1. UCLA School of Education & Information
Visual Materials: Metadata, Standards, and Best Practices for Digital Libraries
Howard Besser
UCLA School of Education & Information

2. Metadata for Digital Libraries-
Models for Digital Libraries
Importance of Metadata Standards
Types and Uses of Metadata
Discovery Metadata: The Dublin Core
Administrative and Structural Metadata: The Making of America II Project
Longevity Metadata
Identification/Provenance
The 4/99 NISO/DLF Image Metadata Workshop
Various other Metadata

3. Key problems we’re facing
Discovery
Longevity-
Interoperability-

4. Serious Longevity Problems
What we know from prior widespread digital file formats
Images separating from their metadata
Inaccessibility of software needed to view an image
Inability to even decode the file format of an image

5. Traditional Digital Library ModelDL DL DL DL
search & presentation
search & presentation
search & presentation
search & presentation
user
user

6. Ideal Digital Library ModelDL DL DL DL
search & presentation
user
user

7. For Interoperability Digital Libraries Need Standards
Discovery Metadata for finding
Administrative Metadata for viewing and maintaining
Structural Metadata for navigation
... IP Rights Management Metadata for controlling access...

8. Why are Standards and Metadata consensus important?
Managing digital files over time
Longevity
Interoperability
Veracity
Recording in a consistent manner
Will give vendors incentive to create applications that support this

9. Why Standards? Why do we need a standards?
To make information universally available to users
facilitate sharing and interchange of information
To preserve information (make it safe from changes in hardware and software)
Standards are the work of communities
They are necessary so that communities can work. 11

10. Why are you Managing this Information?
Organizational mission & type
Users
Uses

11. Questions to Ask What communities is this standard designed for?
What type of information is this standard designed to handle?
What functions is this standard designed to serve?
What previous standards is it built upon?
Does the standard prescribe how to create new records (or parts of records), or how to map from existing records?
How far does the standard go? Semantics: Does it define element sets? Rules? Syntax?-

12. What is Metadata
Structured data describing other data used to find or help manage information resources
Aids in interoperability
Titles, dates, captions, cataloging and indexing data, file headers, rights info, provenance, code books, transaction logs, ...
One person’s metadata is another’s data

13. Sorting through the Standards Morass
Data Structures (DC, CDWA, MARC, VRA Core, TEI, EAD, MESL data dict)
Data Interchange (Z39.50)
Data Values/vocabularies (LCSH, AAT, ULAN, TGN)
Data Content/syntax (AACR2)

14. Semantics/Syntax/Structure
meaning, as defined by a community to meet their particular needs (DC)
Syntax
a systematic arrangement of data elements for machine processing
facilitates the exchange and use of metadata among various applications (HTML, XML, RDF)
Structure
a formal arrangement of the syntax with the goal of consistent representation of the semantics (rules defining field contents like 1/11/99)

15. What is Metadata Types & Uses
lots of different ways of dividing the clusters

16. Uses of Metadata Discovery & Retrieval Identification/Provenance
Rights Management
Viewing
Integrity
Longevity
Content rating

17. Types of Metadata Descriptive Discovery & Retrieval Structural
Administrative
Intellectual
Other Metadata

18. Metadata -- Detailed Types
Identification metadata
Instance or Fixation metadata
Source image metadata
Content metadata
Subject metadata
Form and format metadata
Context metadata
Structure metadata
Relationships metadata
Terms & Conditions metadata
Use history metadata

19. Containers and Packages of Metadata Warwick, not MARC
modular
overlapping
extensible
community-based
designed for a networked world to aid commonality btwn communities while still providing full functionality within each community

20. Some different schemes where Metdata is kept
embedded withing the object (HTML tags)
in a separate related DB maintained by same organization (OPAC, MOA II)
in a separate DB maintained by a separate organization (Books in Print, ratings systems)
derived on-the-fly from a different scheme (MARC-to-DC)

21. Some Standards/Metadata Efforts
Dublin Core
Visual Resources Association (VRA) Core
Encoded Archival Description (EAD)
Computerized Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI)
Records Export for Art and Cultural Heritage (REACH)

22. Dublin Core (3/95) improve resource discovery
anticipate precision problems of Web Crawler-based searching tools
existing metadata could be “dumbed down”
elements should be simple to understand and use, so that any individual should be able to assign terms him/herself
software might eventually automatically generate very base-level metadata

23. Dublin Core Title Creator Subject Description Publisher Contributors
Date
Type
Format
Identifier
Source
Language
Relation
Coverage
Rights

24. Dublin Core every element is both optional and repeatable
elements are cross-disciplinary
elements are extensible by organized communities
can employ a syntax such as html’s <META> tagset

25. DC Qualifiers
allows one community to express important nuances and qualifications, while still making the basic importance available to communities with simple needs
our community can reflect alternate title, transliterated title, and main title, yet they will all be found under a simple Web search under “title”

26. Discovery Metadata: Recent History
Dublin Core (3/95)
Warwick Framework (4/96)
Image Metadata Workshop (9/96)
Canberra, Helsinki, ... DC (98)
Digital Library Collaboratory (97-)
DC-8, Frankfurt 10/99

27. Dublin Core--further work
Warwick Framework
metadata packages for extensible functions
layed groundwork for RDF
Canberra Qualifiers
refining the semantics of the element set to provide more precise info
SUBELEMENT, SCHEME, LANG
Granularity
no hierarchical relationships w/i a given DC record; only one record per discrete object (collection or item-level), and relationship field plus qualifier links them

28. The Research Process and Functional Categories of Metadata
Discovery
Retrieval
Collation
Analysis
Re-presentation

29. Making of America II- Background of the DLF Project
Administrative Metadata
Structural Metadata

30. Other Types of Metadata-
Longevity
Identification/Provenance
Rights Management

31. The Short Life of Digital Info: Digital Longevity Problems-
Disappearing Information
The Viewing Problem
The Scrambling Problem
The Inter-relation Problem
The Custodial Problem
The Translation Problem

32. Identification/Provenance (Images)-
The number of variant forms of a work can be enormous
Image Families
A digital image frequently has many layers of parentage
Information about the parentage that can indicate the quality and veracity of the image (Dublin Core "Source" and "Relation")
how to deal with different versions derived from the same scan or different encoding schemes
Vocabulary Standards to express this

33. NISO/DLF Image Metadata Workshop Possible Goals
Metadata fields
Rules for Field Contents (authority control)
Core set of necessary fields
Syntax for expressing fields and contents (headers)

34. Other Metadata
Description of depiction/surrogate (What VRA calls its "Surrogate Categories")
Description of original object
Rights and Reproduction Information
Location Information

35. Data Structures: The VRA Core
28 elements specifically for visual resource collections
Work Description Categories-
Visual Document Description Categories-

36. Data Value Metadata (vocabularies)
LCSH
TGM
AAT
ULAN
TGN
VRA Core

37. Metadata for Digital Commerce
DOI
<indecs>-

38. Metadata Mapping-
Crosswalks
Resource Description Framework (RDF)

39. Metadata Philosphies Minimalists vs. Structuralists
From Pidgeon to Creole (add structure and tenses)

40. Collaborative Metadata Projects-
OCLC CORC Project
Computerized Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI)

41. UCLA School of Education & Information
Visual Materials: Metadata, Standards, and Best Practices for Digital Libraries
Howard Besser
UCLA School of Education & Information
Baca, Murtha (ed). Introduction to Metadata, Los Angeles: Getty Information Institute, 1998