1. Pete Johnston UKOLN, University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY
A standard for collection-level description: the RSLP Collection Description Model and Schema Collection-Level Description & NOF-digitise projects NOF-digitise programme seminar, London, 22 February 2002
Pete Johnston
UKOLN, University of Bath
Bath, BA2 7AY
URL
UKOLN is supported by:
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

2. RSLP Collection Description Model and Schema
[based on earlier presentations by Andy Powell, UKOLN]
RSLP and the RSLP CD project
Overview of RSLP collection description model
Overview of RSLP collection description schema
Syntax
Implementing the RSLP schema
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

3. Research Support Libraries Programme
Support for 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
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

4. RSLP collection description 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
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

5. RSLP collection description project
Broader context
resource discovery on the Web
delivery of resources by resource creators/owners
rather than (or as well as) by intermediary
remote access to resources for all
(potentially…)
emphasis on customer/user rather than provider
user wants to work across “domains”, across physical & digital resources
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

6. RSLP Model
Michael Heaney, An Analytic Model of Collections and their Catalogues
Independent of implementation
Identifies
Entities
Attributes/properties of entities
Relationships between entities
Complex
“tries to get it right not make it easy”
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

7. RSLP Model (2) Functionally concerned with
finding (providing access points)
identifying (describing sufficiently well)
Based primarily on a library and archival view of ‘collection’...
… but applicable across wide range of collection types
Physical or digital
All types of item
All sizes of collection
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

8. RSLP Model (simplified view)
Producer
Creator
Content
Item
Collector
Owner
Collection
Location
Administrator
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

9. RSLP Model : Collection
"an aggregation of physical and/or [digital] items“
...as discussed earlier!
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

10. RSLP Model : Location
“the physical or digital place where a collection is held”
physical location - e.g. a library or museum
postal address
digital location - e.g. an online service
URL, Z39.50 target details, ...
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

11. RSLP Model : three agents
“a person or corporate body related to the collection or location”
Collector
gathers items into a collection
Owner
has legal possession of a collection
Administrator
has responsibility for the physical or electronic environment in which a collection is held
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

12. RSLP Model : three agents
initiate actions
have rights
control access
to location
to collection
control use
copyrights
ownership
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

13. External relationships
Collection to collection
Has-Part, Has-Complement
Has-Association
Collection to publication
Has-Publication
Collection to collection description
Is-Described-By
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

14. 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
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

15. What RSLP schema is not!
NOT a replacement for existing detailed collection description formats (e.g. EAD)
NOT a replacement for MARC
NOT a replacement for Dublin Core
NOT the answer to all collection description problems!
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

16. Schema vs. model Creator Content Producer Item Collection Collector
Owner
Location
Administrator
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

17. Collection attributes
general attributes
title, identifier, description, strength, physical characteristics, language, type, access control, accrual status, legal status, custodial history, note
subject attributes
concept(s), object(s), name(s), place(s), time(s)
date attributes
contents date range, accumulation date range
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

18. Location attributes general attributes location
name, identifier, access conditions, see also
location
postal address, postcode, country, locator
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

19. Agent attributes general attributes
name, organisation, role, phone, fax, , agent history
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

20. Relation attributes relations between collection and location
hasLocation/isLocationOf
relations between collection and agent
collector (creator), owner
relations between location and agent
administrator
relations between collections (external)
hasPart/isPartOf, hasDescription/isDescriptionOf, hasAssociation hasPublication
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

21. Data entry guidelines Produced by RSLP CD project
Guidance for content of RSLP schema attributes
especially “encoding schemes”
subject terminologies for CLDs?
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

22. XML syntax Collection descriptions can be encoded in XML for exchange
Syntax uses conventions of Resource Description Framework (RDF)
W3C recommendation for metadata on the Web
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rdf:RDF
xmlns:rdf="
xmlns:dc="
xmlns:dct="
<dct:Collection about="urn:x-rslpcd: ">
<dc:title>
The Pitman Collection
</dc:title>
</dct:Collection>
</rdf:RDF>
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

23. XML syntax (2)
A single collection description record is made up of a linked set of descriptions of
collection
location
collector(s)
owner(s)
administrator(s)
N.B. schema and syntax are NOT a full implementation of the model
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

24. Collection types enumerated list of collection types
terms split into four areas
type, curatorial environment, content, policy/usage
with terms joined ‘.’s to form value
examples...
Collection.Library.Dispersed
Catalogue.Museum
Finding-Aid
Collection.Archive
Index.Internet
Catalogue.Internet.Subject
Collection.Image
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

25. Extension of RSLP schema
New “local” attributes can be added…
… but model is important, so…
Consider carefully where local attributes added
is this an attribute of a collection?
is this an attribute of a location?
is this an attribute of a new entity?
Consider how local attributes handled in exchanging CLDs
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

26. Extension of RSLP schema (2)
e.g. RSLP CD schema says nothing about
“administrative metadata” i.e. info about the CLD (who created/modified, when etc)
rights information for CLD
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

27. Implementation Web-based tool
created as part of RSLP CD project
creates single collection descriptions that conform to the model and schema
saves as XML or HTML
reloads XML for edit
also available for download
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

28. Implementation (2) Relational databases
demonstrators for download at:
many database implementations by RSLP projects
mapping/exporting from other schema to RSLP CD schema
RSLP CD schema as a “Dublin Core for collections”?
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

29. Implementation (3) Details of NOF implementation to be decided
Projects might create CLDs locally for harvesting
NOF might simply host central CLD database with web form for entry of project CLDs
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

30. Summary Collection as aggregate of items
Approaches to collection(-level) description
CLD as metadata
resource discovery metadata made to be shared
CLDs complement item-level metadata
CLDs potentially useful in wide range of contexts
disclose collections across domains, sectors
use by human agents, software tools
RSLP CD schema as standard for simple, generic CLDs
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002

31. 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.
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002
Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002