Week 5: Metadata and content management

1. Gilliland, Anne. 2008. "Setting the stage." In Introduction to Metadata, 3rd edition, edited by Murtha Baca. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute. http://www.getty.edu/research/publications/electronic_publications/intrometadata/setting.pdf

Metadata: "data about data"

• any piece of info that can be said about doc or "object"/"text"
• ex: user-generated Flickr tags, web page titles
• history: up to 1990s, used for geospatial info --> interop.

Info objects, regardless of format: 3 forms

• content: "aboutness"
• context
• structure 

Metadata in cultural heritage institutions

• value-added info
• community-generated/-oriented standards
• HTML & XML

Library metadata

• indexes, abstracts, bib recs
• data content standards (cat. rules): AACR(2)
• structure standards: MARC
• value standards: LCSCH, AAT (Getty)
• increased automation, esp. w/ RDF and Semantic Web (LOD???)

Archival and museum metadata (aka description)

• accession recs, finding aids, cat. recs
• data structure standards: MARC Archival and Manuscripts Control (AMC) --> MARC21
• content: DACS, EAD
• METS: digital

"almost" transparent --> but only for certain users, ex. archives for scholars
how to provide greater accessibility? item-level metadata for specific searches?
important: metadata isn't necessarily digital

• need to explore range of metadata beyond description and resource discovery
• "different strokes for different folks" (institutional as well as individual purposes)
• ex: administrative, descriptive, preservation, technical, use
• attributes: source, method, nature, status, structure, semantics, level

Legal issues

• metadata allows tracking of rights and other info for originals, as well as surrogates
• propietary, commercial interests
 

2. Miller, Eric J. 1999. "An Overview of the Dublin Core Data Model." http://dublincore.org/1999/06/06-overview/

• Goal: cross-discipline resource discovery
• Internationalization: +++ languages

•  DC built on RDF foundation model
• resources: properties: literals/string-values or other resources

• Functional reqs.
• Modularization/extensibility: semantic mixing/flexibility
• Element id: unique, ex. creator = creator
• Semantic refinement: specificity
• Encoding schemes: ex. data-typing (conformance)
• Controlled vocabs
• Structured compound values: ex. authority rec, var. chars.

3. Meloni, Julie. 2010. "Using Mendeley for Research Management." ProfHacker, The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 19. http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/using-mendeley-for-research-management/25627

• Last.fm x Mendeley
• Usefulness depends on discipline
• Social networking bibs --> Collab/discovery aspects?