1. An introduction to collections and collection-level description Collection-Level Description & NOF-digitise projects NOF-digitise programme seminar, London, 22 February 2002 Bridget Robinson & Pete Johnston UKOLN, University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY UKOLN is supported by: Email cd-focus@ukoln.ac.uk URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

2. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 2 An introduction to collections and collection-level description Collection Description Focus What is a collection? Collection description & collection-level description Collection-level descriptions as metadata records Why collection-level description?

3. Collection Description Focus

4. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 4 Collection Description Focus Funded by –Research Support Libraries Programme (RSLP) –JISC Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) –British Library Improve consistency, compatibility of approaches to collection-level description

5. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 5 Collection Description Focus (2) Proposal supported by –Archives Hub –mda Based at UKOLN –experience of RSLP Collection Description Benefit from collaboration with –Interoperability Focus –DNER Architecture team –CIMI (museums) –Dublin Core Collection Description WG

6. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 6 Collection Description Focus (3) Gather information on existing practice –survey questionnaire, implementer visits Point of contact, advice Consensus-building –CD Forum Disseminate good practice –workshops, briefing days –publications –recommendations, guidelines –support for CLD in other programmes

7. What is a collection?

8. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 8 What is a collection? Collection –“an aggregation of physical and/or digital items” Aggregates of, e.g. –natural objects: fossils, mineral samples… –created objects: artefacts, documents, records… –digital resources: documents, images, multimedia objects, data, software… –digital surrogates of physical objects: documents, images… –metadata: catalogue records, item descriptions, collection-level descriptions (!)…

9. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 9 What is a collection? (2) Various criteria for aggregation, e.g. –By location –By type/form of item –By provenance of item –By source/ownership of item –By nature of item content –…. Permanent, temporary Discrete, distributed

10. Collection description & collection-level description

11. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 11 Collection description & collection- level description Collection description –Michael Heaney’s analytic model Unitary –info about collection as whole, not about items Hierarchic –info about collection as whole, and about items (and relationships between items and whole) Analytic –info about items in collection Indexing –info derived from items in collection

12. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 12 Collection description & collection- level description Collection-level description –unitary RSLP CD schema provides basis for unitary descriptions Collection-level description –what is level of aggregation is “collection- level” in this context? –functional granularity

13. CLDs as metadata

14. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 14 CLDs as metadata Metadata “ Machine understandable information about web resources or other things.”(Berners-Lee, 1997) –Structured data about resources that can be used to help support a wide range of operations A collection is a type of resource CLDs are metadata records Used by –human agents (owner, researcher, 3rd party) –software agents (e.g. aggregators, portals, brokers)

15. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 15 Item 1 CreatorDateTitleItem M Jagger2001-11-05Report1 Metadata database Item level metadata records Item 2 K Richard2002-02-14Image2

16. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 16 CreatorDateTitleColl T Moore2002-01-01His Collection1 Metadata database Collection-level metadata records Collection 2 K Gordon2001-12-25Her Collection2 Collection 1

17. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 17 What operations? Owner / manager / provider establish control of resources administer/manage (through time) disclose/promote enable and control access/use contextualise End user find, identify, select obtain/use interpret Third party service disclose/promote enable and control access/use annotate re-contextualise

18. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 18 Metadata for resource discovery Resource users may wish to –search across descriptions from different providers –compare/combine descriptions from different providers Resource providers may wish to –disseminate descriptions widely –share descriptions with other providers, 3rd parties –describe relationships between resources Third parties may wish to –build “services” on descriptions prepared by others –annotate descriptions prepared by others

19. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 19 Metadata for resource discovery –is used beyond its creator community –is combined with metadata from other communities –is aggregated or cross-searched –challenge of “semantic interoperability” CLD as an overview of aggregate of items –useful in many different contexts, for many purposes

20. Why collection-level description?

21. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 21 Why collection-level description? Collection-level description might –Disclose information about collections –Provide overview of otherwise uncatalogued items –Enable user to select collections to search on basis of summary description –Enable software agents to select collections to search on behalf of user –Support controlled searching of multiple collections

22. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 22 Why collection-level description? (2) Cross-domain –(Slightly) different ideas of “collections” –Different ways of talking about “collections” –Different criteria for defining “collections” –Different ways of describing “collections” –But useful/possible to agree on broadly common view…? Permit user to compare broadly similar high-level objects –even where items heterogeneous

23. Collection-level description & NOF-digitise projects, London, 22 Feb 2002 23 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. http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/