calhoun rbms rev june 2008
TRANSCRIPT
Metadata 2.0, Glocalization, and Being Where Their Eyes Are: What’s So Special About Special Collections?
Metadata 2.0, Glocalization, and Being Where Their Eyes Are: What’s So Special About Special Collections?
Karen CalhounVice President, WorldCat & Metadata Services
Los Angeles, CA
26 June 2008
49th Annual RBMSPreconference
The Dream of Local IntegrationThe Dream of Local Integration
http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/2232
Artist Beverly A. Mitchell
One Hundred Flowers Blooming
“At this stage, no new effort should be undertakenwithout a sense of how it will be merged with otherexisting collections and where the resources for long-term maintenance will come from.”
--A Cornell University Library digital projects librarian
Moving from Project to Program
The Portal Dream: A Unifying System ModelThe Portal Dream: A Unifying System Model
Other LibrariesCatalogs
Local Library Catalog
DigitalCollections
LicensedDatabases
Other(e.g.,DSpace)
Many diverse, separate interfaces
Portal: an Integrating System
Authentication layer
Unified Web Interface (“Google-like”)
Our Concept Map of Digital Collections Program Best Practices
Our Concept Map of Digital Collections Program Best Practices
How It EndedHow It Ended
“One reviewer of an early draft of this report wondered if an integrated discovery framework would add sufficient value, considering that despite the impressive volume of material that CUL has digitized, most of the existing collections are fragments of larger corpuses or otherwise narrow in scope.”
An Early Earthquake: Where Do You Begin an Online Search for Information on a Topic?
An Early Earthquake: Where Do You Begin an Online Search for Information on a Topic?
Starting an Information Search
89
20
20
40
60
80
100
Search engine Library Web site
Where Search Begins
Pe
rce
nt
College Students’ Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources: a Reportto the OCLC Membership: http://www.oclc.org/reports/perceptionscollege.htm
300 of the most influential websites, positioned on the greater Tokyo-area train map. http://informationarchitects.jp/web-trend-map-2008-beta/
LC Action Item 6.4: “Support research and development on the changing nature of the catalog to include consideration of a framework for its integration with other discovery tools.”
Calhoun, Karen. The Changing Nature of the Catalog and Its Integration with Other Discovery Tools. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 17 March 2006. http://www.loc.gov/catdir/calhoun-report-final.pdf
The Catalog in ContextThe Catalog in Context
Online catalogs represent one node in the end user’s information universe
Outward IntegrationOutward Integration
“Integration should be outward rather than inward, with libraries seeking to use their components in new ways”
--Interviewee for LC report on future of the catalog
Longer Term VisionLonger Term Vision•Switch users from where they find things to
library-managed collections of all kinds
•Local catalog one link in a chain of services, one repository managed by the library
•More coherent and comprehensive scholarly information systems, perhaps by discipline
• Infrastructure to permit global discovery and delivery of information among open, loosely-coupled systems
•Critical mass of digitized publications and special collections online
•Many starting points on the Web leading to many types of scholarly information objects
Intermediate Vision Intermediate Vision
•Shared OPACs: begin to aggregate discovery function for books, serials, and their e-counterparts
•Draw on the local catalog’s strongest suit: support for inventory control and delivery
•Larger scale collaboration on collection development/resource sharing, storage, preservation
Intermediate Vision, 2Intermediate Vision, 2
•Start to build bigger scholarly information environments—with libraries playing a role—to aggregate more of the expanding universe of scholarly digital assets
•Metadata and outreach skills = strategic assets
Intermediate Vision, 3Intermediate Vision, 3
•Beginning of the era of special collections
•Aggregate discovery of digital collections
•More emphasis on visual resources
A New Kind of (GLocal) Library: Outreach, Engagement, Participation, Visibility
Engage with research, teaching, and learning materials and systems
Engage locally with citizens, students and scholars
… and their digital assets
Make library collections and scholarly output more visible on the network
Be where the user is
Move to next generation systems and services (metadata 2.0)
An online social network
What If We Do Nothing?What If We Do Nothing?
http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/lcwg-ontherecord-jan08-final.pdf
2 ENHANCE ACCESS TO RARE, UNIQUE, AND OTHER SPECIAL HIDDEN MATERIALS
2 ENHANCE ACCESS TO RARE, UNIQUE, AND OTHER SPECIAL HIDDEN MATERIALS 2 ENHANCE ACCESS TO RARE, UNIQUE, AND OTHER SPECIAL HIDDEN MATERIALS
2.1.1 Make the discovery of rare, unique and other special hidden materials a high priority
2.1.2 Streamline cataloging for rare, unique and other special hidden materials, emphasizing greater coverage and broader access
2.1.3 Integrate access to rare, unique and other special hidden materials with other library materials
2.1.4 Encourage digitization to allow broader access
2.1.5 Share access to rare, unique and other special hidden materials
Don’t Get Further Behind! Learn from the ArchivistsDon’t Get Further Behind! Learn from the Archivists
•Item level description – Get over it!
•Some access is better than no access - really
David Steuart Erskine, founder, ScottishSociety of Antiquaries
Aggregations Are Good: The Center for History and New MediaAggregations Are Good: The Center for History and New Media
A Slidell Volunteer’s StoryA Slidell Volunteer’s Story
Promiscuous MetadataPromiscuous Metadata
Be Where Their Eyes AreBe Where Their Eyes Are
Photo ofJohn Muir,seated onrock
You Cannot Win If You Do Not Play … Get Discovered!You Cannot Win If You Do Not Play … Get Discovered!
• Get harvested
• Share your metadata
• Aggregators are good … and they are here to stay
• Embrace “the third order of order”
• Make the biggest pile you can
• “Include and postpone” – items can be organized over time; some organizations will be grassroots, others will be formal (taxonomies, etc.) – or both
• Quantity trumps quality
Be Ready for Partners: Preserve Your Right to Reuse & RemixBe Ready for Partners: Preserve Your Right to Reuse & Remix
http://dlib.org/dlib/november07/kaufman/11kaufman.html
How Can Metadata Help?How Can Metadata Help?
Metadata 2.0: A Second Attempt to Fit the Puzzle Together
Metadata 2.0: A Second Attempt to Fit the Puzzle Together
Nebula: An interstellar cloud of dust, gas, and plasma; the first stage of a star’s cycle.
Orion Nebula
The Changing Context for Metadata ManagementThe Changing Context for Metadata Management
B.W. (Before the Web)
• For finding and managing library materials (mostly print)
• Catalog records (well-understood rules and encoding conventions)
• Shared cooperative cataloging systems
• Usually handcrafted, one at a time
A.W. (After the Web)
• For finding and managing many types of materials, for many user communities
• Many types of records, many sources
• Loosely coupled metadata management, reuse and exchange services among multiple repositories
• Multiple batch creation and metadata extract, conversion, mapping, ingest and transfer services
Shifting Gears: “Metadata Switch” Shifting Gears: “Metadata Switch”
Discovery and delivery are mediated by large information
hubs
GLOBAL
GROUP
LOCAL
Outward Integration, Exposure,
And LinkingOf
Collections(e.g., Google,
WorldCat,Other
aggregators, national libraries,
consortia)
Local/GroupAuthentication,
DiscoveryAnd Delivery
Services
DataFlows,Syndication,Synchronization,Linking
We Can Be Connected: A New Vision for Metadata Management
The (invisible) cloud of
complexity onthe global
metadata network
The (invisible) cloud of
complexity onthe global
metadata network
An End to End View of an Integrated, High Quality Discovery to Delivery Process
An End to End View of an Integrated, High Quality Discovery to Delivery Process
TextPrintLicensedDigitalArchival
DataImagesSoundVideoMultimediaObjectsMore
Expectation:Easily Find It AND Easily
Get It
“Quality” in the User Workflow from Discovery to Delivery
“Quality” in the User Workflow from Discovery to Delivery
Library user studies suggest that users expect finding and getting information they want, when and where they want it, to be easy and convenient.
These users’ tolerance for barriers to easy andconvenient discovery and delivery is limited.
“A colleague … sang the praises of the digital world to us. He can now, he told us, get direct access to information … His enthusiasm had screened out an enormous array of people, organizations, and institutions involved in this “direct” touch. The university, the library, publishers, editors, referees, authors,the computer and infrastructure designers, the cataloguers and library collection managers, right down to the students workingtheir way through college by [working in the library] had no placein his story.”
Brown, John Seely, and Paul Duguid. 2000. The social life of information. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Opening Up Metadata SilosOpening Up Metadata Silos
“We have drawn a wall around what is and what is not of interest to ‘cataloging’ that is not necessarily backed up by any good rationale. Many things that we decide are not of interest … are in fact of high significance to the success and ease our users will have in carrying out the tasks we mean to support … I don’t mean that “catalogers” need to apply the exact same standards to journal articles, institutional repository metadata, [etc.] … But we do need to consider it our responsibility to figure out how all these things can fit together.”
Rochkind, Jonathan. Bibliographic Wilderness [blog]. “‘Broken’ huh?” May 27 2007http://bibwild.wordpress.com/2007/05/25/broken-huh/#more-42
We’re “On Notice”!
Steve Colbert’s “On-Notice”Board
Inspired by Ricky Erway and Jennifer Schaffner. 2008.Shifting Gears: Gearing Up to Get Into the Flow. Podcast available from:http://www.oclc.org/programsandresearch/parcasts/default.htm
The Prize Is Worth the Effort: Reconnecting Users and Libraries on the Web
The Prize Is Worth the Effort: Reconnecting Users and Libraries on the Web
No man is an Island, entire of itself;every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.Meditation XVII, John Donne
No libraryis an island(no matterhowbig)St. Gallen Library
Attribution: Ben and Clarehttp://flickr.com/photos/benandclare/1096666766/
By ideonexushttp://flickr.com/photos/ideonexus/2514340529/
Comments?Observations?Questions?
Thanks for the chanceto speak with you today.
Karen [email protected]