosswalks
Harvesting
Best practices
Linked data: an emerging technology

27. Linked Data: an emerging technology
“Linked Data is a method of exposing, sharing, and connecting data on the Semantic Web using URIs and RDF.” (Dublin Core User Guide)
Dublin Core User Guide:

28. Linked Data: an emerging technology
Tim Berners-Lee’s 4 principles for linked data:
Use URIs as names for things
Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up
those names.
3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards (RDF, SPARQL)
4. Include links to other URIs so that they can discover more things.

29. How is linked data represented?
Each bit of description (statement) is a triple.
The (predicate) of (subject) is (object) .
Image:

30. How is linked data represented?
Each bit of description (statement) is a triple: The _________ of _________ is ________ .
Image:

31. How is linked data represented?
Triple: The (predicate) of (subject) is (object). The title of this particular book is “A Christmas Carol”.
Image:

32. Linked Data: What’s the point?
Better interoperability between systems
More machine-actionable data
More powerful applications based on data
In the library world, there’s a lot of interest in linked data, but the applications and data formats are not quite there yet.
Image:

33. Metadata: An overview What is metadata?
Different metadata standards for different types of resources and user groups
Different types of metadata
How is metadata implemented?
What do metadata librarians do?

34. What do metadata librarians do?
Choosing, designing, applying metadata for local projects
Maintaining existing metadata systems (incl. traditional cataloging, in some cases)
Working with other librarians and content experts
Repurposing data
Keeping existing stuff working while getting new stuff off the ground – decision-making.

35. Day-to-day for me Investigating technology for the libraries
Discovery service implementation
Metadata projects
Rensselaer Digital Collections
Discovery service metadata
Cataloging
Link resolver (Ex Libris SFX)
Exploring: data curation, linked data

36. Metadata: An overview What is metadata?
Different metadata standards for different types of resources and user groups
Different types of metadata
How is metadata implemented?
What do metadata librarians do?
Case study: Thesis metadata

37. Case study: Thesis metadata
Student deposits thesis
Grad school approves thesis
Library processes / edits thesis and metadata
Library ingests thesis into repository
Library converts thesis metadata for catalog

38. Student deposits thesis
Rights chosen (Creative Commons or Standard)
Determines rights statement, who can access
Initial metadata entry
Administrative metadata, rights metadata

39. Some fields are controlled.

40. Some fields are controlled.

41. Grad school approves thesis
Cleared to graduate?
Documents correct?

44. Library processes / edits thesis and metadata
File processing
Apply correct IP restrictions for access rights
Edit metadata to standards

50. Faculty names Regularized – kind of like authority control
Use same name each time
Maintain with export of existing thesis data, XSLT

57. Library ingests thesis into repository
Thesis appears in live repository soon after

60. Library converts thesis metadata for catalog
OAI-PMH harvest
Conversion from Dublin Core to MARC
MarcEdit and XSLT
Load records into catalog

61. Library converts thesis metadata for catalog
OAI-PMH harvest
verb= ListRecords
&set= GEN01:ETD01
&metadataPrefix= oai_dc
&from=

72. Metadata for scanned theses: generated in reverse (MARC to DC)
Theses scanned
Catalog records (MARC) exported
Catalog records converted to DC
Theses, DC metadata ingested into repository
Library edits catalog data to show e-copy

73. How is metadata implemented? (RPI thesis workflow)
Standards and schemas
Dublin Core, MARC, AACR2, ETD-MS (sort of)
Data formats (most often XML)
MARC, XML
Crosswalks
DC -> MARCXML, MARCXML (standard) -> MARC
Harvesting
OAI-PMH
Best practices
ETD-MS data elements (sort of)

74. Questions? Katie Dunn Technology & Metadata Librarian Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute This presentation, handout, and links available at: tinyurl.com/IIST602metadata Help me improve my teaching! Answer 3 quick questions: tinyurl.com/metadata2013