Making sense of the hybrid super union catalogue in the information

environment …

Gordon DunsireCentre for Digital Library Research

… some outcomes of the COPAC/Clumps continuing

interoperability project

Overview CC-interop project Integrating SCONE with CAIRNS Union catalogues & interoperability Metadata confusion Some clarification

CC-interop project Funded by JISC, May 2002 - Jun 2004 CURL OPAC (physical u.c.); CAIRNS,

M25, RIDING (distributed Z39.50 u.c., or ‘clump’)

CAIRNS and CDLR involved in Work Package B: Enhance the role of clumps (in the JISC Information Environment)

Work Package B “Looking at the intelligent selection of

targets in clumps utilising collection level descriptions based on dynamic landscaping”

Using the Scottish Collections Network (SCONE) to select sub-sets (“miniclumps”) of CAIRNS catalogues

Collection-level description Metadata for a collection as a whole

E.g. collector, location, education level Can be used to search and identify

collections by useful headings (“dynamic landscaping”) Place (physical location) Type (archive, library, museum, etc.) Subject …

“targets in clumps” (Z39.50) catalogues But catalogues are collections of item-level

metadata So we can treat catalogues using cld

methods And what the catalogue describes is also a

collection Typically the total bibliographic holdings of a

library

“intelligent selection” SCONE retrieval interface can be used to

identify CAIRNS catalogues Catalogues and their corresponding library

collections have clds in SCONE Library clds are related to clds for special

sub-collections E.g. rare books, manuscripts, special

donations, etc.

SCONE/CAIRNS SCONE and CAIRNS interfaces developed

to link CAIRNS “static clumper” to SCONE Part-resourced by the SLIC SPEIR project

In operation User generates list of collections in SCONE System determines which are described by

available CAIRNS catalogues CAIRNS advanced search page displayed

with relevant targets pre-selected

Demonstration http://scone.strath.ac.uk/service/index.cfm

Union catalogues CC-interop was about interoperability

between two types of union catalogue COPAC is a physical aggregated copy of

CURL member catalogues A clump is a virtual aggregation of

distributed (local) member catalogues Clump2clump (hyperclump) and

clump2COPAC interactions successfully demonstrated

COPAC in CAIRNS COPAC Z39.50 target added to CAIRNS CURL includes National Library of

Scotland, University of Edinburgh … So CAIRNS includes duplicates of several

catalogues When COPAC added to CAIRNS,

corresponding clds added to SCONE Including “COPAC collection”

COPAC in SCONE “COPAC collection” linked as parent or

super-collection of each of the (Scottish) CURL library collections already in SCONE Not all Scottish CURL members are

necessarily CAIRNS targets Collection hierarchy can be used to find

‘nearest’ catalogue In terms of aggregation level: if the library

collection has no specific catalogue, a super-collection might …

NLS down NLS Z39.50 catalogue not available due to

upgrades, etc. Temporarily switched-off in CAIRNS

When NLS collection (or sub-collection) selected in SCONE, COPAC automatically presented as the relevant CAIRNS target Service not totally disrupted User not confused by duplicate item-level

metadata

And then there was … HaIRST catalogue

Physical aggregated copy of local metadata repositories (some without local visibility)

And the HaIRST catalogue itself is a “local” metadata repository (with visibility) which can be harvested (copied) in turn

SUNCAT p.a.c. of local/global metadata

National Burns Collection catalogue …

Metadata profusion or pollution?

Metadata duplication Direct copies (HaIRST) Augmented copies (COPAC, SUNCAT)

Enhanced descriptive metadata Standardised retrieval metadata

Overlapping catalogues Partial contents copied (SUNCAT, CASS)

Distributed catalogues Partial contents moved (CASS?, HaIRST)

Anglo/UK/Scot NUC

HarvestedUnion cat.

B

Local catalogue

Z39.50catalogue

Distributed Union cat.

B

PhysicalUnion cat.

Item-levelmetadata

Metadatarepository

HarvestedUnion cat.

A

Distributed Union cat.

A

(Distributed) NUC

Landscaping SCONE cld methods developed for

COPAC and CAIRNS are applicable to Any aggregation of structured metadata Any aggregation of aggregation of

structured metadata The key to simplification & clarity lies in the

concept of “nearest” Simple in mono-hierarchy of NLS/COPAC,

much more complex in poly-hierarchy of NLS/COPAC/CASS/SUNCAT/CAIRNS …

Thank you! G.dunsire@strath.ac.uk