Collection Description FocusBridget Robinson & Ann Chapman - cd-focus@ukoln.ac.uk
CD Focus website - http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/
CD Focus discussion list - collection-description@jiscmail.ac.uk
An "At the Event" report on the CD Focus Showcase Event was published in the June issue of Ariadne - http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue35/cd-focus-rpt/
A short paper by Ann Chapman was published in the April issue of ASSIGNation (Aslib Social Sciences Information Group and Network Journal )- details as follows: Ann Chapman " Collection Level Description as a Tool for Managing Digital Collections" ASSIGNation, Volume 20, No 3, April 2003 http://www.aslib.co.uk/sigs/assig/assignation/index.html
CD Focus is now working on a series of Case Study papers. These will focus on specific projects implementing collection descriptions and what can be learned from their experiences by others about to embark on such a project. The case studies will follow a common format of background, objectives, planning, decisions, specific features, lessons learnt and progress to date. The first of these, on the Reveal Collections Register, will be published shortly and other projects are under consideration for further case studies. We would like a wide range of projects from archives, libraries and museums to be featured in this series; please contact CD Focus if you would like your project to be considered.
The CD Focus are continuing to develop the Online Tutorial as discussed in the previous newsletter. It is being developed both as a Tutorial in it's own right, accessible via the CD Focus website and as an integral part of a Training Programme.
The first of these Training Workshops was held at University of Bath on 3rd June for the JISC Resource Guide Advisors. The morning concentrated on introducing the concept of collection-level description and looking in detail at the RSLP Collection Description Model and Schema. The morning also included an Introduction to the JISC Information Environment (IE) and the Service Registry (SR) presented by Amanda Closier from UKOLN - the project manager of the IESR Project. In the afternoon the delegates spent time in the Computer Lab using the Online Tutorial. They were able to create their own CLDs, look at annotated examples, link to existing Collection Description Websites or simply to work their way through the different modules.
It was the first time that the tutorial has been used in this way. Feedback was very positive.
Details of the Workshop Programme can be found at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/events/jisc-rga/programme.html
The Tutorial is now available at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/cdfocus-tutorial/ We would like to encourage you to have a look at the Tutorial and feed back your comments to us via the feedback link on the Tutorial Introductory page. The Tutorial is still very much "work in progress." We will continue to develop and refine the tutorial over the coming months with a view to offering a series of training workshops in the Autumn.
The Focus will also be running a pre-conference workshop at the mda Conference - Collections and Creativity 2003. The workshop will be held on 9th September, the Conference proper runs from 10th-12th September. The outline programme for the Conference can be found at http://www.mda.org.uk/conference2003/prog.htm
The CD Focus Team attended the joint programme meeting for Portals and Shared Services Projects on the 22nd and 23rd May 2003 at Warwick University. The aims of the meeting were:
The event provided a valuable opportunity to hear and discuss the work being carried out by shared services projects, plus a chance to discover the role of shared services within the Information Environment and how portals can make use of and interact with these.
There were two especially interesting presentations from Amanda Hill and Andy Powell. Amanda concentrated on the JISC Information Environment Service Registry (JISC IESR) which is a pilot project and Andy covered Shared Services including the JISC IESR. Both discussed the importance of Collection Description as a key part of the Information Architecture. The JISC IESR will contain collection and service descriptions for resources in the JISC IE. It is intended that these descriptions will be used by
The collection descriptions that are being created as part of this pilot will be based on the RSLP Collection Description Schema.
More details and links to all the presentations are available at:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=ie_meetings_portalsandsharedservices
There is additional information about the JISC IESR in Rachel Bruce's article in the April/May CD Focus News Bulletin: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/newsletters/news200304.html
The Dublin Core Collection Description Working Group is discussing the development of a DC-based metadata schema for collection-level description, using the collection description attributes of the RSLP CD Schema as a starting point for discussion. This is an opportunity for implementers of the RSLP CD schema to shape the development of the DCMI schema based on your own experiences. Any future work on revising the RSLP CD schema will take into account the outcome of the work of the DCMI group.
The following message was posted to the Dublin Core Mailing List on 6th June by Pete Johnston - Co-Chair of the DCMI CD WG - it provides useful references and details of how to participate in the ongoing discussion.
“The DCMI Collection Description WG reported in October 2002 that there had been limited interest in the proposal to develop a DC-based application profile for collection-level description. Since that time, however, the co-chairs have received a number of concrete expressions of interest in this work, and with this support, we propose to relaunch the activity of the group and review/amend the existing proposal with the aim of developing an application profile for collection-level description, applicable to a broad range of collection types.
Some suggested revised milestones are available at http://homes.ukoln.ac.uk/~lispj/dc-cd/miles.html
The proposal discussed during 2002 is available at http://dublincore.org/groups/collections/dccd.html
and the proposal is now presented in the form of an "application profile" at:
http://homes.ukoln.ac.uk/~lispj/dc-cd/appprof.html
If you are interested in this area, we encourage you to join the working group by subscribing to the mailing list at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/DC-COLLECTIONS.html ”
Copy for the next news bulletin should be sent to cd-focus@ukoln.ac.uk by 23rd July 2003. The bulletin will be published in early August.