Making sense of the hybrid super union catalogue in the information environment … Gordon Dunsire Centre for Digital Library Research

… some outcomes of the COPAC/Clumps continuing interoperability project

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

CC-interop project n Funded by JISC, May Jun 2004 n CURL OPAC (physical u.c.); CAIRNS, M25, RIDING (distributed Z39.50 u.c., or clump) n CAIRNS and CDLR involved in Work Package B: Enhance the role of clumps (in the JISC Information Environment)

Work Package B n Looking at the intelligent selection of targets in clumps utilising collection level descriptions based on dynamic landscaping n Using the Scottish Collections Network (SCONE) to select sub-sets (miniclumps) of CAIRNS catalogues

Collection-level description n Metadata for a collection as a whole u E.g. collector, location, education level n Can be used to search and identify collections by useful headings (dynamic landscaping) u Place (physical location) u Type (archive, library, museum, etc.) u Subject …

targets in clumps n (Z39.50) catalogues n But catalogues are collections of item-level metadata u So we can treat catalogues using cld methods n And what the catalogue describes is also a collection u Typically the total bibliographic holdings of a library

intelligent selection n SCONE retrieval interface can be used to identify CAIRNS catalogues n Catalogues and their corresponding library collections have clds in SCONE n Library clds are related to clds for special sub-collections u E.g. rare books, manuscripts, special donations, etc.

SCONE/CAIRNS n SCONE and CAIRNS interfaces developed to link CAIRNS static clumper to SCONE u Part-resourced by the SLIC SPEIR project n In operation u User generates list of collections in SCONE u System determines which are described by available CAIRNS catalogues u CAIRNS advanced search page displayed with relevant targets pre-selected

Demonstration n

Union catalogues n CC-interop was about interoperability between two types of union catalogue u COPAC is a physical aggregated copy of CURL member catalogues u A clump is a virtual aggregation of distributed (local) member catalogues n Clump2clump (hyperclump) and clump2COPAC interactions successfully demonstrated

COPAC in CAIRNS n COPAC Z39.50 target added to CAIRNS n CURL includes National Library of Scotland, University of Edinburgh … u So CAIRNS includes duplicates of several catalogues n When COPAC added to CAIRNS, corresponding clds added to SCONE u Including COPAC collection

COPAC in SCONE n COPAC collection linked as parent or super-collection of each of the (Scottish) CURL library collections already in SCONE u Not all Scottish CURL members are necessarily CAIRNS targets n Collection hierarchy can be used to find nearest catalogue u In terms of aggregation level: if the library collection has no specific catalogue, a super-collection might …

NLS down n NLS Z39.50 catalogue not available due to upgrades, etc. u Temporarily switched-off in CAIRNS n When NLS collection (or sub-collection) selected in SCONE, COPAC automatically presented as the relevant CAIRNS target u Service not totally disrupted u User not confused by duplicate item-level metadata

And then there was … n HaIRST catalogue u Physical aggregated copy of local metadata repositories (some without local visibility) u And the HaIRST catalogue itself is a local metadata repository (with visibility) which can be harvested (copied) in turn n SUNCAT u p.a.c. of local/global metadata n National Burns Collection catalogue …

Metadata profusion or pollution? n Metadata duplication u Direct copies (HaIRST) u Augmented copies (COPAC, SUNCAT) F Enhanced descriptive metadata F Standardised retrieval metadata n Overlapping catalogues u Partial contents copied (SUNCAT, CASS) n Distributed catalogues u Partial contents moved (CASS?, HaIRST)

Anglo/UK/Scot NUC Harvested Union cat. B Local catalogue Z39.50 catalogue Distributed Union cat. B Physical Union cat. Item-level metadata Metadata repository Harvested Union cat. A Distributed Union cat. A (Distributed) NUC

Landscaping n SCONE cld methods developed for COPAC and CAIRNS are applicable to u Any aggregation of structured metadata u Any aggregation of aggregation of structured metadata n The key to simplification & clarity lies in the concept of nearest u Simple in mono-hierarchy of NLS/COPAC, much more complex in poly-hierarchy of NLS/COPAC/CASS/SUNCAT/CAIRNS …

Thank you! n