Metadata and Electronic Publications

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Metadata and Electronic Publications
T.B. RajashekarNational Centre for Science
InformationIndian Institute of ScienceBangalore
560 012(raja_at_ncsi.iisc.ernet.in)
Prepared for presentation in the Workshop on
'Electronic Publishing of Scientific
Information, Organized by the Indian Academy of
Sciences, Bangalore, 13-15 March 2002
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Electronic Publishing - Context

• Levels of EP
• Desktop publishing (individual workstations. Ex.
  Word, PDF, PS)
• Network publishing
• Intranets (Ex. Organization/ Department websites)
• Internet (Ex. Electronic journals)
• E-Journals publishing Stakeholders
• Publishers, authors, users, libraries,
  subscription agents, aggregators

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E-Journals Publishing Some Key Issues

• Publisher
• Content management (workflow, quality)
• Subscription/ payment management
• Rights management
• Bibliographic control resource discovery
• Preservation
• Linking, sharing, exchange

• User/ Library
• Resource discovery (search, identify, locate,
  access)
• Access management
• Reference linking
• Resource sharing
• Seamless access bibliographic fulltext
• Gateway services
• Perpetual access

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Metadata is key for Content management, Content
Organization,Bibliographic Control, Resource
discovery, Rights Management,Access Management,
Preservation,Linking and data exchange
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What is Metadata?

• Data about data - Digitalspeak for what
  librarians have been doing much before the
  Internet surrogates, catalogs
• A metadata record consists of a set of
  attributes, or elements, necessary to describe
  the resource in question
• Structured information
• Describes, explains, locates an information
  resource
• Makes it easier to retrieve, use or manage an
  information resource

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What Does Metadata Describe?

• papers, articles
• information pages
• images
• sound
• collections
• user profiles
• Spatial data

...Digital and physical manifestations
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Content publishing access workflow
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Catalog Server
Author Title .Subject Source type
Format .
META DATA
Author Title .Subject Source type
Format .
Documents
Audio
Video
Database
Author Title .Subject Source type
Format .
Object Server
Print sources
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Types of Metadata

• Different types of metadata
• Descriptive
• Purpose Resource discovery and identification
• Ex. Title, abstract, author, URL, keywords, etc.
• Administrative Rights Management
• Purpose Help manage a resource
• Ex. Who created and when, who can access, etc.
• Structural metadata
• Purpose Document structure
• Ex. Chapter, section, paragraph

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Metadata Example E-Journal Gateway
ServiceContext Library in an academic
intranetIssue How do we manage access to large
number of e-journals and provide convenient
access?
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An example gateway service for e-journals
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An example gateway service for e-journals
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An example gateway service for e-journals
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An example gateway service for e-journals
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Metadata Example E-Print archive
software Context Content management in an
academic intranetIssue How do we enforce
metadata standard across an organization?
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E-publishing in an intranet
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Content management E-Print Archives
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Content management E-Print Archives
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Content management E-Print Archives
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Content management E-Print Archives
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Content management E-Print Archives
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Content management E-Print Archives
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Metadata Example XML-based metadata (IOP
Publishing)
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Handling of Metadata

• Metadata can be used for describing resources at
  different aggregation levels
• Collection, specific resource, component of a
  resource, etc.
• Embedded in a digital object
• Ex. HTML documents, headers of images
• Stored separately (in a database system)
• Simplifies management of metadata
• Facilitates search and retrieval

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Uses of Metadata

• Resource discovery
• Finding, searching and identifying resources
• Field-based browse/ search
• Organizing electronic resources
• Ex. Internet resource catalogues (web resource
  directories), Institutional publication archives,
  intranet content management
• Interoperability
• Exchange of data between systems metadata
  standards facilitate cross-searching and sharing
  (metadata harvesting OAI protocol)

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Uses of Metadata

• Digital identification, Bibliographic control
• Uniquely describe, identify locate the digital
  object referred by the metadata
• PURL, DOI (CrossRef), OpenURL
• Archiving and preservation
• Data elements to track the lineage, physical
  characteristics, etc.
• Efforts are on to define metadata schemes for
  digital preservation (e.g. ISOs Open Archival
  Information System OAIS)

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Metadata Schemes

• Set of metadata elements, with associated
  semantics and syntax for describing a particular
  type of resources
• Components (semantics, syntax, content)
• Metadata elements and their meaning/ definition
• Content rules how content must be identified
  and formulated
• Representation rules how content must be
  represented
• Content Values given to metadata elements

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Examples of Metadata Schemes

• Dublin Core (www.dublincore.org)
• Network information resources
• Widely adopted
• Government Information Locator Service (GILS)
  (www. dtic.mil/gils/)
• Govt. resources
• TEI Header (www.tei-c.org)
• Electronic texts like novels, poetry, plays, etc.

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Examples of Metadata Schemes

• The Encoded Archival Description (EAD)
  (www.oc.gov/ead/)
• Archives and special collections
• The Visual Resources Association (VRA) Core
  Categories
• Describe visual materials such as buildings,
  photographs, paintings, etc.
• ONIX International Online Information Exchange)
• XML-based metadata for communication of book
  trade information being expanded to cover
  journals, conferences, etc.

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Examples of Metadata Schemes

• IMS Metadata (www.imsproject.org/metadata/)
• Specs and software for managing online learning
  resources resource discovery, IPR, commerce

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Examples of Metadata Schemes

• Metadata for datasets
• Numerical and statistical data
• Content Standard for Digital Geophysical Metadata
  (CSDGM) (www.fgdc.gov/metadata/contstan.htm)
• Topographic, demographic, GIS and computer-aided
  cartographic files
• Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) standard
  (www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/codebook.html)
• Social science data sets
• XML DTD

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Resource Description Communities
Communities
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Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)

• International standard for describing network
  digital resources
• Consists of 15 elements, each repeatable, none
  mandatory
• Conceived in 1994
• Has reached standard status W3C, NISO, ISO
• Widely used in several projects around the world
• Being refined further

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The Dublin CoreMetadata Element Set

• Title
• Author/Creator
• Subject /Keywords
• Description
• Publisher
• Other Contributor
• Date

• Resource Type
• Format
• Resource Identifier
• Source
• Language
• Relation
• Coverage
• Rights Management

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Key Features of DC

• Simplicity of creation and maintenance
• Small and simple element set
• Non-specialists can create metadata records
• Enable effective search and retrieval
• Commonly understood semantics
• Generic, common element set facilitates
  cross-domain accessibility (e.g. creator -
  document, music)
• International scope
• DC element set in several languages
• Extensibility
• Linkages with other metadata sets

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Uses of DC

• Used mainly for describing document-like objects
  metadata standards for other domains exist
  (e.g. e-commerce, education)
• DC record can be embedded in the resource itself
  (e.g. Meta tag of HTML)
• DC elements may be contained in a record separate
  from the resource
• Database of DC element records, each describing a
  separate electronic resource (e.g. subject
  gateways)

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DC in HTML

• lthtmlgtltheadgt
• lttitlegtUKOLN Home Pagelt/titlegt
• ltmeta name"DC.Title content"UKOLN UK Office
  for Library and Information Networking"gt
• ltmeta name"DC.Subject" content"national centre,
  network information support, library community,
  awareness, research, information services, public
  library networking, bibliographic management,
  distributed library systems, metadata, resource
  discovery, conferences, lectures, workshops"gt
• ltmeta name"DC.Description" content"UKOLN is a
  national centre for support in network
  information management in the library and
  information communities. It provides awareness,
  research and information services"gt
• ltmeta name"DC.Creator" contentUKOLN
  Information Services Group"gt
• lt/headgt
• ...

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Metadata Example Use of DC in an intranet
information portal
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DC Projects

• Implemented in over 100 projects in several
  countries
• Government Information
• Australian Government Locator Service
• Danish Online Government Information
• Finnish Online Government Information
• Libraries and DLs (e.g. CORC Cooperative Online
  Resource Catalogue, of OCLC)
• Intranets Nokia, Boeing, Ford, Weyerhaeuser

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DC Projects

• Science and Mathematics
• Environment Australia, Swedish EnviroNet, German
  Mathematical Society Preprint Project
• Education
• EDNA (Educational Network of Australia)
• GEM (Gateway to Educational Materials)
• German Education Resources Server
• IMS (Instructional Management System)
• DC discipline-specific elements

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DC Projects

• Humanities
• AHDS Arts and Humanities Data Service
• CIMI Metadata Testbed Project
• SCRAN (Scottish Cultural Resources Access
  Network)
• Publishing/ e-commerce
• E-books (www.openebook.org)
• INDECS (Interoperability of Data in E-Commerce
  Systems) (www.indecs.org) - data model for IPR
  management in publishing, recording industry

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Metadata Creation

• Who creates metadata?
• Author
• Technical staff (cataloguers)
• Combination
• Integration into EP workflow
• Manual/ automated processes and tools
• Quality control
• Develop/ adopt metadata standards key to
  successful EP

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Related Resources

• Metadata made simpler A guide for libraries.
  Gail Hodge. 2001. (www.niso.org)
• Dublin Core (dublincore.org)
• Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (Std.)
  (www.niso.org)
• CrossRef and reference linking (www.crossref.org)
• Digital Object Identifier (www.doi.org)

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Questions?