Roy Tennant California Digital Library escholarship.cdlib.org/rtennant/presentations/2003cil/ Achieving Together What None Can Do Alone: Interoperability & Standards

Why I’m Talking About This We are in the Golden Age of interoperability Meanwhile, we have yet to tap its full potential If we are about the free exchange of information and ideas, we should be interoperability experts We should know how to do unique things while still being team players We should understand that being interoperable does not mean cramping our style We should understand the consequences of not being interoperable

The Internet could be the “poster child” for interoperability Can you imagine a world without the Internet? Can you imagine a world where anyone can find and gain access to any information they wish? The Power of Interoperability

Interoperability “The ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged” — IEEE Computer Dictionary The ability of disparate systems to work together Think “components” or “building blocks” Interoperability can be a way to achieve the benefits of centralization when centralization is not an option

Standards The foundation of interoperability is standards Prime example: The HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Typical standard lifecycle: Early draft Early adopters/inescapably apparent Solidification Wide adoption/transparent Eventual death or replacement

Actual standards are typically characterized by: Open or semi-closed process Organizational sponsorship Formal agreements Open documentation Examples: MARC, HTTP De facto standards are typically characterized by: Closed process Pervasive market share Either proprietary or open documentation Examples: PDF, Zip disks Actual vs. De Facto Standards

Ways to Develop Standards By Fiat/Market Share MS Windows Coooperatively, loosely managed Dublin Core Cooperatively, tightly managed MARC By Organizational Membership HTML

Standards: When They’re Good When they enable interoperability When they enable efficiency (anecdote: sending from ALA bus) When they allow for useful flexibility without unduly harming interoperability When they can be implemented with a minimum amount of pain When they are codified at the right time

Standards: When They’re Bad Too soon — stifles innovation Too entrenched — stifles innovation Example: MARC When the wrong one wins Example: VHS, MS Windows

Standards & Flexibility An inflexible information standard is doomed to an early death Flexibility is a tightrope — harm can come from being both too flexible as well as too inflexible There must be a strategy and/or infrastructure to broker changes

Ways to Kill a Standard Make it too complex (can you say “RDF”?) Make a better one (can you say “Gopher”?) Achieve greater market share (can you say “ISO’s OSI”?)

Know when to comply and when to deny Standards compliance should not be misconstrued to be standards slavishness; i.e., internal compliance is not always important Meant to be enabling and prescriptive, not prohibitive Principles of Standards

The Librarian’s Repertoire MARC MODS METS Dublin Core ONIX XML HTML HTTP OAI TEI EAD Web Services

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File System Stored Encoded in TEI XML Search Index Full Text

UC Press Database Library Catalog METS Repository MODS record UC Press record Structure Records Created File System Stored Encoded in TEI XML Stored Search Index Full Text Project Profile Selected Fields Extracted Search Index

UC Press Database Library Catalog METS Repository Project Profile Selected Fields Extracted MODS record UC Press record Structure Records Created Search Index User queries File System Stored Encoded in TEI XML Stored Search Index Full Text

UC Press Database Library Catalog METS Repository Project Profile Selected Fields Extracted MODS record UC Press record Structure Records Created Search Index User requests book Search Results File System Stored Encoded in TEI XML Stored Search Index Full Text

UC Press Database Library Catalog METS Repository Project Profile Selected Fields Extracted MODS record UC Press record Structure Records Created Search Index XSLT METS record in XML File System Stored Encoded in TEI XML Stored Search Index Full Text Java servlet User requests book segment

UC Press Database Library Catalog METS Repository Project Profile Selected Fields Extracted MODS record UC Press record Structure Records Created Search Index XSLT File System Stored Encoded in TEI XML Stored Search Index Full Text Java servlet Book segment returned

UC Press Database Library Catalog METS Repository MODS record UC Press record Structure Records Created File System Stored Encoded in TEI XML Stored Search Index Full Text Project Profile Selected Fields Extracted Search Index External Search Service e.g., OAIster Records Harvested

Standards Used & Supported Extensible Markup Language (XML) Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Archival Resource Key (ARK) Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) Metadata Encoding and Transfer Syntax (METS) Dublin Core Open Archives Initiative - Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH)

Take Aways Interoperability is good, even essential for libraries Interoperability is built on standards Standards compliance means external compliance, not necessarily internal Modern information services must be more interoperable than they are now Librarians are the right professionals to lead the way!