BIBLINK - LB 4034 - D1.1 Metadata Formats

Metadata Formats
Work Package 1 of Telematics for Libraries project BIBLINK (LB 4034)

3. Objectives, Scope and Glossary

The objectives of this work package are to:

identify the current approaches to encoding metadata
describe the service and technical contexts in which they are used
do a comparative analysis of their content
make recommendations regarding metadata formats.

The outcome of this work package will feed into the consensus building process in WP3 which includes producing an agreed minimum set of data elements for the description of off-line and on-line electronic resources, and agreeing recommended formats for the exchange of data.

3.1 Scope and Assumptions

There has been a considerable amount of recent work and activity in the metadata area, particularly over the last year. It is not our intention to replicate existing documents, and wherever possible we refer to existing work. This report will consider the suitability of various formats but will not prescribe data elements at this stage. More detailed work on data elements is scheduled for WP3. In particular the final choice of which metadata format(s) will be used will be constrained by

the requirements of national libraries and publishers
the target set of publishers
the target set of publications.

As part of this work package we have done some initial investigation of the requirements of national libraries, but as the project progresses these requirements will need to be defined and clarified. As yet we do not have a definition of the publishers' requirements as this will be built up during the consensus building process. For that reason, the suitability of various formats from the publishers' viewpoint will be suggested rather than matched against requirements. During the consensus building process it is anticipated that these criteria for choice of metadata will be refined to enable a final decision on metadata format. This work-package hopes to raise some of the issues involved in the choice, and provide background on the possible options.

Metadata is defined as "data which assists in the identification, description, evaluation and selection of an information object". Metadata can exist for objects at various levels of granularity e.g. it can refer to collections of documents, a single document or a chapter within a document; it can refer to a series, an individual journal, or an article within a journal; it could refer to a web-site, to a particular logical archive on that site, to a web page, or to an image embedded in that page.

At any given level of granularity, metadata may be required in a number of areas:

intellectual content
technical and physical characteristics
access and availability data (e.g. 'host' server manager)
terms and conditions
evaluative data (e.g. PICS) etc.

In addition there may be metadata associated with the record itself. This includes such details as date record created, creator of record, etc. We call this data administrative metadata. No assumption is made that all metadata associated with an object needs to be contained within the same metadata record. Note that the use of particular identification schemes will not be considered as this is dealt with in WP2.

Different implementations may store and transport metadata records in different ways. For example, a record may be stored and transported within the object which it describes, or it may be stored and transported as a self-contained entity. Metadata referring to a single object may be subdivided into different packages, some of which are stored in separate locations and are referenced in the 'master' record. Decisions on the manner in which metadata is transferred will form part of WP5 (Transmission of metadata).

3.2 Work Available in Background

IFLA Section on Cataloguing. Functional requirements for bibliographic records: draft report for world-wide review. May 1996.

Models for the provision of national bibliographic services in Europe : final report / by Michele Lenart; translated and edited by the British Library. - Luxembourg : European Commission, 1996.

Metadata: a survey of current resource description formats. Work Package 3 of Telematics for Research project DESIRE (no. 1004). November 1996, at

<URL:http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/DESIRE/overview/>

OCLC/NCSA Metadata Workshop Report. S. Weibel, J. Godby, E. Miller and R. Daniel, March 1995. The March 1995 Metadata Workshop, sponsored by the On-line Computer Library Center (OCLC) and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), at

<URL:http://www.oclc.org:5047/oclc/research/publications/weibel/metadata/dublin_core_report.html>

The Warwick Metadata Workshop: A Framework for the Deployment of Resource Description. L.Dempsey, and S.Weibel, D-Lib Magazine, July/August 1996, at

<URL:http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/dlib/dlib/july96/07weibel.html>

A Syntax for Dublin Core Metadata - Recommendations from the Second Metadata Workshop. L.Burnard, E.Miller, L.Quin, and C.Sperberg-McQueen,, April 1996, at

<URL:http://www.uic.edu/~cmsmcq/tech/metadata.syntax.html>

BIC (Book Industry Communication) and British Library BNBRF Book Product Information project.

BIC's web pages provide background information, as well as their publications of standards and guidelines:

BIC Manual on Publishers' Bibliographic Databases, draft, 1994. (unpublished, but available on request from Book Industry Communication.)

Bide, Mark (on behalf of Book Industry Communication) Electronic Tables of Contents (EToCs) for serials: standards for structure & transmission. A research study for the BNB Research Fund. Fourth Draft 1994.

Martin, David. Data elements for an EDI 'Book Product Information' message. British National Bibliography Research fund Report 75. Published for BNB by BIC, 1995.

SSSH: Simplified SGML for Serials Headers, London, Book Industry Communication and PIRA International, 1996.

3.3 Glossary

This Glossary describes terms which are most relevant in the context of the BIBLINK project and this deliverable. Further information about the terms can be found in the following glossaries:

A glossary of Internet terms by Internet Literacy Consultants (TM):
<URL:http://WWW.matisse.net/files/glossary.html>
A glossary of computer oriented abbreviations and acronyms called BABEL by Irving Kind:
<URL:http://WWW.access.digex.net/~ikind/babel96b.html>
A glossary for NCSA Mosaic and the WWW World Wide Web users:
<URL:http://WWW.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Glossary/GlossaryDL.html>
A glossary for the project Communication in Physics:
<URL:http://WWW.phys.uva.nl/fnsis/onderzoek/comm/papers/glossary.htm>

AHDS	Arts and Humanities Data Service.
Bibliographic description	a set of formalised data elements describing a publication.
Bibliographic record	a discrete bibliographic description stored either manually or electronically.
BIC	Book Industry Communications.
CIMI	Computer Interchange of Museum Information.
CIP	Cataloguing-In-Publication records, created using information supplied pre-publication by the publisher.
CD-ROM	Compact Disc Read Only Memory.
CURL	Consortium of University Research Libraries.
Database (DB)	a computer Program for entering, storing and retrieving items of information in a structured fashion.
Deposit of publications	a system in operation in most countries, usually legally enforced, whereby publishers must deposit one or more copies of every publication with nominated libraries. Often referred to as Legal Deposit.
DESIRE	Development of a European Service for Information and Research.
DTD	Document Type Definition.
EDI	Electronic Data Interchange. The exchange of structured data messages to enable automated transactions between application systems.
EDIFACT	EDI For Administrations, Commerce and Transport. The international EDI standard messaging syntax under the responsibility of the UN, for trading transactions in all industries. Also known as UN-EDIFACT.
Electronic journal	similar to a traditional journal but published only in electronic form - on a CD-ROM or the World Wide Web.
Electronic publisher	see publisher.
Electronic publication	document, file, journal, etc. made available in electronic form.
eLib	Electronic Library Programme, previously FIGIT (Follett Implementation Group on IT).
FGDC	The Federal Geographic Data Committee.
Format	in the context of bibliographic control, the formalised structure in which the specific elements of bibliographic description are accommodated.
FTP	File Transfer Protocol, an internet standard means of transferring electronic files between computers.
Home page	a World Wide Web page set up as an introductory page by an organisation or individual.
HTML	Hypertext Mark-up Language The standard language used for creating Web documents.
HTTP	HyperText Transfer Protocol. The protocol used for communication between Web clients and servers.
IAFA	Internet Anonymous FTP Archive.
IEEE	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
IETF	Internet Engineering Taskforce.
IFLA	International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.
ILL	Inter-Library Loan.
Internet	the world wide network of computer systems connected to each other.
ISAD	Information Society and Development (conference).
ISBD	International Standard Bibliographic Description. There are seven specific ISBDs as well as the general ISBD(G): monographs -(M), serial publications -(S), cartographic material -(CM), non-book material -(NBM), printed music -(PM), antiquarian publications -(A), computer files -(CF).
ISSN	International Standard Serial Number.
Legal Deposit	see Deposit of Publications.
MARC	MAchine Readable Cataloguing. A family of formats based on ISO 2709 for the exchange of bibliographic and other related information in machine readable form. For example USMARC and UNIMARC.
Metadata	information about a publication as opposed to the content of the publication; includes not only bibliographic description but also other relevant information such as its subject, price, conditions of use, etc.
Monograph	a publication either complete in one part or complete, or intended to be completed, in a finite number of separate parts. A non-serial publication.
Multimedia	a publication in which images, sound and text are integrated.
National Bibliography	a listing of all national publications. May include all publications produced in that country, or in the language of that country, or sometimes about that country.
NCSA	National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
NDIS	National Document Information Service.
OCLC	On-line Computer Library Center.
On-line resource	an on-line resource is an electronic document which is bibliographically identifiable, which is stored in machine readable form on an electronic storage medium and which is available on-line. For example - a Web page.
Off-line publication	an off-line publication is an electronic document which is bibliographically identifiable, which is stored in machine readable form on an electronic storage medium. For example a CD-ROM.
OPAC	Online Public Access Catalogue.
PICS	Platform for Internet Content Selection, an infrastructure for associating labels with Internet content.
PII	Publisher Item Identifier.
ps	postscript, a standard format for exchange of printable files.
Publications	documents containing either text or sound or images, or combinations of these, packaged for wider distribution, whether off-line (e.g. printed book, CD-ROM) or on-line (e.g. Web, database for information retrieval).
Publisher	a person or organisation that produces documents and makes them available. Newly emerging publishers may produce and distribute documents electronically - for instance, on the Web.
RDM	Resource Description Messages.
Record	see bibliographic record.
RFC	Request For Comments, a method by which standards (sic) are proposed and agreed, usually with reference to the Internet.
ROADS	Resource Organisation And Discovery in Subject based services
Serial	a publication in any medium issued in successive parts bearing numeric or chronological designations and intended to be continued indefinitely. Serials include periodicals; newspapers; annuals (reports, yearbooks, etc.); the journals, memoirs, proceedings, transactions etc. of societies; and numbered monographic series.
SGML (ISO 8879)	Standard Generalised Mark-up Language. ISO standard for document description, separating contents and structure.
SOIF	Summary of Object Interchange Formats.
SSSH	Simplified SGML for Serials Headers.
SURFnet	the Dutch national computer network for research and education in the Netherlands, joining local networks.
TEI	Text Encoding Initiative.
URL	Uniform Resource Locator. The standard way to give the address of a source of information on the WWW. It contains four different parts: the protocol type, the machine name, the directory path and the file name. For example: http://WWW2.echo.lu/libraries/en/libraries.html
Voluntary Deposit	see Deposit of Publications.
Web site	used to refer to a single location on the World Wide Web, usually on the same piece of hardware. Part of the Internet that stores and gives access to documents using HTTP.
World Wide Web	the global set of Internet web sites offering world wide access to information using HTTP.
Z39.50	A network protocol which allows searching of (usually remote) heterogeneous databases and retrieval of data, most often used for retrieving bibliographic records.

Next	Table of Contents