The DNER - a national digital library Andy Powell ZIG Meeting, York October 2001 UKOLN, University of Bath UKOLN is funded by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the 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.

ZIG Oct 2001, York 2 Contents what is the DNER network systems architecture discover access based on DNER Architecture Study

ZIG Oct 2001, York 3 The DNER… wot!? The DNER is… a national digital library... for higher and further education a managed collection of resources a distributed resource supporting learning and research in the UK heterogeneous… bibliographic, images, data, video, geospatial, etc. an information environment that enables people to discover, access and use a wide variety of quality assured resources

ZIG Oct 2001, York 4 But what does it stand for? Distributed National Electronic Resource …but the name may change! :-) an initiative of the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) not new… in that JISC has been funding provision of collections of information for a long time, but... DNER more coordinated provided within shared architectural framework

ZIG Oct 2001, York 5 Primary Content Secondary Content Funded Institutional External Web pages Museums home pages theses research papers OPACs Institutional gateways Google Yahoo Northern Light RDN A&I images Full-text statistics Map data COPAC Amazon Public libraries courseware DNER scope by content

ZIG Oct 2001, York 6 DNER collections content typically in the form of ‘collections’ where collection is one or more items collections of stuff (text, images, data,...) collections of metadata about stuff (e.g subject gateway’s, library catalogues) local collections, ‘JISC’ collections, other collections network services make digital collections available at digital ‘locations’ real services make physical collections available at physical ‘locations’ people access content through services

ZIG Oct 2001, York 7 Simple scenario consider a lecturer searching for materials for a course module covering the development of business in China the aim is to construct a hybrid reading list that can be given to students to support their coursework he or she searches for ‘business china’ using: the RDN, to discover Internet resources ZETOC, to discover recent journal articles

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ZIG Oct 2001, York 12 Issues different user interfaces look-and-feel subject classification, metadata usage eveything is HTML – human-oriented difficult to merge results, e.g. combine into reading lists difficult to build a reading list to pass on to students difficult to move from discovering journal article to having copy in hand (or on desktop) users need to manually join services together

ZIG Oct 2001, York 13 The DNER problem… DNER information environment can be characterised as providing the solution to two problems portal problem - how to provide seamless discovery across multiple content providers appropriate-copy problem - how to provide access to the most appropriate copy of a resource (given access rights, preferences, cost, speed of delivery, etc.)

ZIG Oct 2001, York 14 A solution…? DNER information environment provides framework for shared machine-oriented services DNER as coherent whole rather than lots of stand-alone services simple underlying functional model of the DNER discover, access, use discover finding stuff across multiple content providers access streamlining access to appropriate copy

ZIG Oct 2001, York 15 Discover want to allow end-user to discover across multiple DNER content providers... services need to expose metadata about their content for searching harvesting alerting develop services that bring stuff together portals

ZIG Oct 2001, York 16 Portals portals provide access to multiple network services there will be many kinds of portals... subject portals data centre portals institutional portals personal portals (agents) virtual learning environments thin portals (shallow linking) thick portals (deep linking, richer discovery and use functionality)

ZIG Oct 2001, York 17 Searching - Z39.50 ZETOC Content End-user Portal Z39.50 Bath Profile HTTP RDN

ZIG Oct 2001, York 18 database Harvesting - OAI Content End-user Portal OAI Metadata Harvesting Protocol HTTP ZETOCRDN

ZIG Oct 2001, York 19 Searching and sharing! ZETOC Content End-user Portal Z39.50 Bath Profile RDN OAI

ZIG Oct 2001, York 20 Common sense both approaches based on metadata ‘fusion’ - merging metadata records from multiple content providers need shared understanding and metadata practice across DNER need to agree ‘cataloguing guidelines’ and terminology 4 key areas subject classification - what is this resource about? audience level - who is this resource aimed at? resource type - what kind of resource is this? certification - who has created this resource?

ZIG Oct 2001, York 21 Shared services how does a portal know what collections are available? DNER collection description service how does a portal know how to interact with the service(s) that make a collection available? DNER service description service details not agreed but UDDI, WSDL strong contenders for service description also need other shared services terminolgy service, metadata registry, user preferences, authentication/authorisation,...

ZIG Oct 2001, York 22 Alerting - RSS many services offer ‘alerting’ or ‘news’ services news about the service / press releases news about new resources alerts often sent by ZETOC alerts are a good example - alerts about new journal issues how can alerts from content providers be embedded into portals? RSS - RDF Site Summary, an XML application for Web news feeds

ZIG Oct 2001, York 23 Alerting - RSS ZETOC Content End-user Portal RSS/XML HTTP

ZIG Oct 2001, York 24 WARNING: this is only a page mockup ZETOC RSS channel embedded in RDN page

ZIG Oct 2001, York 25 Access discovery phase results in metadata about a resource - including its identifier or a locator RDN results include one or more URLs - can simply click on them to get the resource ZETOC results are about journal issues or articles - need to find a mechanism for locating the most appropriate copy of the resource given: user and inst preferences, cost, access rights, location, etc.

ZIG Oct 2001, York 26 OpenURL provide access to appropriate copy by using OpenURLs (in discovered metadata) and OpenURL resolvers OpenURLs in DNER search results or alerts containing information about books, journals, journal issues and/or articles variety of resolvers national institutional personal

ZIG Oct 2001, York 27 WARNING: this is only a page mockup ZETOC OpenURLs resolved using RDN resolver

ZIG Oct 2001, York 28 resolving to ZETOC

ZIG Oct 2001, York 29...to ingenta

ZIG Oct 2001, York 30...to local OPAC

ZIG Oct 2001, York 31 Summary portals provide ‘discovery’ services across the DNER Z39.50 (Bath Profile), OAI, RSS and Dublin Core are key technologies......supported by various shared infrastructural services including collection desc. and service desc. access to resources via OpenURL and resolvers where appropriate

ZIG Oct 2001, York 32 Issues need to finalise details of collection and service description services: schema, access protocols, etc. unqualified Dublin Core, the default metadata format in Bath Profile and OAI, not rich enough audience continuing perception by some that Z39.50 not the ‘right’ choice for searching watching ZNG (and ‘Web services’) with interest