Contents of Presentation

• Kernel Metadata at a Glance

• Working Group Status

• Documentation efforts

• ERC/Kernel Demos and Software

• Creating best-practice guidelines

• Kernel Working Group Recommended Next Steps

• Reference Information

Kernel Metadata at a Glance

• Kernel Semantics: four required elements

  • who - a responsible person or party

  • what - a name or other human-oriented identifier

  • when - a date important in the object's lifecycle

  • where - a location or system-oriented identifier

• ERC Syntax: Electronic Resource Citation

  
      erc:
      who:    Lederberg, Joshua
      what:   Studies of Human Families for
                     Genetic Linkage
      when:   1974
      where:  http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/BB/AA/TT/tt.pdf
  
  

Working Group Status

• ERC/Kernel WG Charter (October 2002):

  • to explore the ultra-simple ERC "kernel" approach to metadata

  • to identify applications of the compact ERC record format

  • to refine ERC value rules and minimum element requirements

  • to develop an XML representation of kernel elements

• 50 subscribers to the mailing list (October 2004)

• New 6-point work plan (August 2004): much progress to report

• Second face-to-face meeting

  
  
  

Documentation efforts

• Draft Kernel Metadata Specification, now available at

  http://dublincore.org/groups/kernel/spec.html

• Creating an XML mapping to/from the ERC format

  • No progress to date

  • Critical for interoperation, exchange, import/export

• Looking for volunteers for writing and/or editing

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

ERC/Kernel Demos and Software

• Demo: California Digital Library collections

  http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt3489n8m4?

  • the ERC-writer module for this is available at

    http://dublincore.org/groups/kernel/ERC.pm.txt

• Demo: Prototype ERC mappings for all PubMed identifiers

  http://ark.nlm.nih.gov/ark:/12025/pm10611131?

• Demo: Web and Z39.50 interface (based on 1600 test ERCs)

  (web) http://www.awcubed.com/ERCsearch.html
  (z39.50) www.awcubed.com, port 210, dbname erc

• Open-source search engines for ERC/Kernel metadata

  Amberfish: http://sourceforge.net/projects/amberfish/
  Isite: ftp://ftp.awcubed.com/pub/Software/Isite2/

Creating best-practice guidelines

• For applying the { who | what | when | where } questions to different object types in different disciplines

  
     erc/book:  author | title | pub. year | ISBN or URL
     erc/photo:  photographer | caption | date taken | URL
     erc/map:  cartographer | region | mod. date | URL
     erc/article:  author | title | pub. date | article URL
  	( + in: journal name | volume / issue | journal URL )
     erc/painting:  artist | identifier | date created | URL
     erc/artifact:  discoverer | identifier | date found | URL
     erc/specimen:  discoverer | identifier | date found | URL
     erc/code:  programmer | title | mod. date | URL
  
  

• Wanted: subject and application area specialists to think through and debug mappings of kernel elements in their areas

Kernel Working Group Recommended Next Steps

• XML mapping continues to be a priority.

• Documentation needs work, and should emphasize outreach.

• How about ERCs for relationships and events? For example, describe a dissertation (a document) and link to its defense (an event).

• Feedback suggests it may make sense to separate requirements; think about separately pursuing (a) required kernel elements, (b) ERC syntax, (c) null values for missing elements (which could use better indexing guidelines).

• Question about maximizing and minimizing at the same time: how to reconcile the drives simultaneously to define a minimal record and to extend a vocabulary with additional elements?

Reference Information

• Background paper (DC 2001, Tokyo) still at

  http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v02/i02/Kunze/

• To subscribe, visit

  http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/dc-kernel.html