1 Introducing some Standards Paul Miller Interoperability Focus UK Office for Library & Information Networking (U KOLN ) [email protected]

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Introducing some Standards

Paul Miller

Interoperability FocusUK Office for Library & Information Networking (UKOLN)

[email protected] http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

UKOLN is funded by Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Further and Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from JISC and the EU. UKOLN also receives support from the Universities of Bath and Hull where staff are based.

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So… why use standards?

• Benefit from the expertise of others• Enforce rigour in internal practices• Facilitate interoperability (and access)

– Considered deployment of standard solutions makes access to your resources feasible for many.

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What do standards do?

• Help identify what’s important– CIMI’s “Access Points”– Mandatory fields

• Allow for consistent use of terminology– Name Authority Files– Thesauri– Look–up tables

• Enable internal and external data exchange or access

• Reduce duplication of effort• Minimise (hopefully!) wasted effort• Reflect consensus.

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What types of standard are there?

• Terminology– ‘Roma’, not ‘Rome’– ‘Roma’ is preferred to ‘Rome’

• Format– ‘Miller, A.P. 1971–’, not ‘Paul Miller’

• ‘Semantics’– A gross simplification, and a very big bucket– ‘Creator’, ‘Subject’, ‘Title’, ‘Description’…

• Syntax– <RDF xmlns = “http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-rdf-syntax#”>

• Transfer– ftp://ftp.niso.org/ … .

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Terminological Standards

(Based upon an earlier presentation with Matthew Stiff of mda)

See www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue23/metadata/See www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue23/metadata/

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The need for control…

European Community

E.E.C.

Common Market

European Union !European Union !

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Without control of terms...

Users are– incorrectly utilising

search terms– failing to find

significant resources

– suffering from information overload

– almost as well using Google

Creators are– cataloguing

inconsistently– unable to convey

hierarchical concepts– Scotland is in

United Kingdom is in Europe is in ...

– perpetuating localised terminology

– unable to assess, let alone undertake, integration projects.

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With control...Users might

– gain more effective access to a resource

– gain far more effective access across resources

– reduce the number of ‘false hits’

– find what they are looking for

– even learn to think and express themselves in a structured manner.

Creators might– produce more

valuable resources

– convey complex semantic and structural concepts

– move towards disciplinary, national, international or global terminologies

– effectively integrate both new and existing resources.

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Controlled Vocabulary

European Union

E.E.C.

Common Market

European Community

... Etc.With a controlled vocabulary, one or more of

these terms might be permitted. Use of the others for record creation or retrieval would be rejected by the system.

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Thesaurus-based Control

European Union [preferred term]

E.E.C. [synonym]

Common Market [synonym]

European Community [synonym]

... Etc. [synonyms]

In a thesaurus, all of the terms might be considered equally valid, with one identified as the preferred term and the others as synonyms

But... Are they really synonymous...?

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Thesauri

• A traditional thesaurus defines synonyms and, perhaps, antonyms for terms within a given language.

• E.g.– ‘workshop’

atelier, factory, mill, plant, shop, studio, workroom

...or... ?

class, discussion group, seminar, study group.

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Thesauri in Information Retrieval

• In the context of information retrieval, thesauri do more, facilitating the creation of hierarchies of meaning... .

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Hierarchies of Meaning

‘Glass’

‘Beer Glass’

‘Wine Glass’

‘Red wine glass’

‘White wine glass’

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Thesaurus Components

• Most thesauri are constructed in a standard form, as defined by ISO 2788 and various national standards.

– ISO 5964 extends discussion to multilingual issues

• Four basic relationships are fundamental in thesaurus construction and use...

– Equivalence (preferred and non-preferred terms)

– Hierarchy (‘glass’ is broader than ‘wine glass’)

– Association (establishes non-hierarchical relationships)

– Scope notes (provide guidance and clarification).

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Equivalence

• As with the European Union example, there are often situations in which users or cataloguers wish to allow multiple synonyms for any one term.

– In these cases, one term may be defined as a preferred term

“Electricity PlantUSE Power Station”

– Here, ‘Power Station’ is the preferred termExample from RCHME Thesaurus of Monument Types, © RCHME 1995.

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Hierarchy

• An important capability of thesauri is their ability to reflect hierarchies, whether conceptual, spatial, or whatever.

– Individual thesaurus entries are linked to a class (CL), as well as to broader (BT) and narrower (NT) terms.

“BAYONETCL Armour and WeaponsBT Edged WeaponNT Plug BayonetNT Socket Bayonet” Example from mda Archaeological Objects Thesaurus, © mda, English Heritage, RCHME 1997.

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Association

• In any large thesaurus, a significant number of terms will mean similar things or cover related areas, without necessarily being synonyms or fitting into a defined hierarchy.

– Related Terms (RT) can be used to show these links within the thesaurus.

“CHURCHRT ChurchyardRT CryptRT Presbytery” Example from RCHME Thesaurus of Monument Types, © RCHME 1995.

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Scope Notes

• Thesaurus entries can often be terse, and difficult to interpret for the non-expert.

– Scope Notes (SN) serve to clarify entries and avoid possible confusion. They serve to embody the underlying concept, rather than the language-specific word.

“CHITTING HOUSESN A building in which potatoes can sprout

and germinate”“FERRY

SN Includes associated structures” Examples from RCHME Thesaurus of Monument Types, © RCHME 1995.

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Putting it all together...

“FERROUS METAL EXTRACTION SITE

SN Includes preliminary processing

CL Industrial

BT Metal Industry Site

NT Ironstone Mine

NT Ironstone Pit

NT Ironstone Workings

RT Ironstone Workings”Example from RCHME Thesaurus of Monument Types, © RCHME 1995.

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Working with the tools

• Thesauri, controlled vocabulary lists, etc, are all useful, but they

– often rely upon both cataloguers and users having direct access to these usually weighty tomes

– require an awareness of cataloguing issues and practice to be used most effectively

– have predominantly developed within –– rather than between –– communities, regions, etc.

– rapidly become destabilised as distributed users add new terms in a non–complimentary fashion

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Effective distributed thesauri [1]

• In order for thesauri to be effective in the online environment, research and good practice need to address;

– mapping between existing thesauri– technical mapping

– semantic mapping

• are ‘E.E.C.’ and ‘Common Market’ synonymous?

– restructuring one or both where necessary/ possible

– inter–disciplinary mapping

• the ‘God Problem’

– addressing legacy data

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Effective distributed thesauri [2]

– delivery of training to remote cataloguers– providing online access to more existing thesauri– development of cataloguing tools

– capable of accessing various remote thesauri and selecting terms in an intuitive, timely, fashion

• Nordic Metadata Project Dublin Core tool

– raising the profile of thesauri as “A Good Thing”!– Development of user interface tools

– capable of integrating various remote thesauri into the search process without slowing it intolerably, losing contextual awareness or subjecting the browser to information overload.

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Some links

• English Heritage Thesauri• www.rchme.gov.uk/thesaurus/thes_splash.htm

• Getty Thesauri• www.getty.edu/gri/vocabularies/

• HASSET• biron.essex.ac.uk/searching/zhasset.html

• HIgh Level Thesaurus Project (HILT)• hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/

• Pan–Government Thesaurus• Should be visible from www.govtalk.gov.uk/

eventually.

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Metadata

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What is ‘Metadata’?

– meaningless jargon

– ora fashionable, and terribly misused, term for what we’ve always done

– or“a means of turning data into information”

– and“data about data”

– andthe name of a person (‘Tony Blair’)

– andthe title of a book (‘The Name of the Rose’).

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• Metadata exists for almost anything;• People• Places• Objects• Concepts• Web pages• Databases.

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• Metadata fulfils three main functions;• Description of resource content

– “What is it?”

• Description of resource form– “How is it constructed?”

• Description of resource use– “Can I afford it?”.

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Challenges

Many flavours of metadatawhich one do I use?

Managing changenew varieties, and evolution of

existing forms

Tension between functionality and simplicity, extensibility and interoperability

Functions, features, and cool stuff Simplicity and interoperability

Opportunities

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Introducing the Dublin Core

• An attempt to improve resource discovery on the Web

– now adopted more broadly

• Building an interdisciplinary consensus about a core element set for resource discovery

– simple and intuitive– cross–disciplinary — not just libraries!!– international– open and consensual– flexible.

See purl.org/dc/See purl.org/dc/

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• 15 elements of descriptive metadata• All elements optional• All elements repeatable• The whole is extensible

– offers a starting point for semantically richer descriptions.


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• Title• Creator• Subject• Description• Publisher• Contributor• Date• Type

• Format• Identifier• Source• Language• Relation• Coverage• Rights

purl.org/dc/


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Z39.50

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What is Z39.50?

• ANSI/NISO Z39.50–1995, Information Retrieval (Z39.50): Application Service Definition and Protocol Specification

• ISO 23950:1998, Information and Documentation — Information Retrieval (Z39.50) — Application Service Definition and Protocol Specification.

See lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/1995doce.htmlSee lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/1995doce.html

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What is Z39.50?

“This standard specifies a client/server based protocol for Information Retrieval. It specifies procedures and structures for a client to search a database provided by a server, retrieve database records identified by a search, scan a term list, and sort a result set. Access control, resource control, extended services, and a ‘help’ facility are also supported. The protocol addresses communication between corresponding information retrieval applications, the client and server (which may reside on different computers); it does not address interaction between the client and the end-user.”

(Z39.50–1995, page 0).

See lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/1995doce.htmlSee lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/1995doce.html

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Some gory details…• Z39.50 follows client/server model

• But calls them Origin and Target

Client/origin

Server/target

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Client/Server architecture

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Client/Server architecture

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Some gory details…

• Z39.50–1995 is divided into eleven ‘Facilities’

Initialization Search

Retrieval Result–set–delete

Browse Sort

Access Control Accounting

Explain Extended Services

Termination.

See www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue21/z3950/See www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue21/z3950/

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Facilities and Services

• Each Facility comprises at least one Service• A Service facilitates a particular

interaction between Origin and Target• The three key services are Init,

Search, and Present.


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Init

• The only Service of the Initialization Facility

• Origin–initiated

• Used to start a ‘Z–association’• Origin requests a number of

parameters under which the searches will be conducted

• Target responds, either accepting offered parameters or proposing others if necessary.

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Search

• The only Service of the Search Facility

• Origin–initiated

• Used to actually conduct a search• Origin specifies databases to be

searched, attribute combinations, and query

• Target responds, identifying the number of matching results.

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Present

• Main Service of the Retrieval Facility (along with Segment)

• Origin–initiated• although Target can initiate a Segment

request if the result set is very large

• Used to return records to the user.

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Init for dummies

Hello. Do you speak English?

Hello. Yes, I do. Let’s talk.

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Search for dummies

Cool. Can I have anything you’ve got on a place

called “London”?

I’ve got 25 records matching your request, and here’s the first five. As you didn’t

specify anything else, I’ve sent them to you in MARC, so I hope

that’s OK.

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Present for dummies25, eh? Can I have the first ten, please? Oh, and I really don’t like

MARC. If you can send Dublin Core that would be great, and if not I’ll

settle for some SUTRS.

DC:Creator – blahDC:Title – blah…

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Now it gets hairy…

• To communicate successfully, Origin and Target need to use the same Attribute Set.• An Attribute Set like Bib–1 defines six

forms of Attribute —– Use– Relation– Truncation– Completeness– Position– Structure.

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Use Attributes

• Define the ‘access points’ on which a search takes place• Title, author, subject, etc.

See lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/defns/bib1.htmlSee lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/defns/bib1.html

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Relation Attributes

• Defines the relationship between the search term and values stored in the database/index• Less than, greater than, equal to,

phonetically matched, etc.

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Truncation Attributes

• Defines which part of the stored value is to be searched on• Beginning of any word, end of any

word, etc.• ‘Smith’ finds ‘Smithsonian’ and not

‘Wordsmith’, and vice versa.

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Completeness Attributes

• Defines how much of the stored index term must be in the search term• ‘Smith’ finds ‘Smith’, but not

‘Smithsonian’ or ‘the Smith’, etc.

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Position Attributes

• Defines where in the index the search term should be located• At the start of the field, anywhere, etc.

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Structure Attributes

• Specifies the form to be searched for• Word, phrase, date, etc.

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Record Syntaxes• Record Syntaxes define the structure in which

results are returned to the Origin.• This does not mean that Targets need to store data

in these formats

• MARC• UKMARC, USMARC/MARC21, DANMARC, MARB,

UNIMARC…

• SUTRS• Simple Unstructured Text Record Syntax

• GRS–1• Generic Record Syntax

• XML.

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Profiles• Groupings of Attribute Sets, Record

Syntaxes, etc. to meet specific needs• Disciplinary

– Cultural Heritage (CIMI)– Geospatial (GEO)

• Geographic/Cultural/National– Texas Profile– OPAC Network for Europe (ONE)– Conference of European National Librarians (CENL)

• Functional– Collections Profile

• Etc.

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What’s wrong with Z39.50?• Profiles for each discipline

• Defeats interoperability?

• Vendor interpretation of the standard

• Bib–1 bloat

• Largely invisible to the user

• Seen as complicated, expensive and old–fashioned

• Surely no match for XML/RDF/ whatever.

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Some Joined up working:

The Bath Profile• Vendors and systems implement areas of the Z39.50 standard differently

• Regional, National, and disciplinary Profiles have appeared over previous years, many of which have basic functions in common

• Users wish to search across national/regional boundaries, and between vendors.


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Learning from the past

• The Bath Profile is heavily influenced by• ATS–1• CENL• DanZIG• MODELS• ONE• Z Texas• vCUC

See www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop–focus/bath/See www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop–focus/bath/

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Learning from the past


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Doing the work

• ZIP–PIZ–L mailing list, hosted by National Library of Canada

• Meeting face–to–face• JISC supported a face–to–face meeting in Bath

(UK) over the summer of 1999

• A draft was widely circulated for comment• ISO accreditation process

• Resulting in Internationally Registered Profile status

• Ongoing Maintenance Agency activity.See www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop–focus/bath/See www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop–focus/bath/

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Makx DekkersPricewaterhouseCoopers/ EC

Janifer GatenbyGEAC

Juha HakalaNational Library of Finland

Poul Henrik JørgensenDanish Library Centre

Carrol LunauNational Library of Canada

Paul MillerUKOLN

Slavko ManojlovichSIRSI/ Memorial University of Newfoundland

Bill MoenUniversity of North Texas

Judith PearceNational Library of Australia

Joe ZeemanCGI.

Doing the work


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What we proposed

• Minimisation of ‘defaults’• Where possible, every attribute is defined in the Profile

(Use, Relation, Position, Structure, Truncation, Completeness)

• Three Functional Areas• Basic Bibliographic Search & Retrieval• Bibliographic Holdings Search & Retrieval• Cross–Domain Search & Retrieval

• Three Levels of Conformance in each Area.


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What we proposed

• SUTRS or XML and UNIMARC or MARC21 for Bibliographic Search results

• SUTRS and Dublin Core (in XML) for Cross–Domain results

• Other record syntaxes also permitted, but conformant tools must support at least these.


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Making it work…

• Adopted already by Texas, Atlantic Canada, CIC (Big 10), CENL, etc.

• Interoperability suite• MARC21 in Texas• UNIMARC and cross–domain in Europe?

• Direct approaches to international vendors• User testing in Europe and North America• Addition of Functional Areas and Levels of

Conformance as required• Community Information?


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Standards…

• Technical standards make the job easier in the long run for users, curators, and managers• but can make it harder to get started

• There is rarely a ‘right’ standard for all situations• so identify a need to do something, without

being specific about how• know who your audience is, what you have to

offer, and what your purpose/message is.

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Documents

1 Introducing some Standards Paul Miller Interoperability Focus UK Office for Library & Information Networking (U KOLN ) [email protected]