1 Metadata for the Masses Paul Miller Interoperability Focus UK Office for Library & Information Networking (U KOLN ) U KOLN is funded by Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (J ISC ) of the Further and Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from J ISC and the EU. U KOLN also receives support from the Universities of Bath and Hull where staff are based.

2 “No man is an island” Donne, John, 1572–1631

3 “No citizen is an island” Community Information Services (CIS) A Netful of Jewels The People’s Network “Cool Britannia” e–Government strategy The National Grid for Learning The University for Industry/ LearnDirect National Electronic Library for Health NOF–Digitise Interactive Digital TV 100% of Government services available electronically soon ukonline.gov/ me.gov. NGDF Metadata Project/ UKSGB

4 Standard solutions The nice thing about standards… …is that there are so many to choose from!

5 So… why use standards? Benefit from the expertise of others –Standards are (often!) compiled by groups of very knowledgeable people… and you can’t afford to employ them all yourself… Enforce rigour in internal practices –Standards are means of asserting control over the resource, allowing you to manage it more effectively Facilitate interoperability (and access) –Community Information originates from multiple sources, and has many potential uses –Considered deployment of standard solutions makes access to those resources feasible for many.

6 What do standards do? Help identify what’s important –GILS “Access Points” –Dublin Core elements –Mandatory fields Allow for consistent use of terminology –Name Authority Files –Thesauri –Look–up tables Enable internal and external data exchange Reduce duplication of effort Minimise (hopefully!) wasted effort Reflect consensus.

7 What types of standard are there? Terminology –‘East Riding of Yorkshire’, not ‘North Humberside’ –‘City of York Council’ is preferred to ‘York City Council’ Format –‘Miller, A.P. 1971–’, not ‘Paul Miller’ Discovery/ Semantics/ DBMS –A gross simplification, and a very big bucket –‘Creator’, ‘Subject’, ‘Title’, ‘Description’… Syntax – Transfer –ftp://ftp.niso.org/….

8 What is ‘Metadata’? –meaningless jargon –or a fashionable, and terribly misused, term for what we’ve always done –or “a means of turning data into information” –and “data about data” –and the name of a public servant (‘Tony Blair’) –and the title of legislation (‘the Freedom of Information Act’).

9 Metadata Standards “Paul Miller gave a really interesting talk about Dublin Core at the Motorbike Museum in Birmingham” In Birmingham, or in Dublin? About Motorbikes and about milling? But what was it?

10 Metadata Standards “Paul Miller gave a really interesting talk about Dublin Core at the Motorbike Museum in Birmingham”.

11 Challenges  Many flavours of metadata  which one do I use?  Managing change  new varieties, and evolution of existing forms  Tension between functionality and simplicity, extensibility and interoperability Functions, features, and cool stuff Simplicity and interoperability Opportunities

12 Introducing the Dublin Core An attempt to improve resource discovery on the Web –now adopted more broadly Building an interdisciplinary consensus about a core element set for resource discovery –simple and intuitive –cross–disciplinary — not just libraries!! –international –open and consensual –flexible. See

13 15 elements of descriptive metadata All elements optional All elements repeatable The whole is extensible –offers a starting point for semantically richer descriptions Interdisciplinary –libraries, government, museums, archives… International –available in more than 20 languages, with more on the way... Introducing the Dublin Core

14 Title Creator Subject Description Publisher Contributor Date Type Format Identifier Source Language Relation Coverage Rights Introducing the Dublin Core

15 The Dublin Core and Public Sector information Global/Government Information Locator Service –Richer set of Access Points, offering enhanced functionality within a domain –Maps well to Dublin Core –Next version likely to entirely adopt DC1.1 semantics Australian Government Locator Service –Based closely upon Dublin Core –Adds information on Audience, Availability, Mandate, and Function. See See See

16 me.gov “Not me, ‘Gov”

17 my.gov my.schools.gov my.health.gov my.environment.gov my.library.gov my.trains.gov my.farming.gov

18 The Vision thing Vision is two–fold: Citizen–focussed Access to government for the Citizen –me.gov –NELfH –People’s Network, etc. Access to government by government –Information Asset Register –GSI –Joined–up Government.

19 The Premise Government needs to be visible on the Internet Use of metadata will increase recall from the major commercial search engines –Not really… Use of metadata will increase recall from customised search engines deployed on government Portal sites –Absolutely The Citizen doesn’t necessarily care about the structure of Government.

20 The Portal mentality Portals are becoming very common… …but what are they? In HE and FE’s DNER, we distinguish between Portals and Gateways; –A Portal is ‘deep’, and provides access to the contents of a set of resources –A Gateway is ‘shallow’, and provides descriptions of the contents of a set of resources.

21 Portals and Government There need not be only one government portal: me/y.gov –General public face of Government me/y.schools.gov –Interface tailored to primary and secondary education ‘customers’, drawing information from DfEE, DSS (?), Benefits Agency, etc. etc. All presenting information drawn from a common data pool, according to common — or interoperable — standards…

22 me.Gov for Paul…? Good Morning, Paul. SearchPersonaliseHomeLog Out DCMS Press Releases… Museums to be free Millennium Dome closed… Resource Press Releases… Name changed again… Minister welcomes ‘GLAM’ You owe Us £2, Click here for breakdown by department Remember to Vote East Riding News… Hull News… Starbucks comes to Hull

23 What we need to make it happen Common Vision CITU Metadata and Interoperability Groups? The world beyond Government! Common Terminology Thesauri and Controlled Vocabularies – –cf Common Semantics Dublin Core? [plus Guidelines] –

24 Common Syntax and Structure XML? RDF? [plus Schemas, etc.] – – A means to join it all up Z39.50 ? [plus Profile and Infrastructure] – – z3950/ int_profile/bath/draft/. See