The document provides an overview of metadata and XML. It defines metadata as data that describes other data and discusses different types of metadata like technical, preservation, structural, and descriptive metadata. It explains the importance of using standards and controlled vocabularies for metadata. The document then introduces XML, defining it as a machine-readable format for structuring information. It provides examples of simple XML documents, including a Dublin Core metadata example in XML. The key points covered are what metadata is, why standards are important, what XML is, and how to structure information in XML documents.

1. Kathryn Cassidy
Software Engineer, Digital Repository of Ireland (Trinity College Dublin)
Metadata & XML

2. Digital Repository of Ireland
DRI is a trusted digital repository for Humanities and
Social Sciences Data in Ireland, launched June 2015
• Provides preservation and access to digital
collections
• Born digital and digitised collections including
maps, photographs, letters,
audio-visual, sound, books,
oral histories, paintings..

4. https://repository.dri.ie/

5. Metadata & XML
• Define Metadata
• Identify benefits of using standards-compliant metadata
• Familiarise ourselves with XML
• Create XML Metadata by Interactive Example
By the end of this afternoon’s session we will have be able to do the following…

6. What is Metadata?

7. What is Metadata?
Technical metadata – hardware, software, file formats, resolution,
size
Preservation metadata – provenance, authenticity, preservation
actions, responsibility (eg. PREMIS)
Structural metadata – physical/logical structure of digital resources
(eg. METS)
Descriptive metadata – describes the digital resource; catalogue
records/finding aids

8. Human readable metadata
A handwritten or typewritten
listing or finding aid
Can be easily read and
understood
Can be accessible in physical or
digital medium
Can be free-text searched

9. Machine readable metadata
In a format that can be
understood by computers
Structured representation of
information
Described using particular
standards (eg. XML, HTML,
RDF)
Allows processing, exchange
and analysis

10. The importance of Structure & standards

11. Why use standard metadata?
Using standardised descriptive metadata means adhering to the best
practices in your domain.
Standardised metadata allows you to control how records are described
within your organisation.
Enforcing standards allows greater searchability of your records.
Metadata sharing and interoperability is only possible when a standard is
used.
Quality metadata enables analysis, manipulation and “value-added
services”

12. Seeing Standards: A Visualization of the Metadata Universe, Jenn Riley & Devin Becker,
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/metadatamap/

13. Digital Archiving in
Ireland:
National Survey of
the Humanities and
Social Sciences

14. DRI metadata guidelines
http://www.dri.ie/publications

15. Simple Dublin Core Metadata Element Set
1. Title
2. Creator
3. Subject
4. Description
5. Publisher
6. Contributor
7. Date
8. Type
9. Format
10. Identifier
11. Source
12. Language
13. Relation
14. Coverage
15. Rights

16. DRI metadata guidelines

17. 1. Title Ulysses
2. Creator James Joyce
3. Subject Stream of consciousness;
Modern novel;
Turn of century Dublin;
Book covers
4. Description Traces the character Leopold
Bloom as he walks around
Dublin on 16 June, 1904
Or
Scan of first edition, hard cover
5. Publisher Shakespeare and Company
6. Contributor
7. Date 1922

18. Controlled Vocabularies
• A standardised set of terms that are accepted, defined and managed
(agreed on by a community)
• A way to enable consistency in metadata, to facilitate accurate search
and retrieval
• Tend to be domain/discipline specific
• Find the one that best fits your collection

19. Library of Congress - Subject

20. 1. Title Ulysses
2. Creator James Joyce
3. Subject Stream of consciousness;
Modern novel;
Turn of century Dublin;
Book covers
4. Description Traces the character Leopold
Bloom as he walks around
Dublin on 16 June, 1904
Or
Scan of first edition, hard cover
5. Publisher Shakespeare and Company
6. Contributor
7. Date 1922

21. Library of Congress - Subject

22. DRI Presents: Introduction to Metadata
1. Title Ulysses
2. Creator James Joyce
3. Subject Turn of century Dublin;
4. Description Traces the character Leopold
Bloom as he walks around
Dublin on 16 June, 1904
Or
Scan of first edition, hard cover
5. Publisher Shakespeare and Company
6. Contributor
7. Date 1922
Dublin—History—20th century
Joyce, James, 1882-1941

23. Metadata Quality Control – DRI guide
www.dri.ie/publications

24. “Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup
language that defines a set of rules for encoding
documents in a format that is both human-readable and
machine-readable. It is defined by the W3C's XML 1.0
Specification and by several other related specifications,
all of which are free open standards.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML
What is XML?
“Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup
language that defines a set of rules for encoding
documents in a format that is both human-readable and
machine-readable. It is defined by the W3C's XML 1.0
Specification and by several other related specifications,
all of which are free open standards.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML

25. Machine readable metadata
In a format that can be
understood by computers
Structured representation of
information
Described using particular
standards (eg. XML, HTML,
RDF)
Allows processing, exchange
and analysis

26. “Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup
language that defines a set of rules for encoding
documents in a format that is both human-readable and
machine-readable. It is defined by the W3C's XML 1.0
Specification and by several other related specifications,
all of which are free open standards.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML
What is XML?

30. <html>
<head>
<title>The DRI Website</title>
</head>
<body>
<img src=“drilogo.png”>
<h3>Structure of DRI</h3>
<p>The principal governance structure of the DRI is its Board. The current DRI Board
was appointed in 2017 following a call for nominations that was open to all DRI
Members. Appointees were ratified by the Executive Committee of the Royal Irish
Academy, and serve 3-year terms.</p>
<p>The principal management mechanism of the DRI is the
<a href=“cit.html”>Core ImplementationTeam (CIT)</a>. The CIT is responsible for
the day-to-day operational management of the DRI in addition to developing the DRI
strategy, coordination, and delivering the project. The CIT is comprised of the <b>DRI
Director (Chair)</b>, <b>DRI Principal Investigators and Institutional representatives</b>,
with the <b>DRI Programme Manager</b> in RIA providing the secretariat.</p>
</body>
</html>

31. <participants>
<person role="teacher">
<id>1</id>
<name>
<personalname>Kathryn</personalname>
<familyname>Cassidy</familyname>
</name>
<affiliation>DRI</affiliation>
<affiliation>TCD</affiliation>
</person>
<person role=”organiser">
<id>2</id>
<name>
<personalname>Lisa</personalname>
<familyname>Griffith</familyname>
</name>
<affiliation>DRI</affiliation>
<affiliation>RIA</afiliation>
</person>
....
</participants>
XML Structure
An XML document consists of a set
of elements, which can be nested
within eachother
All elements must have an opening
and closing tag of the form
<tagname>… </tagname>
Elements may also have attributes

32. <tramTicket>
<type>return</type>
<from>Central 1</from>
<to>Red 2</to>
<validUntil>Last
Tram</validUntil>
<date>31 Jul 06</date>
<for>Adult</for>
<on>Luas only</on>
<timeIssued>21:15</timeissue
d>
<price>2.90</price>
<number>6004375019</numb
er>
</tramTicket>
XML does not DO anything

33. XML vs. Metadata Standards
XML lets you use any tags you like:
<person> <familyname> <validuntil> <date> <price>
Making up tags is using XML, but it is not using a Standard!
We want to use the Dublin Core Standard (or some other
metadata standard) expressed as XML.
To achieve this we need to specify an XML Schema. The XML
Schema constrains the possible tags and XML elements that we
can use in our XML files.

34. A Dublin Core example in XML
<qualifieddc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"
xmlns:marcrel="http://www.loc.gov/marc.relators/"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.loc.gov/marc.relators/
http://imlsdcc2.grainger.illinois.edu/registry/marcrel.xsd"
xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://dublincore.org/schemas/xmls/qdc/2008/02/11/q
ualifieddc.xsd">
<dc:title>Dublin Core and the Digital Repository of Ireland</dc:title>
<dc:description>These guidelines relate to the use of the Dublin core metadata schema in
the Digital Repository of Ireland. These guidelines are an updated version of our original
Dublin Core guidelines, published in January 2015. The updates reflect changes to the DRI
infrastructure since its launch in June 2015.</dc:description>
<dc:type>Metadata guidelines</dc:type>
<dcterms:created/>
<dcterms:issued>2015-12</dcterms:issued>
<dc:date>2015-12</dc:date>