Dennis Nicholson / Gordon Dunsire SCONE, HILT, Collection Strength, and Standards

Overview n Collection strength: Uses in Scotland n Conspectus, Collaboration, RCO, CAIRNS landscaping n SCONE: objectivity, effort, subjects: HILT n HILT: Consensus and a TeRM pilot n SCONE: Judgement now, automation later? n Interoperability and re-use issues n Collection strength: Uses in the DN(E)R? New projects; Lessons n Demonstrations

Collection Strength in Scotland n Collaborative Collecting: u SCURL, Conspectus, CCD policies n User guidance u Research Collections Online u CAIRNS distributed catalogue and dynamic landscaping n SCONE

SCONE (Selected aims) n Expand collections coverage n Identify less subjective, less labour intensive methods of measuring collection strength n Develop CCM (Collaborative Collection Management) support tools e.g. a collections and dynamic landscaping management portal: SCAMP n Map Conspectus to other subject schemes – led to HILT

HILT n Investigating problems of cross- searching, browsing by subject across UK sectors and domains n Aiming at consensus on way forward n Favoured outcome an interactive terminologies route map not a HILT as such – a process for change not another thesaurus n Recognition that consensus is the key

HILT n HILT Phase II would involve terminology mapping but ask: u Which is best long-term option – mapping or single scheme? u Does ‘map’ need single hierarchical scheme as a ‘spine’ n Issues: u Spine and mapping a problem for CS interoperability? Single scheme implied? u But there are other issues – and consensus remains the key – services and professionals across the domains must be convinced

SCONE Interim Conclusions n Conspectus: u Subjective; labour-intensive… n SCONE Alternatives: u Brief tests? List checks? Shelf scans? Automated methods? External evaluation? Citation analysis? User based techniques (Circulation, ILL, DD statistics etc.) ? Professional judgment – key to all? n Interim conclusion: u Professional judgement constrained by SCAMP CCD/ user needs environment: agreed methods/peer review (But…)

An Automated Future? n Unhelpful, inherently subjective concept? n Strong for who, for what purpose? (CURL) n Disaggregate idea to give users/staff clearer guidance? Questions include: u Count? Relative to what? Since when? Current intensity? Responsibility? Quality? Experience level? Audience level? Small but significant? Distributed strength? Subjective helpful if explicit? ‘Cohesion’? Granular characteristics? u Can the ‘strength elements’ of dynamic aggregations be dynamically generated? Is this the future of dynamic landscaping?

Other Dimensions… n Granularity (as ever) complicates things: u At which level of subject granularity do we measure a collection strength (or element)? u How can we ‘telegraph’ (describe) a strength measured at one level at a higher level? u Does a strength cascade down to a subject sub-division?

Issues: Interoperability; Re-use n Agree on ‘strength’ elements, how measured,described, what valid uses and limitations are; then assess or count n Local slant needed on data? ; Named collections and ‘strength’ n Assess/Count using which scheme; at what granularity level? Spine or common scheme? Consensus still the key

Collection strength and the DN(E)R n Collaborative Collecting: u High-level gap identification u Deep resource sharing n User guidance u Information on strong and special collections, including access conditions u Scoping ahead/ dynamic landscaping n New projects for (some) answers: u HILT Phase II (CLD a key focus) u CLD focus in clumps/Copac project

Lessons from CAIRNS, SCONE n Users increasingly use/need distributed resources, finding tools so co-operation now essential as well as desirable: u Distributed networked collections need collaborative management u Coherent distributed virtual ‘libraries’ won’t just happen – we must co-operate to manage retrieval/user environments u People interoperability a pre-requisite of technical and metadata interoperability u Co-operative Infrastructure, CoSMiC, SCAMP

Demonstrations n CAIRNS service and dynamic landscaping n SCONE named collections database service n SCAMP landscaping and collections management portal

Thank you! n n n n n n