Laurence Creider wrote:
I have read the FA (and some of the report referred to) and could not find evidence of what you say. Could you please be more specific about what you mean?
It isn't what *I* mean, it's what the article means. First, I think it is a great idea to study the effect of consistency of metadata on various functions we expect metadata to perform. In this case, the target was creation of metadata for repositories and sharing of that data. The report states: "This study has been briefed to investigate the extent to which these standards and policies should and could be implemented with regard to sharing (and, by implication, reuse) of the material held in a repository. Some interviewees questioned the need for any consistency, or warned against making consistency an aim in itself. However, most agreed that consistency within a repository is desirable, and that some consistency between repositories would be useful, but felt that it is unreasonable to expect it to be an overriding concern for repository managers." (p. 15) What this study does that I think is especially interesting is that it points out those areas where consistency matters the most, and defines different types of metadata: 1) metadata of fact, 2) metadata of judgement, and 3) authority lists. (section 8) The last one, authority lists, is a great way to assure consistency, and is what we use for personal and corporate names, for example. The first, metadata of fact, is ripe for investigation into machine-generated metadata as a way to bring down the costs of metadata creation. The second one, metadata of judgement, is necessarily a human act because it usually involves creating access points specific to a particular audience -- in other words, it's not just about the resource, it's about the user as well. Many of their conclusions are identical to those of the Future of Bibliographic Control report, and might be seen as a confirmation of that report's conclusions. They encourage working with publishers to streamline the creation of the 'metadata of fact.' They also encourage the use of URIs for the elements in authority lists, so these can be easily shared using Web services and tools. What I take from this is that "consistency" should not be defined as a matter of creating identical MARC21 records, but is related to data functionality; and that not all elements of our metadata have the same requirements for consistency. As they say in the report when speaking of using URIs to identify members of an authority list: "Since the inconsistency of metadata often lies in how the metadata is expressed (Kilgour, Fred (1914‐2006) versus F Kilgour), the use of URIs, like the use of relational database keys, removes the ambiguity." In fact, the advantage that I see in the use of URIs is that different communities CAN choose to display their metadata elements differently (Kilgour, Fred (1914‐2006) versus F Kilgour) and yet still have consistent metadata. So where consistency in the textual catalog (e.g. the card catalog) meant having every character be the same, consistency using new technologies could lead to solutions where data display can differ where needed and yet be shared accurately. This makes it more possible for us to exchange data outside of our library world silo. But we haven't fully thought these new possibilities through, IMO, so I welcome studies of what consistency might mean in this new environment.And when we talk about "consistency" we should not assume that it means identical metadata records, nor that every part of the metadata record has the same requirements. If we define "consistency" as meaning identical metadata records, then it will be impossible for us to exchange data with anyone but other libraries using the same rules and same tools. If we investigate the actual needs for consistency, we might be able to develop ways to share our data more broadly. kc -- ----------------------------------- Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kcoyle.net ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet fx.: 510-848-3913 mo.: 510-435-8234 ------------------------------------
