Models and Requirements of Metadata Metadata Projects at Tsukuba and Lesson Learned

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Models and Requirements of Metadata Metadata
Projects at Tsukuba and Lesson Learned

• Shigeo SugimotoResearch Center for Knowledge
  CommunitiesGraduate School of Library,
  Information and Media Studies
• University of Tsukuba, Japan
• sugimoto_at_slis.tsukuba.ac.jp

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Self Introduction

• Degrees in computer science, specialized in
  software engineering and computer languages
• Joined University of Library and Information
  Science (ULIS) in 1983
• ULIS merged with Univ. of Tsukuba in 2002
• Member of Board of Trustees and Advisory Board of
  Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)

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Outline

• Japanese DL Activities and Issues
• DL Development in Japan
• Some Activities at National Diet Library,
  National Institute of Informatics, National
  Archives of Japan
• Information Access Environment for Libraries and
  Users
• Metadata Centric Projects at Tsukuba and Some
  Lessons Learned
• Community oriented Metadata Vocabularies
• Interoperability of Metadata and Metadata Schemas

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Some DL Activities and Environment in Japan and
Metadata Projects at Tsukuba

• Shigeo SugimotoResearch Center for Knowledge
  CommunitiesGraduate School of Library,
  Information and Media Studies
• University of Tsukuba, Japan
• sugimoto_at_slis.tsukuba.ac.jp

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Some Topics in Digital Library Development in
Japan

• e-Japan program National program to promote ICT
  infrastructure
• e-government, education, business, welfare, etc.
• Projects at Libraries and related organizations
• Web Archiving by National Diet Library (NDL)
• National Institute of Informatics (NII)
• National Archives of Japan

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National Diet LibraryLegal Deposit of Electronic
Resources

• Legal deposit of electronic resources
• Discussion by the council on legal deposit of NDL
  since late 90s
• Tangible resources, e.g. CDs and DVDs
• Covered by the legal deposit law for conventional
  materials
• Networked resources
• Recommendation in December 2004
• Not-covered by the legal deposit law
• Issues
• Policies to collect electronic resources,
  especially Web resources
• Technologies and policies to preserve electronic
  resources

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National Diet LibraryWeb Archiving and other
activities

• WARP an experimental Web archiving
• Selective, IPR clearance
• High cost
• Digital preservation in the e-Japan program
• NDL will be a key player to collect and preserve
  networked resources
• Reference Database
• Database of reference service records
• Collaborative development with public libraries
• Digitization program
• Books published in the Meiji era (Later Half of
  19th Century)

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National Institute of Informatics

• NII inherits the functions of NACSIS
• National Hub for Japanese University Libraries,
  e.g. Union Catalog
• Scholarly Database provider
• Cultural Heritage Online
• Collaborative development of a Cultural Portal
• Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication
• Agency for Cultural Affairs
• Museums
• Hosted at NII
• a related project Digital Silk Roads
• GeNii Global Environment for Networked
  Intellectual Information
• Scholarly Information Portal
• A related project JuNii
• Gateway to scholarly information from Universities

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National Archives of Japan

• Digital Collection at Japan Center for Asian
  Historical Records
• Digital collection of government documents in
  from 1860 to World War II.
• http//www.jacar.go.jp/asia_en/index_en.html
• Launched a new information system in April 2005
• Digitization
• Metadata Issues for future development
• Issues
• Digital Archive
• Preservation of born-digital government resources

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Regional Public Libraries

• Providing Information via WWW
• Library homepages
• OPAC, Digitized contents
• Issues
• Gateway to regional/community resources
• Preservation of digital resources, especially
  born-digital resources
• Helping communities
• Collaboration with regional schools
• Information resources for small business
• Information resources for young parents
• Medical, welfare information, etc.

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Internet Access Environment in Japan

• Statistics from Ministry of Internal Affairs
  (Soumu-sho) and 2003 White Paper Information and
  Communication
• Number of Subscriptions for Internet services
  April 2002
• DSL 2.7 M, FTTH 0.03M, Cell Phone 52.9 M
• April 2004
• DSL 11.5 M, FTTH 1.2 M, Mobile Phone 70 M
• Internet User Population as of December 2002
• From PC 57M, from Cell Phone 28 M, TV-Game
  Machine 3.7M (C.P. Only 10M, PC Only 38 M)
• Broad Band Connection to Home and Schools

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Information Access Environment for Libraries and
Users

• Mobile Phone as an Internet Access Terminal
• WWW access from mobile phones
• A library service example OPAC
• Retrieving catalogs on a street and between
  bookshelves
• Content delivery to mobile phones
• Ubiquitous Information Access Environment

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Metadata Centric Projects at Tsukuba

• ULIS-DL
• Collecting Library and LIS Web pages since 1999
• IPL-Asia
• Collect resources useful for public library users
  and provide the information of the resources in
  CJK languages
• Digital Okayama Dai-Hyakka
• a gateway to regional Web resources by Okayama
  Prefecture Library (a regional public library)
• Metadata Schema Registry and a Model for Metadata
  Interoperability
• Collaboration with DCMI
• Started in 1998, first meeting at AIT, Thailand

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Building Core Subject Vocabulary for ULIS-DL

• Outline of ULIS-DL
• Subject gateway for resources published by
  libraries and LIS institutions.
• Metadata records created based on Simple Dublin
  Core.
• ULIS-DL has a retrieval function but no directory
  style interface to browse and navigate the
  contents.
• Subject terms are given as free terms, i.e. no
  controlled vocabulary.
• Goal of our research
• To create a subject vocabulary for directory
  style interface of ULIS-DL

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Building Core Subject Vocabulary for ULIS-DL

• Status
• 26,000 metadata records (as of 2003)
• 16,000 distinct text strings In the Subject
  element of the raw metadata records
• Issue How to choose appropriate subject terms
• Result approximately 90 of collected sites is
  covered by 1025 subject terms.
• No big vocabulary but small vocabulary tailored
  to subject domain and community

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IPL-Asia

• IPL-Asia
• Provides information about CJK resources useful
  as a public library resources.
• Provides resource information in CJK languages.
• Lessons learned
• Domain oriented subject vocabularies need not be
  large but need community-specific terms, e.g.,
  school activities and regional activities.
• User interface for children requires to represent
  subject terms in accordance with their ages.
• Costs

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Digital Okayama Dai-Hyakka (DODH)

• Regional Portal by the Library of Okayama
  Prefecture
• Okayama a prefecture in the western part of
  Japan
• Metadata creation by librarians and
  non-professionals, e.g. school teachers,
  students, and volunteers.
• Small set of subject terms usable for the
  non-professionals and designed in accordance with
  regional needs.
• NDC (Nippon Decimal Classification) is also used.
• Representation of Subjects in accordance with
  user age

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Some Lessons Learned

• Is comprehensive/conventional subject vocabulary
  really useful?
• A Lesson Learned in IPL-A
• Distribution of resource domains
• Subject terms for children and children resources
• Okayama uses two small sets of terms in addition
  to NDC
• Librarians concern - Maintenance of subject
  vocabulary
• Use Semantic Web technology.

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Some Lessons Learned

• Multiple Labels for a Single Concept in
  accordance with type of audience to improve
  accessibility
• Encoded in Web Ontology Language (OWL)

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Comparison of Subject Vocabularies- Okayamas
Case -

• Comprehensive and conventional subject
  vocabularies are not always useful for
  domain-specific resources.
• Comparison between subject vocabularies used in
  Okayama
• Prefecture governments subject vocabulary for
  governmental resources (Prefecture Vocabulary)
• A subject vocabulary for children (Kids
  Vocabulary)
• Three vocabularies used in DODH
• NDC, PV, and KV
• Mappings between all pairs of these three
  vocabularies

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Distribution of Terms in the NDC term space -
Okayamas Case -
NDC 000Generalities, 100Philosophy,
200History, 300Social Sciences, 400Natural
Sciences, 500Technology, 600Industry, 700The
Arts, 800Language, 900Literature NDC the
number of NDC terms in x00 used in the KV/PV
mapping
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Distribution of Terms in the NDC term space -
Okayamas Case -
NDC 000Generalities, 100Philosophy,
200History, 300Social Sciences, 400Natural
Sciences, 500Technology, 600Industry, 700The
Arts, 800Language, 900Literature NDC the
number of NDC terms in x00 used in the KV/PV
mapping
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Subject Vocabularies
Resources for Government and Social Activities
Educational and Learning Resources
KV
PV
Social Science Technology
Natural Science Arts
Industries
NDC
Comprehensive
General Resources
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A Model of Metadata Schema Interoperability

• Metadata Schema Concepts from Dublin Core
• Metadata Vocabularies (Metadata Element Sets)
• Application Profiles
• Split Semantics and Syntax
• Metadata Schema Registry
• A system/service to store and provide metadata
  schemas

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A structure of a metadata instance
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Metadata Schema A
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Metadata Schema B
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Application Profiles
Interoperability between these schamas
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Application Profile
Metadata Vocabulary 2 (Metadata Element Set)
Metadata Vocabulary 1 (Metadata Element Set)
A structural view of application profile
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A Layered Modelsplit semantics and syntax into
layers
Layer 3Concrete Syntax Implementation
Layer 2Abstract Syntax Application Profiles
Layer 1Semantics Metadata Vocabularies
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Metadata and Metadata Schema Interoperability

• Do not reinvent wheels.Do not reinvent
  metadata schemas.
• Reuse metadata elements
• Use standard encoding scheme to share metadata
• XML, RDF/XML, OWL on WWW
• Share information about metadata schemas
• Metadata schema registry

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Metadata Schema Registry

• To share information about metadata schemas
• Metadata Vocabularies
• Application Profiles
• etc.
• DCMI Registry
• Register and provide DCMI Terms
• Tsukuba Registry
• A collaborating registry with the DCMI registry
• Extension to local vocabularies

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Layered Modeland Metadata Schema Registry
XML Schema for A
XML Schema for B
Layer 3
Application Profile A
Application Profile B
Layer 2
Layer 1
DCMI Registry
Tsukuba Registry
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A Metadata Framework for Context Sensitive
Resource Selection- an on going study -

• Find and access a resource in accordance with
  user characteristics and user environment
• User with disabilities
• Size of displays
• PC, PDA, mobile phone
• Environment
• In-door, out-door
• etc.

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Summary

• Metadata Centric Projects
• Dublin Core and other element sets
• Subject vocabularies were always the central
  issue for our projects.
• Requirements for (reasonably) small subject
  vocabulary and domain-specific/regional
  vocabularies
• Technologies to develop/maintain vocabularies
• Semantic Web technologies
• Metadata Schema Registry
• Metadata Interoperability
• Bridge the gap between global and local
  requirements

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Summary

• Information environment for libraries and users
  are always changing by very rapid progress of
  information and communication technologies.
• Development of information environment requires
  not only basic infrastructure but also software
  and know-how to utilize the infrastructure.
• Crucial Issues
• Human Resource Development
• Collaboration among Libraries globally and
  regionally

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Thank you!Contact sugimoto_at_slis.tsukuba.ac.jp