1. IMLS NLG Collection Registry & Item-Level Metadata Repository at the University of Illinois
Timothy W. Cole Mathematics Librarian & Professor of Library Administration University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA)
Open Archives Forum Workshop University of Bath 4 September 2003

2. IMLS NLG Program Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
U.S. Federal grant-making agency, est. 1996
Goal to foster leadership, innovation, lifetime learning
$244 million annual budget
IMLS National Leadership Grant Program
Currently about $20 million per year
Library, Museum, & Library-Museum Collaborations
Funds research & demonstration, digitization, preservation, model programs, new technology
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

3. IMLS Digital Collections Framework
“IMLS Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections” published November 2001
Product of 8-member IMLS Digital Library Forum, with participation from National Science Digital Library (NSF)
Differentiates digital collections & digital libraries
Articulates principles & frames discussion of best practices
Links to resources, models, & exemplary projects
Will be sustained by National Information Standards Org.
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

4. Recommendations from the IMLS Forum
Four General Recommendations to IMLS:
Digital collections built with support of public funds can and should be held to standards that support interoperability, reusability, and persistence.
IMLS should maintain its own registry of funded digital collections.
Because so much of the IMLS constituency consists of small and medium-sized organizations without sophisticated in-house technical support, the IMLS should also consider projects to develop infrastructure services that lower barriers to NSDL contribution by smaller organizations.
IMLS should encourage the integration of an archiving component into every project plan by requiring a description of how data will be preserved.
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

5. Item level metadata repository via OAI-PMH
Collection description and registry for National Leadership grant projects with digital content
Enhance discoverability; all registry fields searchable
Item level metadata repository via OAI-PMH
Demonstrate potential of metadata for interoperability
Facilitate reuse of information resources
Research question: How can resource developers best represent collections and items to meet the needs of service providers and end users?
Project Website:
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

6. Project Scope 95 NLG projects with associated digital collections
51 of these are/were collaborative projects
All together 237 institutions involved
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

7. A Diverse Community
Wide variation in technical skills and technology infrastructure & policy
Mix of library, museum, and archive traditions
Diverse perspectives on IP policy, use and presentation of metadata and primary resources
Diverse embedded knowledge structures
Wide range of vocabularies and descriptive practices
Metadata created for diverse purposes
Local vocabularies for type, subject, coverage, audience
Wide range of granularity
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

8. Prior Work – Mellon OAI Grants
July 2001, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded 7 grants for OAI-related research ($1.5 mil. total)
Primary focus: demonstrate utility of OAI metadata harvesting in context of scholarly inquiry
Research Library Group (RLG) University of Michigan University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Emory University / Southeastern Library Network Woodrow Wilson International Center University of Virginia
See:
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

9. University of Illinois Mellon OAI Project
July 2001 – May 2003
Primary Objectives:
Create & demonstrate OAI tools
Build portal to aggregated metadata describing cultural heritage resources
Initially – For OAI testing & research
Long-term – As a sustained resource
Investigate using EAD metadata in OAI context
Research utility of aggregated metadata
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

10. University of Illinois Cultural Heritage Portal
Harvests 25 OAI Providers
Academic libraries & archives
Digital library projects
Historical societies
Aggregates 479,000 metadata items
55% text / sheet music
40% image / multimedia
5% archival / museum
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

11. Current Projects Addressing Similar Issues
NSDL
Digital library of resource collections and services, organized in support of science education at all levels.
NOF-Digitize / EnrichUK
Description and aggregation of digitized collections funded by the New Opportunities Fund
Minerva Project
Creating an agreed European common platform, recommendations and guidelines about digitization, metadata, long-term accessibility and preservation
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

12. Technical Challenges NLG Awardees have diverse technical resources
Limited knowledge of / tools for working with XML
Limited knowledge of community metadata schemas
Limited knowledge of / access to CGI capabilities
Early NLG projects have no resources earmarked for sharing metadata
Technical implementations not always built with reuse and interoperability in mind
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

13. OAI Readiness Among NLG Projects
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

14. OAI for Static Repositories
Lower barrier option for exposing relatively static and small collections of metadata
Designed to scale well to about 5,000 metadata records
Provider serves static XML file (no CGI required)
3rd party gateway generates valid OAI responses
Supports only a subset of OAI options
No sets, deleted records, resumptionTokens
DateStamp granularity limited to YYYY-MM-DD
Preliminary alpha version of OAI-SR guidelines available:
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

16. OAI Static Repository Gateways
SR Gateways support CGI extended path
SR Gateways typically cache static repository XML files
SR Gateway lists all SRs available through gateway in <friends> element (dynamic discovery of SRs)
SR Gateways assumed to support automated self-registration of SRs
SRs should make themselves available through a single SR Gateway
SR Gateway applications available on SourceForge.net 1 2
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

17. Example of a Static Repository XML File

18. Identify OAI_DC Record MARC21 XML Record

19. Working with Turnkey Solutions
OAI provider service now built into many popular digital library applications
ContentDM, Encompass, DLXS, DSpace, EPrints.org
Facilitates participation in OAI-PMH metadata sharing
Some implementations may be limited
Many support oai_dc metadata schema only
May have limited feature set (e.g, no resumptionToken)
Metadata mappings may not be configurable
Community needs to advocate requirements strongly
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

20. Metadata Issues Wide range of metadata schemas in use
Variations in Descriptive practices & traditions
Use of Dublin Core fields
Granularity
What is being described
Different approaches to IP rights issues
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

21. Metadata Schemas Used By NLG Projects
MARC and Dublin Core most common schemas
Includes qualified DC & DC with extra fields
24 projects - multiple schemas
14 of these using Dublin Core in combination with another schema
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

22. DC element usage (from Mellon)
Records containing subject & description element
SUBJECT
DESCRIPTION
Digital libraries
(10 total, 122,719 records)
78%
36%
Museums, hist. societies, etc. (6 total, 255,800 records)
93%
Academic libraries
(7 total, 235,294 records)
15%
13%
Many different controlled and local vocabularies in use
Granularity: a record may describe a collection of coins — or one coin
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

23. Describe the digital object
Describe the digital object? Excerpt of record describing a cotton coverlet
Description: Digital image of a single-sized cotton coverlet for a bed with embroidered butterfly design. Handmade by Anna F. Ginsberg Hayutin.
Source: Materials: cotton and embroidery floss. Dimensions: 71 in. x 86 in. Markings: top right hand corner has 1 1/2 in. x 1/2 in. label cut outs at upper left and right hand side for head board; fabric is woven in a variation of a rib weave; color each of yellow and gray; hand-embroidered cotton butterflies and flowers from two shades of each color of embroidery floss - blue, pink, green and purple and single top 20 in. bordered with blue and black cotton embroidery thread; stitches used for embroidery: running stitch, chain stitch, French knot and back stitches; selvage edges left unfinished; lower edges turned under and finished with large gray running stitches made with embroidery floss.
Format: Epson Expression 836 XL Scanner with Adobe Photoshop version 5.5; 300 dpi; 21-53K bytes. Available via the World Wide Web.
Coverage: —
Date Created: :45:18; Updated: ; Created: ; Created: ?
Type: Image
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

24. Or describe the analog object. Excerpt of record describing Am
Or describe the analog object? Excerpt of record describing Am. woven coverlet
Description: Materials: Textile--Multi, Pigment—Dye; Manufacturing Process: Weaving--Hand, Spinning, Dyeing, Hand-loomed blue wool and white linen coverlet, worked in overshot weave in plain geometric variant of a checkerboard pattern.Coverlet is constructed from finely spun, indigo-dyed wool and undyed linen, woven with considerable skill. Although the pattern is simpler, the overall craftsmanship is higher than A. - D. Schrishuhn, 11/19/99 This coverlet is an example of early "overshot" weaving construction, probably dating to the 1820's and is not attributable to any particular weaver. -- Georgette Meredith, 10/9/1973
Source: —
Format: 228 x 169 x 1.2 cm (1,629 g)
Coverage: Euro-American; America, North; United States; Indiana? Illinois?
Date: Early 19th c. CE
Type: cultural; physical object; original
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

25. Various Concerns About IP Rights
Overcoming reluctance to share metadata because of IP rights issues
Concern that sharing metadata is giving away most valuable asset
Uncertain whether license limits metadata sharing
Uncertain whether to share metadata describing licensed information resources
Machine readable IP rights attributes Needed to facilitate reuse
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

26. Portal Design Issues
How best to organize aggregated metadata for browse
Need scalable ways to build / implement classifications
Need better methods for clustering and grouping
Utilize relationships & ties to collection descriptions
How best to implement basic & advanced searching
Precise searching hard due to metadata usage variations
Limited normalization possible; more work needed
Robust search & ranking across large aggregations hard
Need more audience-specific designs
Need more dynamic & interactive designs
Need better support of educational & instructional uses
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

27. Portal Design – Mellon Project Experience
Limited focus group testing
23 student teachers in honors-level C & I class
Assignment to students: Use the site in preparing a lesson plan for high school social studies class
Process
Introduced site & “aggregated metadata” concept
Focus group interviews conducted
Students’ papers examined
Transaction logs analyzed
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

28. A Few Observations from Test
1. Users expected all links to point to digital objects
Some records pointed to finding aids
Some records pointed to collection’s web site
Some records pointed to Library books on the shelf
2. Users unable to make use of search results
Simple searches produced 1000s of unranked results
Advanced search (with limits) rarely used
3. Distinction between portal and data providers unimportant to users
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

29. Rethinking what “online access” means
To librarian & curator
To student teacher
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003

30. Closing Thought – Considering OAI in Context
Descriptive, item-level metadata alone insufficient
Must be used in combination with collection descriptions, user annotations, machine generated clustering, …
Distinction between collection & item blurs in DLs
Complex objects – TEI, EAD, METS
Granularity – should museum describe every arrowhead in end-user search & discovery system
Relationships between items provide context
Need to tie collection registry to item-level repository
OAI-PMH not limited to item-level descriptive metadata
University of Illinois at UC
Open Archives Forum Workshop 4 September 2003