Menu:
Metadata Introduction:
There are two levels to capturing information about an object. The first level is the conceptual model of the world used by the system recording the information. The second is manifested as fields used to store the details in the system as metadata and the details themselves.
As a repository manager it should be possible to amend the second level to suit the needs of your repository, but the first will be set by the software designer/architect.
One standard model in the library field which addresses versioning issues is IFLA's FRBR (Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records), which views objects in structural tree, moving from conceptual levels of the 'work' through different expressions and manifestations down to distinct physical or electronic copies. The use of this sort of organisational structure will become more prevalent in coming years as FRBR ideas are incorporated into the RDA (Resource Description and Access) new version of the AACR (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules) standard (http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue49/chapman/).
All of the solutions and recommendations made in the framework address the need for five essential pieces of information to be accessible to allow a clear version identification to take place. Metadata held in a repository about an object plays a crucial role in making this transparent to the end user.
Major Metadata Schemes:
Richer metadata used for describing repository content will enable richer metadata export and harvesting options. In turn this will allow more accurate searching in repository search services. Richer version metadata will enable faster version identification: http://www.rsp.ac.uk/usage/harvesters.
VIF has outlines ways repository managers can utilise metadata schemes and share their metadata with others by mapping fields consistently:
Metadata can also be be packaged in a wrapper for export to other services:
Application Profiles:
Application profiles are a metadata specification for describing a digital object type. There are several such profiles available or in development, funded by JISC, which have been created using the Dublin Core metadata scheme as a basis for creating a FRBRised structure in which to store metadata.
The use of an application profile helps to aggregate a more consistent, richer metadata from repositories when using a cross repository search tool.
In addition to better searching of elements, application profiles help to facilitate navigation between different versions, because they provide metadata information down to the item level.
Application profiles map the metadata held in your repository to standard fields so that others can be sure that the semantic meaning has not been lost in harvesting the metadata.
The framework recommends that software developers support application profiles. See the section for software developers on implementing Sharing Standards for much more information, and links to the individual application profiles in development.
Flags:
Flags can be used within repository metadata as a simple labelling system to
identify or denote versions. See the
Flags page for more information.