AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT LOCATOR SERVICE (AGLS)

Andrew WilsonNational Archives of Australia

THIS TALK WILL COVER:

What is metadata?The origins and objectives of AGLSDublin Core and the AGLS standardAGLS and recordkeeping metadataNAA as AGLS Maintenance Agency

METADATA

A new term for something that has been around for a very long time

Many different metadata applications: systems operating data management information management recordkeeping discovery and retrieval

Categories overlap

WHY USE RESOURCE DISCOVERY METADATA?

TOO much material on the web information discovery is ineffective

(high recall and low precision)BUT searchers want to find the resources

that are relevant to their query high precision (relevant) results prevent information overload find non-electronic resources

MEET needs by adding metadata to resources

Free text

Structured Text

Resource & metadata

Database with schema

Sophisticated searching

Unsophisticated searching

ADDING STRUCTURED DESCRIPTION

METADATA IS:

A way to add structured description to resources An old idea from libraries (catalogues) and

archives (archival control systems) Description of semantic content

what resource is about searchers decide if useful help indexers understand resource

Description of technical details how to retrieve and what formats conditions, history, and relationships

THE ORIGINS OF AGLS

Report of the Information Management Steering Committee, August 1997

Recommended an Australian version of the Government Information Locator Service (GILS), to be called AusGILS

AusGILS Workshop, December 1997, devised AGLS - based on Dublin Core not on GILS

AGLS INVOLVES COOPERATION BETWEEN:

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF AUSTRALIA

THE OFFICE FOR GOVERNMENT ONLINE [formerly the Office of Government Information Technology]

ONLINE COUNCIL OFFICIALS

THE OBJECTIVES OF AGLS

To improve the visibility and accessibility of government information and services through the standardisation of Web-based resource descriptions

To enable Web-based search engines to do their job more efficiently

To help ensure that those searching the Web are presented with relevant and meaningful ‘hits’ in response to search requests

AGLS AND DUBLIN CORE

AGLS aims to achieve the objective of GILS by using the simplicity of Dublin Core

Dublin Core is the emerging international standard for Web-based resource description

Importance of interoperability between AGLS and Dublin Core

Dublin Core is designed to be extensible AGLS is an extension of Dublin Core AGLS fits within the Warwick Framework

15 DUBLIN CORE ELEMENTS

TitleCreatorSubjectDescriptionPublisherContributor DateRights

TypeFormatIdentifierSource

LanguageRelationCoverage

3 ADDITIONAL AGLS ELEMENTS

Function Describes the function/s of government to

which the resource relatesAvailability

Provides information on how the resource may be obtained (i.e. to go beyond discovery into retrieval)

Audience describes the target audience of the

resource

THREE CATEGORIES OF METADATA ELEMENTS

Ownership and creators of resources

Intellectual content about resources

Electronic or physical manifestation of the

resource

AGLS ELEMENTS CATEGORISED

Ownership andCreators ofResource

IntellectualContent aboutResource

Electronic/PhysicalManifestation ofResource

Author or Creator

Publisher

Other Contributor

Rights Management

Title

Subject & Keywords

Description

Source

Language

Relation

Coverage

*Function Descriptor

*Audience

Date

Resource type

Format

Resource Identifier

*Availability

AGLS & QUALIFIERS (1)

The current DC standard uses simple unqualified elements, e.g.

<META NAME="DC.Title" CONTENT="Kita Yama (Japan)">

<META NAME="DC.Creator" CONTENT="Kertesz, Andre">

<META NAME="DC.Date" CONTENT="1968"> <META NAME="DC.Type" CONTENT="image"> <META NAME="DC.Format" CONTENT="image/gif"> <META NAME="DC.Identifier"

CONTENT="http://foo.bar.zaf/kertesz/kyama">

AGLS & QUALIFIERS (2)

AGLS uses a number of qualifiers in its implementation of DC

Qualifiers are a way of being more specific about how metadata is to be interpreted

AGLS qualifiers are “language”, “scheme”, plus various subelements

EXAMPLE OF QUALIFIED AGLS METADATA (HTML 4.0

SYNTAX)

<META NAME="DC.Identifier" SCHEME="URI" LANG="en" CONTENT="http://www.naa.gov.au/govserv/ER/index.htm">

<META NAME="DC.Creator.CorporateName" LANG="en" CONTENT="National Archives of Australia">

<META NAME="DC.Subject" SCHEME="APAIS" LANG="en" CONTENT=”computers, information retrieval, archives">

<META NAME="DC.Relation.Reference" SCHEME="URI" LANG="en" CONTENT="http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/erk/websites/websites.htm">

<META NAME="AGLS.Function" SCHEME="AAA" LANG="en" CONTENT="Information management - research - catalogues">

<META NAME="DC.Date.Modified" SCHEME="ISO8601" LANG="en" CONTENT="1998-06-23">

AGLS IS SIMPLE, FLEXIBLE AND DYNAMIC

Only 6 of the 18 elements are mandatoryAGLS metadata can be created at point of

document creation, but can be added to and improved as documents evolve or become more significant

AGLS metadata can be linked to single items or to aggregates of resources

Users can chose how much structure they want and what syntax they want to use

WHO OR WHAT CAN CREATE AGLS METADATA? (1)

AGLS metadata can be created automatically by: a software application such as a records

management system or Web publishing software which has self-documenting capabilities

a custom designed metadata generating tool such as DSTC’s ‘Reggie’

WHO OR WHAT CAN CREATE AGLS METADATA? (2)

AGLS metadata can be created by human beings such as: document authors, or ‘value-adders’ such as specialist

knowledge representation experts

WHERE CAN AGLS METADATA BE STORED?

It can be embedded in a HTML document using HTML ‘metatagging’

It can be stored in a database or repository which can be interrogated by Web-based search engines using protocols such as Z39.50 or X.500

Very soon, once the Resource Description Framework (RDF) is finalised, it will be able to be stored using an XML DTD (Document Type Definition)

INDIVIDUAL AGENCIES WILL DETERMINE THEIR OWN DEPLOYMENT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

Agencies will make business choices about: which resources to metadata (+ retrofitting) how much metadata will be created when the metadata will be created who will be responsible for metadata

creation what metadata tools will be utilised where the metadata will be stored and how

it will be accessed

AGLS AND RECORDKEEPING METADATA (1)

A high proportion of resources described by AGLS will be records

Recordkeeping metadata also facilitates discovery and retrieval

Therefore, AGLS metadata should have a lot in common with, and may even be a subset of, recordkeeping metadata

WHAT DOES RECORDKEEPING METADATA DO?

Enables identification and authenticationDocuments content, structure and context

of recordsAdministers conditions of access &

disposalDocuments use history and RK processesEnables discovery, retrieval and deliveryRestricts unauthorised useAssures interoperability

EMERGING STANDARDS FOR ELECTRONIC RECORDKEEPING METADATA

University of British Columbia templatesUniversity of Pittsburgh metadata

specifications for evidence in electronic recordkeeping (David Bearman)

National Archives of Aust draft government recordkeeping metadata standard

Monash University-led research project on recordkeeping metadata standards (SPIRT)

AGLS AND RECORDKEEPING METADATA (2)

Government recordkeeping metadata standards should dovetail neatly with AGLS to ensure a unified metadata regime for government

Metadata can be a means of linking government electronic recordkeeping and online resource discovery

Need for conceptual unity between AGLS and the Monash University Project

AGLS AND RECORDKEEPING METADATA (3)

Some AGLS metadata could be captured as part of the recordkeeping metadata capture process and then extracted for migration to a Web environment whenever necessary

Particular AGLS elements (eg: Subject, Availability) could be created at the time of Web migration

IS AGLS WORTH THE EFFORT?

If it is worth publishing something on the Web it is worth linking it to metadata to ensure people can find it

The government has made a commitment to having all appropriate government information and services available on-line by the year 2000

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES AS AGLS MAINTENANCE AGENCY

Will convene a cross-jurisdictional AGLS Working Group

Improvements to the User ManualHardcopy version of the User ManualDevelopment of an AGLS WebsiteLiaison with Dublin Core and GILS

communitiesRegistration of schemes and extensions

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE?

Web site: http://www.naa.gov.au/govserv/agls/

Andrew Wilson02 6212 3694andreww@naa.gov.au

Adrian Cunningham(Director Recordkeeping and Descriptive Standards)02 6212 3988adrianc@naa.gov.au

FAX: 02 6212 3989

OTHER METADATA RESOURCES:

Dublin Core:http://purl.oclc.org/metadata/dublin_core/

Reg & Reggie (metadata editors):http://metadata.net/ (+ links to other metadata schemas)

Other metadata tools:http://www.dstc.edu.au/RDU/MetaWeb/

Resource Description Framework (RDF):http://www.w3.org/RDF/