Unit 5 Reading Comments

“Setting the Stage,” Anne J. Gilliland

·      Creators (as opposed to info professionals) are generating metadata, but not necessarily assigning that name to it.

·      Varieties of metadata: admin, descriptive, preservation, technical (how systems function), and use (use of collections and info resources).

·      Three components to metadata: content (what it contains or is about), context (who, what, why, how, where of object), and structure (associations/relations to other objects). Structure is taking an increasingly prominent role due to computer processing powers.

·      Functions of metadata: creation, reuse, recontexting, and multiversioning – does reuse mean at say the institutional level, or archival level, or both?

o   Organizing and describing of objects

o   Validating – forming trustworthiness and authentication of objects

o   Search/retrieve – metadata can help you re-find the object

o   Use and preservation

o   Disposition – deciding whether to archive or destroy it

·      Metadata’s utility: increases accessibility, retains context, can expand use, help in legal issues (maybe), assist in preserving potentially.

·      Library metadata=indexes, abstracts, and bibliographic records conforming to various standards

·      Archival/museum metadata focuses more on context, both providing and preserving it

“An Overview of DCMI,” Eric Miller

·      DCMI (model or metadata apparently) created DCES (Dublin Core Element Set) to support cross-discipline resource discovery

o   Apparently most of DCMI’s effort has been in clarifying what exactly it does. That and supporting “richer” descriptive requirements.

·      So, if there’s something to describe, which can be anything, Dublin Core would like to be able to describe it by ascribing it properties, classes, and literals.

o   Properties: a type of resource (and a resource is anything that can be unique)

o   Classes: specific types of resources

o   Literals: simple text strings (XML) < rfds: title or whatever >The Title</rfds: title or whatever> open, new element, close new element, close, etc.

§  Interestingly it can use a “namespace” to tie a specific word(s) to an element.

·      Resource Description Framework (RDF)

·      Basically it’s a flexible way of describing information to a standard. Similar to say EAD, but even more flexible. Worth looking into in further depth.

EndNote X5: Introduction

·      I wish I had watched some of these videos last week. They would have saved me (some) of the aggravation of getting EndNote to do what I want.