Metadata and Technology/Architecture Working Groups DLF Aquifer Project DLF Fall Forum Providence, RI November 14, 2008

Agenda Introductions and background MODS Guidelines Asset Actions Hands-on work MODS and/or Asset Actions Wrap-up Participants’ comments/questions Future of Asset Actions and other Aquifer activities

This is an interactive session! We’re here to help you implement Asset Actions and MODS in your local environment Open your browser to:

I’m going to introduce MODS. Stay tuned for Asset Actions.

Why MODS? Metadata aggregations have clearly demonstrated more robust metadata will allow higher-level services. MODS attempts to strike a “happy medium.” DLF institutions should be among those best positioned to implement standards like MODS.

Why MODS Guidelines? Everything is open to interpretation. To systematically interpret MODS for the purposes of sharing metadata. To give some direction in cases where the decision is arbitrary. An attempt to promote consistency. Yes, we know that’s impossible. But you have to start somewhere!

Yikes, that’s a lot! No institution can completely conform to a set of externally-imposed guidelines. Levels of Adoption document helps: Separates what’s functional from what’s cosmetic. Connects features of metadata to functionality for end- users these features support. We need your feedback!

MODS help available in this session Implementing the Aquifer MODS Guidelines Generally According to the Levels of Adoption Mapping your native metadata to MODS Conceptual mapping Technical mapping using XSLT

Asset Actions: Goals Simple, low-barrier-to-entry method of exposing digital library content and structure Not just a URL to a web presentation Versions of an image, pages of a book, scenes of a video Enable cross-content cross-tool interoperability Easier than METS profiles Similar to Fedora notion of “behaviors” Not Fedora-specific

Asset Actions: Origins Began out of discussions between UVA, Tufts, and Northwestern in 2005 Adopted by DLF Aquifer to help achieve “deep sharing” of digital resources in 2006 Asset Actions Prototype portal Implementation in DLF Aquifer American Social History Online portal

Asset Actions Series of typed URLs providing access to “views” of an object Expressed (currently) via XML document Grouped into Action Groups by format

Asset Action Groups Define sets of actions corresponding to various types of digital objects Default Basic Image Addressable Image Structured Text Image Text (Paged Image)

Asset Action Groups Define sets of actions corresponding to various types of digital objects Default Basic Image Addressable Image Structured Text Image Text (Paged Image)

Asset Action Groups: Examples Default getAssetDefinition getPreview getLabel getDCRecord getWebView getDefaultContent Basic Image getThumbnail getScreenSize getMaxSize getDynamicView

Basic Image getThumbnail getScreenSize getMaxSize getDynamicView Default getAssetDefinition getLabel getDCRecord getPreview getDefaultContent getWebView Bashful girl in red velvet Asset Actions Example

DLF Asset Actions & OAI-ORE DLF-AA model provides semantics to express typed (labeled), actionable URIs associated with an intellectual resource In the Web Architecture URIs identify Web resources, so a DLF-AA package is a manifest of Web resources associated with an intellectual resource such as a digital text or image “Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE) defines standards for the description and exchange of aggregations of Web resources” – ORE abstract data model ORE aggregations are described by ORE Resource Maps (ReMs) OAI-ORE leaves typing of Web resources within an ORE aggregation up to communities of use We can use DLF-AA semantics within context of OAI-ORE to create ORE ReMs describing DLF-AA packages – i.e., ORE ReM becomes manifest of URIs associated with an intellectual resource

DLF Asset Actions & OAI-ORE (2) A ORE ReM is not the same as a DLF-AA package Different data model & data model semantics DLF-AA package data model simpler, single purpose ORE ReM data model general-purpose, conforms better to core principles of RDF & Web Architecture ORE-ReMs can be used to describe a range of different kinds of aggregations, not just DLF-AA manifests However, ORE ReM model may be used to express a DLF-AA manifest – so functionally, a ORE ReM can be used instead of a DLF-AA package to deliver essentially the same information ** Note, to use DLF-AA semantics in ORE ReMs required registering info URIs, e.g.: info:dlf/aquifer/assetActions/getPreview info:dlf/aquifer/assetActions/getPreview

Asset Actions Exercise Choose a sample image object Create Asset Action XML record containing Default and Basic Image action groups Upload to the MODS / Asset Actions Explorer and experiment

Hands-on work