Notes on Metadata and the Web

For an overview paper on related areas, read about the Warwick Framework, a container architecture for aggregating metadata.

These notes are based on the articles that appear in the Oct./Nov. 1997 issue (v. 24 no. 1) of the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS). The issue title is Organizing Internet Resources: Metadata and the Web.

Some of the key topics considered are:

• Dublin Core, its evolution, its adaptations
• Cataloging, MARC, and their extension to Internet
• Automatic classification: Scorpion
• Naming: URL, URN, URI, URC, DOI

Useful Links by Topic - Alphabetical

The following links are either taken from the articles in the Bulletin issue or relate closely and fill in helpful information.

• InterCat Project- proof-of-concept database, made of records extracted from OCLC's WorldCat, demonstrating catalog services plus Web access to resources of the Internet
• International Conf. on Principles and Future Development of AACR- related papers, on Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, and their revision
• Persistent URLs- PURLs
• Dublin Core Home Page
• Dublin Core Elements
• Dublin Core element Coverage - proposed standard
• Center for Electronic Text in the Humanities
• EAD (Encoded Archival Description): SGML for Archival Finding Aids - LoC
• EAD (Encoded Archival Description): SGML for Archival Finding Aids - Berkeley
• UC Berkeley Finding Aids
• Cataloging Internet Resources: Manual and Practical Guide, by Nancy B. Olson
• RDF Home Page- Resource Description Framework, on metadata architecture on the Web
• UKOLN Metadata Home Page- summary of pubs, projects, metadata resources from UK and beyond, definitions
• metadata element sets crosswalks- mappings and relationships between various metadata sets, including Dublin Core
• OCLC and its Research Department
• Stuart Weibel- senior research scientist at OCLC, leader of Dublin Core efforts
• Workshops on Metadata
• Dublin Core Workshop, 4th, official report - held at National Library of Australia - and a light-hearted account
• Resource Discovery project in Australia
• National Library of Australia PANDORA Project (Preserving and Accessing Networked Documentary Resources of Australia)
• In the Company of Strangers: Challenges and Opportunities in Metadata Implementation paper by Maxine Brodie, policy level issues which impact on metadata implementation at the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
• Architecture for Access to Government Information : report, Australia, 1996
• ERIN - Environmental Resources Information Network, Australia - also runs a metadata listserv
• Core Data Elements for Land and Geographic Directories in Australia and New Zealand
• Dataset Publishing - A Means to Motivate Metadata Entry, by S.D. Callahan, B.D. Johnson, and E.P. Shelley - Australian Resources, NPI Theory (choice behavior)
• meta-searcher called HotOIL that accesses both HTTP and Z39.50 servers - demo - translates user requests, merges results, displays summary
• MetaWeb project - develop and disseminate metadata tools
• GEM - educational resources - which calls for adding elements like Resource Needed, Standard, Audience, Pedagogy, Quality - see elements
• NetFirst - database/directory, cataloging of Internet (uses Dewey)
• Canadian Information by Subject - info on Canada in Internet (uses Dewey)
• BUBL Information Service, Scotland, higher education, with subject tree (uses Dewey)
• Internet Public Library Youth Division (uses Dewey)
• Blue Web'n, by Pacific Bell, to organize Web sites for students, educators, ... (uses Dewey)
• Enhancing the indexing vocabulary of DDC by C.J. Godby
• Scorpion project at OCLC

Acknowledgements

Thanks are given to the authors of the respective articles, from whose contributions the notes above are derived. All distortions of their content and intention are the fault of E. Fox, who apologizes for any misrepresentation inadvertently resulting from this attempt to summarize a valuable set of interesting articles.

• Guest editors' intro. to Special Section, by Efthimis N. Efthimiadis and Allyson Carlyle
• Cataloging Internet Resources: Survey and Prospectus, by Erik Jul
• The Dublin Core: A Simple Content Description Model for Electronic Resources, by Stuart Weibel
• Uniform Resource Identifiers and the Effort to Bring "Bibliographic" Control" to the Web: An Overview of Current Progress, by Ray Schwartz
• Options for Organizing Electronic Resources: The Coexistence of Metadata, by Sherry L. Vellucci
• Metadata in Australia, by Carmel Maguire
• GEM: Using Metadata to Enhance Internet Retrieval by K-12 Teachers, by Stuart Sutton and Sam G. Oh
• From Book Classification to Knowledge Organization: Improving Internet Resource Description and Discovery, by Diane Vizine-Goetz
• Scorpion Helps Catalog the Web, by Keith Shafer

Please follow the above mentioned links to find answers to the following questions:

• What is metadata?
• How many elements are in the Dublin Core?
• What are some new elements added for educators in GEM?
• Describe TEI briefly and explain how it relates to Dublin Core work.
• Explain finding aid.
• Describe EAD briefly and explain how it relates to cataloging archival collections.
• Where are their detailed instructions on how to catalog the internet?
• What is RDF?
• What is happening in UK re metadata?
• What mappings are their between metadata representations?
• What is the Resource Discovery project in Australia?
• What happened at the Australian metadata meeting?
• What is covered by the Dublin Core coverage element?
• What metadata is needed for geographic information?
• When you search on "digital library" with HotOIL, what refinements are suggested? What are the results of the default processing of your query and what sources were used? Can you find the abstract of a talk on archiving the Internet?
• What WWW search/browse services use Dewey?
• What systems are available to automatically catalog WWW pages?