The Dc Metadata Registry

The DC Metadata Registry at Göttingen Thomas Fischer Metadata and Databases SUB Göttingen [email_address]

Overview

DC Registry at Göttingen: Q & A

Presentation

Outlook

What is it?

A tool to manage metadata vocabularies and semantics

Based on the Dublin Core grammatical principles:

Elements

Element Refinements

Encoding schemes

Vocabulary terms

Reference for DC related metadata terms used in specific contexts or communities

What is its contents?

The basic contents is that of the Dublin Core Metadata Registry

The Göttingen Registry contains as its first extension the terms of the SSG-FI system: Metadata terms developed to describe internet resources, used by the special subject guides (Geo-Guide, HistoryGuide, MathGuide, AnglistikGuide etc.)

What else will be put there?

Metadata terms from other projects: Renardus, ProPrint, MetaLib etc.

Describe relations between metadata terms, eventually integrate the information contained in the MetaForm database to provide crosswalks between different metadata schemes.

Incorporate the terms into Application Profiles to provide authoritative reference.

What is it good for?

Provide convenient and authoritative human-readable reference regarding metadata terms, relations, encoding schemes and application profiles

Provide automated machine-readable access to metadata information via web services

Whom does it serve?

In the first phase, the registry will be used by and for metadata projects at the SUB Göttingen. This will serve to understand the options and possibilities of the registry.

In a second phase, the registry will accept information from other institutions to be integrated into the registry.

The end of this development is open. It is not decided, whether this will be a registry with national focus, be devoted to a special subject community or serve some other user group.

Where is it and what does it look like?

DC Registries:

OCLC (Dublin, Ohio):

http://dublincore.org/dcregistry/

ULIS (Tsukuba):

http://fiord.ulis.ac.jp/dcregistry/

SUB Göttingen:

http://dbclear.sub.uni-goettingen.de/dcregistry/

UKOLN (Bath):

http://solo.ukoln.ac.uk/dcregistry/

… a roadmap DCMI Roadmap for Development of Vocabulary Management and Registry Systems (H. Wagner, R. Heery, S. Weibel?) Schema Encodings Vocabulary Management Tool DCMI Registry Applications People responsible for vocabulary management People seeking information about schemas and elements Other Registry VMT- Registry API Functional Requirements Registry- Application API Functional Requirements Registry- registry API User Interface Req’ments User Interface Req’ments

Open Questions

Application Profiles:

Effective Description

Machine-readable formulation

Interface/API for registry

How and where to describe classifications/ encoding schemes / thesauri effectively (in a machine-readable fashion)?

How are dumb-down maps described?

Is there a general language („Semantic Layer“) to describe relations between metadata systems?

The Future

The application reads the document‘s metadata

Recognized elements are accepted (e.g. dc.Title)

Next step:

Evaluate the related application profile:

If the element dumbs down to a recognized element take that (e.g. PP.Lastname --> dc.Creator)

Else discard the element

Alternatively:

Consult the registry:

Evaluate the given mappings

Discard data not recognized

Cooperation

DC Registry as a tool for the (German?) metadata community

Test bed for suggestions to the given questions

Administrative Structure:

Editorial board?

Advisory board?

Links

Registries:

Dublin Core: http://dublincore.org/dcregistry

MetaLib: http://www2.sub. uni - goettingen .de/

DC at Göttingen:http:// dbclear .sub. uni - goettingen .de/ dcregistry /

Articles:

Thomas Baker: A Grammar of Dublin Core D-Lib Magazine October 2000 http://www. dlib .org/ dlib /october00/baker/10baker.html

H. Wagner / R. Heery: DCMI Roadmap for development of Vocabulary Management and Schema Registry Systems 18.2.2002 http:// dublincore .org/groups/registry/DCMI- reg -roadmapv4.html