UKOLN and the Interoperability Focus

Paul Miller

Interoperability FocusP.Miller@ukoln.ac.uk

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/interop–focus/

23 April 1999

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Synopsis

• UKOLN– the United Kingdom Office for Library &

Information Networking

• Setting the Scene– problems, potentials, and a glance over

the horizon

• Building Solutions– Interoperability Focus

• Close–up on one solution– The Dublin Core

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UKOLN

• The UK Office for Library & Information Networking

– funded by Library & Information Commission (LIC) and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils

– receives additional project–based funding from the Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib), the European Commission and others

– advocates UK interests in a wide range of contexts, and involved at the local level in New Library, NGfL, UfI, etc.

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UKOLN• Staff interests include;

– distributed library issues– cataloguing– public libraries– standardisation– the World Wide Web

– UK Web Focus

– convergence between libraries and related information sources

– electronic publication– Ariadne– Exploit Interactive

– ‘metadata’.

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UKOLN

• For more information on UKOLN, visit

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

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Defining some problems

• Resource description communities• the Web explosion• the emancipation of resource

But why can’t I find what I’m looking for?

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Resource Description Communities

A resource description community is characterized by agreement on common semantic, structural, and syntactic conventions for exchange of resource description information.

Libraries

MARC AACR2

But what if I want to search across more than one community?

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A little language...

Semantics

Structure

Syntax

“Let’s talk English”Standardisation ofcontent

Standardisation ofform

“Here’s how to make a sentence”

Standardisation ofexpression

“These are the rulesof grammar”

“cat milk sat drank mat ”

“Cat sat on mat. Drankmilk.”

“The cat sat on the mat.It drank some milk.”

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The Web Explosion

• Two million web sites• Half a billion addressable pages• High consumer expectations, versus

primitive tools and infrastructure• Uncertainty over quality, trust and

integrity.But why can’t I find what I want?

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Emancipation of resource

• Corporate data are being released• Museum catalogues are going online• Library OPACs are available over the

Web• A wealth of surrogates are becoming

available to all• Governments are unlocking doors.

But Alta Vista only seesa query screen...

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But I don’t want just a library book, or a web page, or a museum object.

I want information about Hull, or the World Cup, or Post–Impressionist Art, or whether it will rain today.

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The road to solutions

• Distributed searching• ‘Metadata’• Consensus and co–operation• Standards, standards everywhere.

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What is ‘Metadata’?– meaningless jargon– or

a fashionable term for what we’ve always done– or

“a means of turning data into information”– and

“data about data”– and

the name of a film director (‘Luc Besson’)– and

the title of a book (‘The Lord of the Flies’).

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What is ‘Metadata’?

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

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What is ‘Metadata’?

• 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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Standards abound

MICI

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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 Interoperability Focus• Focus upon enabling interoperability

between resources in:

libraries

archives

the cultural heritage sector

etc.

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Introducing Interoperability Focus• By:

• disseminating best practice• participating in relevant global standards

development initiatives• encouraging/ facilitating cross–walks and

cross–project communication• representing UK interests internationally• raising awareness of interoperability’s

benefits to users, creators & holders.

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Interoperability What…?

• Not the most transparent job title in the world, now is it…?• Searching for a ‘strap line’

to explain it.• JISC suggestion…

“Interoperability Focus: making sure the drains run downhill”

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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– international– flexible.

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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

• Interdisciplinary– libraries, museums, archives…

• International– available in 20 languages, with more on the

way...

Introducing the Dublin Core

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

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

http://purl.org/dc/

Introducing the Dublin Core

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• Modular extensibility…– additional elements to support local needs– complementary packages of metadata

• …but only if we get the building blocks right

Extending the Dublin Core

Description Archival Management

Terms & Conditions

Based on a slide by Stu Weibel

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• Implemented by the Australian and assorted Nordic governments

• Used or mentioned by the majority of new projects

• Rapidly approaching CEN and NISO accreditation

• Expressable in HTML, RDF, local databases…

• A powerful ‘switching mechanism’ for diverse resources.

Dublin Core today

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The end…?

• Increasing quantities of data arebecoming available

• Structures need to evolve to turnthem into information in a form that users actually want

• Interoperability Focus is part of the (slow!) process whereby old standards can converge and new standards can emerge to enable user interaction with data in as seamless and friendly a fashion as possible.