Metadata Matters

Month: November 2008

  • Daniel Pitti on the EA*

    One of the nice things about being “retired” (even practice “retirement”) is that I get to work at home most of the time. There are few things that lure me to the Cornell campus these days—lunch with friends, maybe a lecture now and then—but I almost always go to the forums of the CUL Metadata Working Group. These started a few years ago and have been a godsend, both for those of us who have something to say (I’ve presented multiple times) and those of us who have something to learn (all of us). Like most such efforts, there’s some overhead in the form of a committee that schedules speakers, manages a small budget, etc., but the result is well worth it. Marketing efforts for the forums extend well past the library and often bring audiences from the campus IT organization, the computer and information science folks, and other orphans lodged in various departmental digital efforts.

    This month the speaker was Daniel Pitti, Associate Director of the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia. I’ve known Daniel since the first Dublin Core meeting in 1995 (when he was working at Berkeley), so was not going to miss the opportunity to hear him talking about where archival description was headed.

    As advertised, Daniel gave some background about the EAD (Encoded Archival Description) as well as the EAC-CPF (Encoded Archival Context – corporate bodies, persons, and families). EAD is based on the the traditional archival finding aid, and focuses on the provenance-based description of archival resources where all records by a single created are treated as one unit. After setting the stage, Daniel spoke about the design of “post- finding aid” archival description systems, describing both the environment within which archival description is created and maintained and the possible published forms of the description that can be searched, rendered, and enhanced by users. I was interested, and pleased, to note that work on this post- finding aid world is based very much on a future I recognize, with a vision based both on what’s happening in libraries as well as what’s going on in the archival community. In a world where tectonic shifts are occurring in both areas, and the focus of library missions are shifting visibly towards the primary materials living in archival collections, this is a VERY GOOD THING.

    One of the interesting themes of Daniel’s presentation was “re-imagining description and access.” Librarians may notice the similarity to RDA: Resource Description and Access, and I suspect this is not an accidental echo. The analysis that he described, and the direction that archival description seems to be headed, bodes well for both archivists and librarians—I came away with hope that the trajectory of both efforts will result in the ability for descriptions created by either to be available to users without the necessity of the kind of mediation now required. Not without blood and angst, but perhaps within our lifetimes!

    Daniel also described the EAC-CPF, intended to provide a formal method for recording the description of record creators. I asked how this work correlated with similar efforts going on in libraries—FRAD, for instance. Daniel suggested that the inter-community dialog ought to start happening at this level, with the description of people. The first step in this has already happened, of course, with the inclusion of “Families” in RDA—a direct steal from archival description–but there are many steps yet to be taken.

    With RDA and the wonderful possibilities for bringing the archival and library communities closer together swirling in my mind, I was struck by one of Daniel’s final points, where he noted that the community was now thinking of a two-pronged approach to the post- finding aid world: permissive on the whole but with less permissive possibilities, which would tend over time to move things forward. This is surely an approach that has been discussed in the RDA world, but not yet well articulated, in my view.

    Daniel’s presentation is available on the CUL Metadata Working Group space on Cornell’s eCommons.

  • Late to the Party

    Despite the fact that I’ve been writing for years in lots of different venues—even some group blogs, I’ve never had one that was “mine” or even “partially mine.” I think part of my reticence was because I wasn’t really sure I wanted to feel that pressure, that “omigod, I haven’t posted for a week (month, year)” burden and what that might do to the pleasure I feel when I’m writing well. I also didn’t want to follow the model where everything I think, say and do, everywhere I go, etc., goes on my blog. Maybe it’s age, but I still have a sense of having some kind of private life, even in the professional sphere.

    But for the last few years I’ve been writing columns for “Technicalities,” which has, to a certain extent pushed me in a blogging direction. Most of my columns were primarily opinion, in the “thought piece” mode, and I’m pretty comfortable with that. But with all apologies to the estimable Peggy Johnson (who’s been editing it for some time and who talked me into the column), it’s just not much of a soap box. I’ve been depositing all the columns in Cornell’s eCommons IR —yeah, I know, I’m not working there anymore but as a retiree I can still use my IR account, and it’s convenient. But rarely did I get any indication that the columns got read, either in print or online. I’m an extrovert, and I need an audience—a theoretical audience doesn’t do it for me.

    I’ve often talked about my retirement from Cornell this past March being a “practice” retirement. Lord knows that my retirement accounts have tanked like everyone else’s, but even if they hadn’t I wouldn’t be able to actually retire. I have too much still to do, too much that interests me greatly about what’s going on in the world of libraries I’ve been immersed in for something like 40 years, and hell, I’m enjoying this independence. So, the challenge is to continue to be independent, AND keep food on the table, etc., without raiding my bleeding retirement accounts. I suppose I should be more worried about that than I am, but aside from the bad luck of being so close to “real” retirement age when the economy slides into the dumpster, my house and car are paid off, and I’ve no debts, so I’m doing fine, thank you very much. Now, if the consulting and workshops keep coming along, I should be able to keep traveling and pay bills … fingers crossed.

    But there’s a plan, and this blog is part of it. It’s not just “my blog” though, which is a good thing, since that takes off me a bit of that pressure to keep the conversation going. You’ll note that this blog is part of a website for an outfit called Metadata Management Associates—that’s a partnership between me and Jon Phipps, my partner in crime since my NSDL days, and whoever we decide to pull in for various projects and conspiracies. As we get this show moving, make the website a bit more functional, etc., we’ll be adding names to the list of associates we like to work with. Jon and I also post on the Registry Blog and as you might have noticed if you read that, we tend to make some of our arguments in public (those who see us at conferences also might have noticed a certain resemblance to the “Bickersons”). It’s creative argumentation, actually—it keeps us moving forward as new stuff keeps popping up to challenge our favorite assumptions.

    So what can you expect to read about on this blog? We have some projects we can talk about, and some we can’t, so we’ll talk about some of our current “talkable” projects like the NSDL Registry (we’re working on some ideas to expand that development effort—watch this space), the RDA formal representations (see the DCMI/RDA Task Group page for more info on this), digital libraries in general, changes and new developments in the library environment, etc. Jon will talk more about the technology side than I will, but that’s the good news about this blog—it’ll be a little of everything.

    So, I’ve finally made it to the party—where’s the champagne?