roy tennant the california digital library escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/presentations/2005 sfs/...
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Roy TennantThe California Digital Library
escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/presentations/2005sfs/
Moving Beyond CaptureThe IT Perspective
The Importance of Metadata Platforms Databases: Pick Your Poison
A Brief Demonstration Your New Best Friend I Know This Much Is True
Outline
The Importance of Metadata
Metadata: structured information about an object or collection of objects
No matter what access system you use, having the right metadata is essential
The services you want to offer will define the metadata you must capture
The storage format is not that important as long as you lose nothing and you can output it in all the ways you wish to support
Capturing it at the correct granularity is key
Metadata Granularity The degree to which you segment
or “chop up” your metadata Gross: <name>John Doe</name> Fine:
<name><given>John</given><family>Doe</family>
</name>
Item v. Collection Metadata Collection-level metadata:
Discovery metadata describes the collection Example: Kentuckiana Digital Library; see
www.kyvl.org/kentuckiana/digilibcoll/digilibcoll.shtml Item-level metadata:
Discovery metadata describes the item Example: MARC or Dublin Core records for each
item; see californiadigitallibrary.org
Both types may be appropriate Doing both often takes very little extra effort
Platforms
HardwareHardware
Operating SystemOperating System
Application Software
Application Software
DataData
Platforms
HardwareHardware
Operating SystemOperating System
Application Software
Application Software
DataData
SystemAdministrator
or Service Provider
SystemAdministrator
or Service Provider
Platforms
HardwareHardware
Operating SystemOperating System
Application Software
Application Software
DataData
DatabasesoftwareDatabasesoftware
Databases: Pick Your Poison Virtually any database or indexing
product will in most cases work Key considerations:
What do you already have (in-house or via a service provider)?
Which platform are you on? Which product will your IT staff or service
provider be willing to support? What do you want your users to be able to
do? How much money do you have to spend?
Databases: Examples Targeted to the market and
purpose; e.g., CONTENTdm from OCLC
General purpose commercial; e.g., Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server
General purpose open source; e.g., MySQL, SWISH-E
Shrink-wrapped consumer; e.g., MS Access, Filemaker Pro
Database & Indexing Sofware Sample Indexing
Systems/Databases: Sprite (Perl module) Microsoft Access, Filemaker Pro SWISH-E, swish-e.org MySQL, mysql.com ContentDM, OCLC Oracle or Sybase
Less More
The power & complexity continuum
Sprite SWISH-EMySQL/ContentDM
Access/Filemaker
Oracle,Sybase
Two Brief Demonstrations… SWISH-E Components:
A web server (Apache) and Perl Free SWISH-E indexing software An edited version of the included Perl
script Hand-created XML files (let’s do one!)
FileMaker Pro Components: FileMaker Pro Web Access Plug-in enabled
Your New Best Friend Your System Administrator/Service Provider
will be very important to you Definition: The one person or organization
upon whom the success of your project rests (i.e., God); and, the one person or organization who can most easily damage your project (i.e., the Devil)
Foster good relations Communicate your needs clearly, and listen
well
I Know This Much is True Never forget for whom you are doing this! Neither an early adopter nor latecomer be Never underestimate the power of a
prototype Back it up or kiss it goodbye Computers are cheap, people are
expensive Storage is cheaper than dirt Buy hardware at the last possible moment
I Know This Much is True Don’t buy software with a zero at the
end of the release number Like love and money, you can never
have too much RAM, disk space, or CPU speed
All things being equal, open is better than proprietary
Know your source of support going in
I Know This Much is True For any given
project, there are many ways it can succeed
Just focus on (you guessed it): 1) having the right gear, and 2) making the right decisions ( and coming here was a great start)