joining it up making our cultural heritage visible online

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Joining it upmaking our cultural heritage visible online

Paul Miller

Interoperability FocusUK Office for Library & Information Networking (UKOLN)

[email protected] http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

UKOLN is funded by Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Further and Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from JISC and the EU. UKOLN also receives support from the Universities of Bath and Hull where staff are based.

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“No man is an island”Donne, John, 1572–1631

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“No citizen is an island”

Community Information Services (CIS)

A Netful of Jewels

The People’s Network

ARCHSearch

e–Government strategy

The National Grid for Learning

SCRAN

Images of England

NOF–Digitise

HEIRNET

100% of Government services available by 200X

ukonline.gov.

NGDF Metadata Project/ UKSGB

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Standard solutions

The nice thing about standards…

…is that there are so many to choose from!

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Standard solutions

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So… why use standards?

• Benefit from the expertise of others• Enforce rigour in internal practices• Facilitate interoperability (and access)

– Archives and monuments are held ‘in trust’– Considered deployment of standard solutions makes

access to those resources feasible for many– An enhanced Excavation Index, linking to the

distributed excavation archives and the site report?.

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What do standards do?

• Help identify what’s important– CIMI’s “Access Points”– Mandatory fields

• Allow for consistent use of terminology– Name Authority Files– Thesauri– Look–up tables

• Enable internal and external data exchange or access

• Reduce duplication of effort• Minimise (hopefully!) wasted effort• Reflect consensus.

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What types of standard are there?

• Terminology– ‘Roma’, not ‘Rome’– ‘Roma’ is preferred to ‘Rome’

• Format– ‘Miller, A.P. 1971–’, not ‘Paul Miller’

• ‘Semantics’– A gross simplification, and a very big bucket– ‘Creator’, ‘Subject’, ‘Title’, ‘Description’…

• Syntax– <RDF xmlns = “http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-rdf-syntax#”>

• Transfer– ftp://ftp.niso.org/… .

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What is ‘Interoperability’?

“to be interoperable, one should actively be engaged in the ongoing

process of ensuring that the systems, procedures and culture of an organisation are managed in such a way as to maximise opportunities for exchange and re-use of information, whether internally or externally.”

See http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue24/interoperability/See http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue24/interoperability/

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What is ‘Metadata’?

– meaningless jargon

– ora fashionable, and terribly misused, term for what we’ve always done

– or“a means of turning data into information”

– and“data about data”

– andthe name of a monument (‘South Cadbury’)

– andthe title of a book (‘Principles of Archaeological Excavation’).

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Metadata Standards

“Paul Miller gave a really interesting talk about Dublin Core at the National Monuments Record in Swindon”

• In Swindon, or in Dublin?

• About monuments and about milling?

• But what was it?

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Metadata Standards

<speaker>“Paul Miller</speaker> gave a <value judgement>really interesting</value judgement> talk about <subject>Dublin Core</subject> at the <location>National Monuments Record in Swindon”</location>.

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Challenges

Many flavours of metadatawhich one do I use?

Managing changenew varieties, and evolution of

existing forms

Tension between functionality and simplicity, extensibility and interoperability

Functions, features, and cool stuff Simplicity and interoperability

Opportunities

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Introducing the Dublin Core

• An attempt to improve resource discovery on the Web

– now adopted more broadly

• Building an interdisciplinary consensus about a core element set for resource discovery

– simple and intuitive– cross–disciplinary — not just libraries!!– international– open and consensual– flexible.

See http://purl.org/dc/See http://purl.org/dc/

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• 15 elements of descriptive metadata• All elements optional• All elements repeatable• The whole is extensible

– offers a starting point for semantically richer descriptions

• Interdisciplinary– libraries, government, museums,

archives…

• International– available in more than 20 languages, with

more on the way...


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• Title• Creator• Subject• Description• Publisher• Contributor• Date• Type

• Format• Identifier• Source• Language• Relation• Coverage• Rights

http://purl.org/dc/


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Introducing XML

• eXtensible Markup Language• World Wide Web Consortium

recommendation• Simplified subset of SGML for use on Web• Addresses HTML’s lack of evolvability• Easily extended• Supported by major vendors• Increasingly used as a transfer syntax, but

capable of far more….

See http://www.w3.org/XML/See http://www.w3.org/XML/

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Introducing RDF

• Resource Description Framework• W3C Recommendation• Fully compliant application of XML• Improves upon XML, HTML, PICS…• Machine understandable metadata!• Supports structure• Increasing interest

See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/resources/dc/datamodel/WD–dc–rdf/

See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/resources/dc/datamodel/WD–dc–rdf/

See http://www.w3.org/RDF/See http://www.w3.org/RDF/

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Introducing Z39.50

• North American Standard (ANSI/NISO Z39.50–1995 [version 3])• International Standard (ISO 23950)

• Originally library–centric

• Permits remote searching of databases• Access via Z client or over web

• Relies upon ‘Profiles’• CIMI profile for cultural heritage• GEO profile for Geospatial data.

See http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue21/z3950/See http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue21/z3950/

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Z39.50 Challenges• Profiles for each discipline

• Defeats interoperability?

• Vendor interpretation of the standard

• Bib–1 bloat

• Largely invisible to the user

• Seen as complicated and expensive

• Seen as old–fashioned

• Surely no match for XML/RDF/ whatever.


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Some Joined up working:

The Bath Profile• Vendors and systems implement areas of the Z39.50 standard differently

• Regional, National, and disciplinary Profiles have appeared over previous years, many of which have basic functions in common

• Users wish to search across national/regional boundaries, and between vendors.


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Learning from the past

• The Bath Profile is heavily influenced by• ATS–1• CENL• DanZIG• MODELS• ONE• Z Texas• vCUC• CIMI/Aquarelle

See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop–focus/bath/See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop–focus/bath/

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Learning from the past


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Doing the work

• ZIP–PIZ–L mailing list, hosted by National Library of Canada

• Meeting face–to–face• JISC supported a face–to–face meeting in Bath

(UK) over the summer of 1999

• A draft was widely circulated for comment• Discussion and feedback world–wide

• Profile presented at DC7 in Frankfurt• Open Concertation day in the UK• etc.


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Makx DekkersPricewaterhouseCoopers/ EC

Janifer GatenbyGEAC

Juha HakalaNational Library of Finland

Poul Henrik JoergensenDanish Library Centre

Carrol LunauNational Library of Canada

Paul MillerUKOLN

Slavko ManojlovichSIRSI/ Memorial University of Newfoundland

Bill MoenUniversity of North Texas

Judith PearceNational Library of Australia

Joe ZeemanCGI.

Doing the work


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What we proposed

• Minimisation of ‘defaults’• Where possible, every attribute is defined in the Profile

(Use, Relation, Position, Structure, Truncation, Completeness)

• Three Functional Areas• Basic Bibliographic Search & Retrieval• Bibliographic Holdings Search & Retrieval• Cross–Domain Search & Retrieval

• Three Levels of Conformance in each Area.


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What we proposed

• SUTRS or XML and UNIMARC or MARC21 for Bibliographic Search results

• SUTRS and Dublin Core (in XML) for Cross–Domain results

• Other record syntaxes also permitted, but conformant tools must support at least these.


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Finishing it off…

• Bath Profile 1.1 accredited as ISO Internationally Registered Profile (IRP)• National Library of Canada as Maintenance Agency

• Direct approaches to international vendors• Already begun in North America. Europe still to do.

• User testing in Europe and North America• Does the Profile do what it’s meant to?

• Revision of CIMI Profile and others to include Bath as a core subset.


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Finishing it off…

• Inclusion of explicit Bath Profile requirements in RFPs across North America and Europe already.• Bath Editorial Group working on stock text

• Addition of Functional Areas and Levels of Conformance as required• Community Information?

• Next open meeting in Newfoundland, 24–25 September.


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Relevance to EH…?

• Users want content• Good, quality controlled content, but not only

from EH

• EH sits on a wealth of information• But how much of it is really accessible to the

world?

• Joined–up everything• HEIRNET• Government agendas• ADS…

• Portalitis.

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Users want content…

• Welcome to the information economy…• But if you’re ‘selling’, then they’re ‘customers’• People only ‘buy’ what they can see

• Educational agendas• Every school online by 2002, but where’s the

stuff?– National Grid for Learning– Learning for Life/ Social Inclusion– e–University– 24 Hour Museum.

See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/education/See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/education/

“Gimme stuff!”

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Joined–up everything…

• Modernising Government/ Best Value• Government metadata/ interoperability rules

• Digital Scotland• The shape of things to come?

• DNER• Regional Broadband Consortia• HEIRNET/ ADS Gateway• NOF–DIGI

• 2 EH bids through to second stage?

• SOCITM.

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Portalitis• Making your stuff portable and visible,

makes it reusable and valuable.• ukonline.gov/• Ask Giraffe• DNER• People’s Network/ NOF–DIGI• A(H)DS• Heritage Gateway?• 24 Hour Museum• National Grid for Learning• Paul’s portal• etc.

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See www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/See www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop-focus/

Mail [email protected] [email protected]

Join www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/interoperability/Join www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/interoperability/

joining it up making our cultural heritage visible online

Documents

national monuments record

reuse of information

use standards

metadata standardspaul

external data exchange

core element

dublin corean attempt

interesting talk