Virtual Collections

VIRTUAL COLLECTIONSFocus on Metadata

Cataloging Discussion Group , Friday, November 18

Virtual Collections

What is “Virtual Collections”

• OIS System to allow librarians / curators to harvest metadata from various Harvard online catalogs and create a new, topic-based collections.

• Web-based interface for collection-level search and display of metadata, with links to digital objects.

• A Virtual Collection constists of metadata only; records link to external digital objects

Virtual Collections

Major Aspects of Virtual Collections

• Harvesting: Initially supporting harvesting from HOLLIS, VIA and HGL

• No additional cataloging necessary in source catalogs (HOLLIS, VIA, HGL)

• Local Subject Vocabulary: Curator can create a controlled list of subject terms, distinct from any subjects in the harvested records.

• Customization: Collection can customize appearance of the Web display with XSL and CSS stylesheets.

Virtual Collections

Metadata Focus

• Harvesting of Metadata from HOLLIS, VIA, HGL

• Transformation of Metadata from original form to final Virtual Collection form (MODS)

• What the metadata looks like displayed in a Virtual Collection (aka Demo)

Virtual Collections

Harvesting: OIS Harvester

• OIS Harvesting software– reads “harvest file” of system/id pairs

• HOLLIS 002223743

• VIA olvwork125041

• HGL MGISRAILTRA1

– file can be initialized from an Aleph report for HOLLIS, and the Portfolio function of VIA.

– Harvester requests records from catalogs, transforms and loads into Virt. Coll. database

Virtual Collections

Harvesting: OAI-PMH

• Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH )

• OAI Harvester ->http request -> OAI DataProvider

• OAI DataProvider -> xml record -> OAI Harvester

• HOLLIS: Data Provider from ExLibris

• VIA: OIS Custom Data Provider

• HGL: OIS Custom Data Provider

Virtual Collections

Harvesting: Transformations(Crosswalks/XSL)

• HOLLIS– MARC21 (xml) -> xsl -> MODS (xml)

• VIA– VIA (xml) - xsl -> MODS (xml)

• HGL– FGDC (xml) -> MARC21 (xml) -> MODS (xml)

Virtual Collections

MODS Metadata Standard

• Metadata Object Description Schema

• MODS Top Level Elements

• MODS Schema

• MARC to MODS Crosswalk

• MARCXML to MODS XSL stylesheet

Virtual Collections

Why MODS for Virtual Collections?

• Richer metadata than Dublin Core

• Clean mapping from MARC to MODS

• Supports hierarchical VIA records– relatedItem element

• Virtual Collections Schema– One primary schema for all collections– Local Subject schema for each collection *

Virtual Collections

Demo of Prototype

• Bicycle Virtual Collection– Contains records from

• HOLLIS• VIA• HGL

002223743

olvwork93048 local

olvwork125041

MGISRAILTRA1