An Introduction to the LIPARM Project Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries Conference 24 September 2012

The Parliamentary Record in the UK Eight centuries of the Parliamentary record, most of which has been digitized

The need for integrated metadata Cross-searching these collections is time-consuming and hit-and-miss Some problems:-  Inconsistent approaches to metadata, and particularly naming conventions  Identifying the same person, in different resources, different names etc  Inconsistency of naming: Bills, Acts etc  Different methods for identifying the same person, Bill, Act, session etc in different collections  No methods for linking across collections, so bringing the parliamentary record together

What an integrated metadata strategy would allow..  Tracing an individual's career in-depth across the entire record:-  All speeches and contributions to debates  Every vote cast  Membership of all committees  Links back to the context in which each of these contributions takes place  The passage of all legislation and all contributions to it at all stages  The ability to analyse all divisions and other votes across the entire record  Linking all of these components to any other bibliographic information, for instance subject indexes, allowing automated analyses of the content of speeches etc.

XML Schema (PML) Controlled Vocabularies

For example... Sir James Craig Referred to as: Lieut. Col. James Craig Capt. Craig Col. Craig Sir James Craig Viscount Craigavon UK Parliament MP for Down East MP for Down Mid Stormont Parliament MP for County Down MP for North Down contributions to debates at Westminster Offices at Stormont Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Offices at Westminster Treasurer of the Royal Household Parliamentary Secretary Parliamentary Secretary contributions to debates at Stormont

Some questions PML records can answer..  What is the voting record for a given MP?  What contributions did an MP make throughout his/her career?  To what Bills/Acts?  What form of contributions?  What committees did he/she serve on?  What offices did he/she hold?  What proceedings led to a given Act?  What Bills were debated in a given session?  How often was an MP interrupted during speeches in his/her career?

The major project components  An XML schema to link components of the record  Controlled vocabularies, with unique URIs to support the schema  Two collections converted to the schema  A prototype union catalogue for these collections, with links to the originals

The schema and controlled vocabularies

Controlled vocabularies <topic valueURI=" >Public General Act Primary legislation Act of Parliament Effective UK UK Parliament MADS=Metadata Authority Description Schema

Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) URIs have been specified for every item in controlled vocabularies, including:-  Persons  Administrative units (eg. House of Commons)  Types of administrative unit (eg. 'chamber', 'committee')  Roles/functions (eg. 'Prime Minister')  Outcomes of proceedings (eg. Acts, Bills etc)  Votes (ie. divisions)

The PML (Parliamentary Metadata Language) file Units Functions Persons Proceedings Groups Proceedings Objects Vote Events House of Commons, Treasury Select Committee, Standing Committee Prime Minister, Home Secretary, Member of Parliament James Callaghan, European Communities Act (Amendment) Act Calendar Objects Parliament , Session 1/9/79-1/6/80, Sitting 15/1/80 Preamble, Debates, Readings of bills Divisions

The PML (Parliamentary Metadata Language) file Units ID"hh units-001" Type"chamber" TypeURI" Label "House of Commons" RegURI"

Some sample linkages - persons Person Sir James Craig Function Parliamentary Secretary MP Unit House of Commons Standing Committee Proceedings Object Military Service Bill debate 10 April 1918 Vote Event "That the Question be now put." Division on Military Service Bill 10 April aye

Colonel Sir JAMES CRAIG I listened with the greatest possible regret to the speech of the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. Dillon) both yesterday and to-day and I did so because I hoped that when the mantle of the leadership of the Nationalist party fell upon him it would be possible for him to take rather a different view than he had done in the past with regard to Ireland's share in the War. The PRIME MINISTER: Certainly, and that control, I think, is exercised very judiciously. But, after all, we cannot take from these duly elected boards a duty which has been carried out? Links between records Westminster Hansard Stormont Hansard

Links to sources Persons Proceedings Objects Vote EventsContributions Source Label HC Deb 15 January 1980 vol 976 cc1437 SourceRef SourceType URL

Project webpage