Collection-Level Description: potential and reality Collection Description Focus Briefing Day 2 British Library, St Pancras, London 14 May 2002

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Collection-Level Descriptionpotential and
realityCollection Description Focus Briefing Day
2 British Library, St Pancras, London 14 May
2002

• Pete Johnston
• UKOLN, University of Bath
• Bath, BA2 7AY

Email cd-focus_at_ukoln.ac.uk URL http//www.ukoln.ac
.uk/
UKOLN is supported by
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Realising the potential of collection-level
description

• Collection Description Focus
• CLDs as metadata
• resource management
• resource discovery
• Potential to reality

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Collection Description Focus

• Funded by
• RSLP
• JISC/DNER
• British Library
• UKOLN experience of RSLP Collection Description
• Benefit from collaboration with
• Interoperability Focus
• JISC Information Environment architecture team
• CIMI (museums)
• Dublin Core Collection Description WG

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Collection Description Focus

• Improve consistency, compatibility of approaches
• Point of contact, advice
• support for CLD in programmes
• recommendations, guidelines
• Gather information on existing practice
• implementer visits
• survey questionnaire
• Consensus-building
• Disseminate good practice
• workshops, briefing days
• publications

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Collection Description Focus

• Ongoing
• .
• Future
• practical support for CLD in programmes
• JISC Information Environment
• NOF-digitise
• Resource Regional Cross-Domain research projects
• integrating existing work
• international initiatives
• domain-specific CIMI, EAD implementers
• cross-domain DCMI, OAI

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CLDs as metadata records

• Metadata
• Machine understandable information about web
  resources or other things (Berners-Lee, 1997)
• Structured data about resources that can be used
  to help support a wide range of operations
• Collection as type of resource CLD as metadata
  record
• Support
• resource management
• resource discovery
• Used by
• human agents, software agents

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CLDs for resource management

• Use CLDs to establish control of resources
• multi-level description
• CLDs support collaborative collection management
• how to reconcile growing number/cost of
  publications with shrinking resources
• partners co-operate on approach to collection
  development
• share information
• avoid unnecessary duplication
• co-ordinate expensive purchases
• CLDs to improve decision making
• identify record strengths, weaknesses

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CLDs for resource discovery

• Resource users wish to
• search across, interpret, and compare resource
  descriptions from different provider communities
• CLDs support survey of information landscape
• to identify areas rather than specific features
  - to identify rainforest rather than to retrieve
  an analysis of the canopy fauna of the Amazon
  basin
• (Heaney, 2000)
• CLD as overview of aggregate of items
• Not a substitute for item-level description
• but CLD may be useful in contexts where
  item-level description inappropriate/unavailable

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CLDs for resource discovery

• Cross-domain
• Different ideas of collections
• Different ways of talking about collections
• Different criteria for defining collections
• Different ways of describing collections
• But useful/possible to agree on broadly common
  view?
• Within context of a service?
• Permit user to compare broadly similar high-level
  objects
• even where items heterogeneous
• RSLP CD Schema as a Dublin Core for collections?

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CLDs for resource discovery

• Collection-level description might
• Disclose information about collections
• Provide overview of otherwise uncatalogued items
• Enable user to select collections to search on
  basis of summary description
• Enable software agents to select collections to
  search on behalf of user
• Support controlled searching of multiple
  collections

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Potential to reality

• Archives Hub, Access to Archives
• collaboration on domain-specific CLD services
• RSLP, BL CPP
• project-based CLD services
• subject-specific regional-based
• RSLP scoping study on aggregation/search
• Cornucopia
• museums, extending to cross-domain?
• CAIRNS
• CLDs to build landscapes for item-level search
• JISC Information Environment
• NOF-digitise portal

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Potential to reality

• Potential being realised?
• Within the context of specific services?
• But scope of services is broadening to meet user
  expectations
• facing and addressing challenges of
  cross-domain working

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Acknowledgements

• UKOLN is funded by Resource the Council for
  Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint
  Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK
  higher and further education funding councils, as
  well as by project funding from the JISC and the
  European Union. UKOLN also receives support from
  the University of Bath where it is based.
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/