Metadata practice and direction: a community perspective

1. Metadata practice and direction:a community perspective Lorcan Dempsey VP Research and Chief Strategist NISO Workshop: Metadata Practices on the Cutting Edge. Washington, May 20 2004.

2. Overview Metadata Practice Community Directions

3. Metadata

4. Metadata? Schematized … … statements about … … resources

5. Metadata supports operations on resources …. • Know what resources are available • Know how to play a resource • Know provenance of a resource • Know what use policy governs a resource • Know how to ingest a resource • Know how to interact with a resource • Know how to compose/decompose resources • … … and relieves the user of having to have advance knowledge of the characteristics or existence of the resource.

6. Metadata? … allows people and machines to work smarter …

7. In network space metadata will be associated with everything that moves Multiple types of information Objects Collections Services People Organizations Places Terms Formats Rights … and will support multiple operations An example: a library portal

8. A ‘portal’ example Common services I need a few references Content services Application services Presentation services

9. Common services authentication Content services Application services Presentation services

10. Directory: user profile Common services Content services Application services Presentation services

11. Common services Query broker Content services Application services Presentation services

12. Directory: service description Common services Content services Application services Presentation services

13. Common services Content: results list Content services Application services Presentation services

14. Common services I’d like to get this book. Request broker Content services Application services Presentation services

15. Common services Directory: ILL policy Content services Application services Presentation services

16. Directory: service description Common services Content services Application services Presentation services

17. Common services Content: circ/ILL system Content services Application services Presentation services

18. Common services I need this article too. Request broker Content services Application services Presentation services

19. Common services openURL resolver Content services Application services Presentation services

20. Common services Directory: local knowledge base Content services Application services Presentation services

21. Nearly there … Common services Directory: service description Content services Application services Presentation services

22. Common services Content: article Content services Application services Presentation services

23. Directory: user profile Directory: service description Directory: ILL policy Authentication Common services Directory: local knowledge base Reference db OpenURL resolver Circ/ILL system Article db • Metadata for multiple entities required to support operations. • This picture could be extended in multiple ways. Request broker Query broker Content services Application services Presentation services

24. Community

25. Community? EAD, MARC AMC, .. MARC, MODS, DC, RSLP, .. Onix, … MPEG, JPEG, … XML, RDF, OWL, … CSDGM, DDI, NBII, IVOA, … EGMS, AGLS, GILS, … GEM, DC-ED, IEEE-LOM, SCORM, … * * * *

26. Community politics ‘Techeology’ Technology as ideology Communities coming together in new shared space Boundary confusion Mergers and acquisitions Political and commercial skin at risk Different World views Requirements Traditions Legacies Experience Ontology recapitulatesideology

27. Practice

28. Simple descriptive metadata!! Application profile ‘Element set’ Information model Values/content Encoding Cataloging rulesControlled vocabs.… FRBRINDECSCIDOC … MARC21 DC VRA CoreMODSOnix … RDF XML ISO2709 …

29. Interoperability a factor at all these levels .. For example .. Encoding Element set Content/values Encoding Element set Content/values

30. The interoperable core and communities of practice? DC-Ed MODS MARC 21 SCORM LOM MARC XML GEM Dublin Core Dublin Core ONIX Godby, Smith and Childress

31. Different classes of metadata increasingly a part of complex object models SCORM METS MPEG 21 … Descriptive Structural Technical Administrative Rights Preservation Tracking Provenance

32. Directions

33. Makers and takers in a time of rapid development Makers Looking over the horizon A clean slate At the center of their world A moving target Religious differences Takers Focus on here and now Manage legacy environments Multiple systems and services and priorities Want stability Secular pragmatism

34. Interoperability is an economic and service issue Extract maximum value from investment in Data (metadata and content) Services By ensuring that they are Sharable Reusable Recombinable Remember: Element set Encoding Value spaces

35. Cost Pressures: Manage in a world of resource abundance Demonstrate value Issues Programmatically promote metadata from resources where possible Assess where intellectual contribution justified Increasingly complex relationships between resources Bringing together metadata from different policy regimes Fragmentation of community agreements and standards activities?

36. Statements Trust Inference Annotation, review, commentary So what about the Semantic Web then?

37. Metadata • Schematized statements about resources • Historically independent communities of interest overlapping in a network space • Practitioners faced with high acronymic density, many choices, and often a moving target • Kaleidoscopic perspective .. May fall into pattern at any minute …

38. Over to you … Thank you! Lorcan DempseyDempseyL@oclc.org

39. The pattern is new … The knowledge imposes a pattern and falsifies For the pattern is new in every moment