Metadata and Data Structures
University of California, Berkeley
School of Information Management and Systems
SIMS 202: Information Organization and Retrieval
Review
Information Hierarchy
Information Volume and Overload
Information Life Cycle
Information Overload
"The greatest problem of today is how to teach people to ignore the irrelevant, how to refuse to know things, before they are suffocated. For too many facts are as bad as none at all." (W.H. Auden)
Information Life Cycle
Key issues in this course
How to describe information resources or information-bearing objects in ways so that they may be effectively used by those who need to use them.
Organizing
How to find the appropriate information resources or information-bearing objects for someone’s (or your own) needs.
Retrieving
Structure of an IR System
Types of Information
Discussion of homework assignment
Differentiation by form.
Differentiation by content.
Differentiation by quality.
Differentiation by associated information.
Today
Metadata
Dublin Core
Bibliographic information
Bibliographic records
Types of Metadata
Element names.
Element description.
Element representation.
Element coding.
Element semantics.
Element classification.
How can you describe an information-bearing object?
Dublin Core
Simple metadata for describing internet resources.
For "Document-Like Objects"
15 Elements.
Dublin Core Elements
Title
Creator
Subject
Description
Publisher
Other Contributors
Date
Resource Type
Format
Resource Identifier
Source
Language
Relation
Coverage
Rights Management
Title
Label: TITLE
- The name given to the resource by the CREATOR or PUBLISHER.
Author or Creator
Label: CREATOR
The person(s) or organization(s) primarily responsible for the intellectual content of the resource. For example, authors in the case of written documents, artists, photographers, or illustrators in the case of visual resources.
Subject and Keywords
Label: SUBJECT
The topic of the resource, or keywords or phrases that describe the subject or content of the resource. The intent of the specification of this element is to promote the use of controlled vocabularies and keywords. This element might well include scheme-qualified classification data (for example, Library of Congress Classification Numbers or Dewey Decimal numbers) or scheme-qualified controlled vocabularies (such as MEdical Subject Headings or Art and Architecture Thesaurus descriptors) as well.
Description
Label: DESCRIPTION
A textual description of the content of the resource, including abstracts in the case of document-like objects or content descriptions in the case of visual resources. Future metadata collections might well include computational content description (spectral analysis of a visual resource, for example) that may not be embeddable in current network systems. In such a case this field might contain a link to such a description rather than the description itself.
Publisher
Label: PUBLISHER
The entity responsible for making the resource available in its present form, such as a publisher, a university department, or a corporate entity. The intent of specifying this field is to identify the entity that provides access to the resource.
Other Contributors
Label: CONTRIBUTORS
Person(s) or organization(s) in addition to those specified in the CREATOR element who have made significant intellectual contributions to the resource but whose contribution is secondary to the individuals or entities specified in the CREATOR element (for example, editors, transcribers, illustrators, and convenors).
Date
Label: DATE
The date the resource was made available in its present form. The recommended best practice is an 8 digit number in the form YYYYMMDD as defined by ANSI X3.30-1985. In this scheme, the date element for the day this is written would be 19961203, or December 3, 1996. Many other schema are possible, but if used, they should be identified in an unambiguous manner.
Resource Type
Label: TYPE
The category of the resource, such as home page, novel, poem, working paper, preprint, technical report, essay, dictionary. It is expected that RESOURCE TYPE will be chosen from an enumerated list of types. A preliminary set of such types can be found at the following URL: http://www.roads.lut.ac.uk/Metadata/DC-ObjectTypes.html
Format
Label: FORMAT
The data representation of the resource, such as text/html, ASCII, Postscript file, executable application, or JPEG image. The intent of specifying this element is to provide information necessary to allow people or machines to make decisions about the usability of the encoded data (what hardware and software might be required to display or execute it, for example). As with RESOURCE TYPE, FORMAT will be assigned from enumerated lists such as registered Internet Media Types (MIME types). In principal, formats can include physical media such as books, serials, or other non-electronic media.
Resource Identifier
Label: IDENTIFIER
String or number used to uniquely identify the resource. Examples for networked resources include URLs and URNs (when implemented). Other globally-unique identifiers,such as International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN) or other formal names would also be candidates for this element.
Source
Label: SOURCE
The work, either print or electronic, from which this resource is derived, if applicable. For example, an html encoding of a Shakespearean sonnet might identify the paper version of the sonnet from which the electronic version was transcribed.
Language
Label: LANGUAGE
Language(s) of the intellectual content of the resource. Where practical, the content of this field should coincide with the Z39.53 three character codes for written languages. See: http://www.sil.org/sgml/nisoLang3-1994.html
Relation
Label: RELATION
Relationship to other resources. The intent of specifying this element is to provide a means to express relationships among resources that have formal relationships to others, but exist as discrete resources themselves. For example, images in a document, chapters in a book, or items in a collection. A formal specification of RELATION is currently under development. Users and developers should understand that use of this element should be currently considered experimental.
Coverage
Label: COVERAGE
The spatial locations and temporal duration characteristic of the resource. Formal specification of COVERAGE is currently under development. Users and developers should understand that use of this element should be currently considered experimental.
Rights Management
Label: RIGHTS
The content of this element is intended to be a link (a URL or other suitable URI as appropriate) to a copyright notice, a rights-management statement, or perhaps a server that would provide such information in a dynamic way. The intent of specifying this field is to allow providers a means to associate terms and conditions or copyright statements with a resource or collection of resources. No assumptions should be made by users if such a field is empty or not present.
Bibliographic Information
Describes documents
What is a document (revisited)?
Choice of descriptive elements and content of those elements typically governed by a set of rules:
AACR II
Elements coded in standard ways for transmission.
MARC
Goals of Descriptive Cataloging
1. To enable a person to find a document of which
the author, or
the title, or
the subject is known
2. To show what a library has
by a given author
on a given subject (and related subjects)
in a given kind (or form) of literature.
3. To assist in the choice of a document
as to its edition (bibliographically)
as to its character (literary or topical)
Rules for Descriptive Cataloging
ISBD
AACR
AACR II
Next Time
More on bibliographic description and rules (particularly AACR II)
Structured and unstructured data and information.
Files and Databases