Collection-Level Description

Gordon DunsireDepute Director, Centre for Digital Library Research

Presentation for a workshop at the Libraries in the Digital Age Conference, May 26-30 2003, Dubrovnik

Overview

• What is a collection?

• What is collection-level description?

• Why is it important?

• Development in UK

• Some practical issues

• Scottish Collections Network (SCONE)

• Information environments

What is a collection?

• “Any aggregation of individual items (objects, resources)”– CD Focus briefing paper 1– Size is not a factor – 1 item is possible– Varying degrees of permanence– Physical juxtaposition not necessary; collections can be

distributed across multiple locations

• Cross-domain– Libraries, museums, art galleries, archives, digital

• Definition is too vague to be practicable– Limit to “useful” collections

• “Useful” defined in terms of “Functional granularity”

Functional granularity

• “… useful or necessary for the purposes of resources discovery or collection management” – Heaney– As deemed by “the institution”– Might include user groups as well as owners

and administrators

• Exclude– Dynamic collections (results of retrieval)– Single persons (unless significant)

What is CLD?

• Collection-Level Description– Metadata at the level of aggregation:

Title: William Speirs Bruce Collection

Description: Collection of material on oceanography and Arctic and

Antarctic exploration, bequeathed by Dr. William Speirs Bruce, Polar

explorer and oceanographer (1867-1921).

Location: Edinburgh University Library. Main Library

Collectors: William S. (William Speirs) Bruce (1867-1921)

[Collecting: Closed]

Subjects: Antarctica--Discovery and exploration

Part of: Edinburgh University Library. Department of Special Collections

printed books collections

Confusing terms

• Collection-Level Description– The complete metadata for a collection– The process of creating a CLD

• Collection-Description– A finding-aid for the collection (e.g. catalogue)

• Description– An attribute of a Collection giving a short

summary of the collection history and contents, etc.

Why is CLD important? (1)

• Ideally, all metadata/retrieval is at the level of the work (item-level description)

• But in the Real world …– Online ILD metadata not available

• Legacy; Institutional policies

– Wide variation in ILD structure and content standards

• Between domains; within domains• Within single institutions!

Why is CLD important? (2)

• CLD offers broader coverage– More stuff can be found– Cheaper to implement– High recall, low precision

• Some metadata cannot be accommodated in ILD without extensive duplication– E.g. Collection title, Collector, Owner,

Location, etc.

Why is CLD important? (3)

• Collaborative management– Collaborative acquisition policies– Preservation and storage– Priorities for digitisation, wider access, etc.

• Landscaping in distributed digital information environments– Portals– Broad overview, then more precise discovery

LandscapingSearch term or Profile parameter

e.g. name, subject, education level, accessibility

Retrieve relevant CLDs to create broad "map" of concentrations of resources: peaks of significance; "lodes" for further exploration

CLDs link to digital collections, and online (analytic) finding aids

Local ILDs for resource discovery:cross-searching possible with Z39.50/OAI

Development of CLD in UK

• Entity-relationship model– Michael Heaney– Also covers analytic finding aids: collection-

descriptions (C-Ds)

• Database schema– For RSLP by UKOLN; simplifies Heaney’s

model

• Implementation– JISC IE Services Registry; simplifies RSLP

Heaney’s Analytic Model

Heaney's components

• Entities– Collection; Agent; Location

• Relationships– Collection:IsLocatedIn:Location– Administrator[Agent]:Administers:Location– Collector[Agent]:Collects:Collection– * Collection:HasPart:Collection– * Collection:IsDescribedBy:C-D[Collection]

* Heaney focussed on single collections

CLD in practice (1)

• Collection titles– If no specific title, derive from name of

institution or user group defining the collection

• Collection hierarchies– Multi-level granularity (6 levels in SWOP)– Polyhierarchy: one physical super-collection,

but many virtual– Data redundancy; inheritance from super-

collection• E.g. location, owner, access

CLD in practice (2)

• Content interoperability– Cross-searching names and subjects in landscapes– Varying standards in different organizations

• Agent names (persons and organizations)– Much wider range than item-level description

• Owners, administrators in addition to creators, subjects, to be included in name authority files

• Subjects– Collections on specific subjects– General collections; subject strengths

CLD in practice (3)

• Dates– 18th century books on classical Greece

collected from 1890 to 1930 – dates of: manufacture; subject; aggregation

• Significance– Quantity vs quality; subjective; dynamic– 5 first editions with manuscript notes by

Robert Burns, or 50000 items by and about Burns?

SCONE story (1)

• CAIRNS– Z39.50 clump for distributed searching– Metadata for Z servers (service-level

description!)– Associated metadata for collection-

descriptions (catalogue indexes, etc.)– Associated metadata for CLDs– Access (SQL) database

SCONE story (2)

• SCONE project– Collaborative collection management

• HE/FE plus public libraries sector (SEED)• CDLR as lead site

– Test datasets• SLIR; SWOP; ESH; Websites

– Then Heaney's model and RSLP schema

• SCONE service– 2600 CLDs

SCONE story (3)

• SQL database (MS SQL Server)– Uses Heaney’s analysis rather than RSLP– Fully relational, normal form– Incorporates additional metadata not specified

• Subject strengths (RCO)• Service-level description elements (CAIRNS)

• ColdFusion Web data server

• DreamWeaver Website maintenance

SCONE futures

• CC-interop (COPAC/Clumps interoperability) project– Cross-relates SCONE to major UK schemas– SCONE clone for RIDING clump

• HaIRST (institutional resources) and SPEIR (Scottish portals) projects– SCONE used for landscaping

JISC Information Environment

• “the set of network or online services that support publishing and use of information and learning resources”

• Functional model for resource discovery has 4 stages– Observes that some components already

exist or are under development

JISC IE Functional Model

• 1: Enter– Initial landscape: presentation of collections &

services for local service or user profile

• 2: Survey– Modify set of collections & services

• 3: Discover– Item-level searching using distributed (z39.50) or

physical (OAI harvested; FTP) union catalogue

• 4: Detail– Further information about items

IE for Scotland (A)

Survey

Collection descriptions service[SCONE]

Landscaper

Collection-leveldescriptions

Entry

Initial landscape[Scottish Cultural Portal;

SCONE]

IE for Scotland (B)

Detail

Discover

Distributed union

catalogue[CAIRNS]

Harvested union catalogue[HaIRST]

Union catalogue[COPAC]

Item metadata

Item metadata

Item metadata

Item metadata

Links

• Me– g.dunsire@strath.ac.uk

• SCONE service– http://scone.strath.ac.uk/service/index.cfm

– “About SCONE” for more information

• CDLR (other projects)– http://cdlr.strath.ac.uk

• JISC Information Environment– http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=

about_info_env