METADATA Question

[Mark McFarland]

Robert H. Terry wrote:

> Bob Terry's BIDM Motion passed by IEEE (as submitted by RIG),
> 
> It is now an IEEE standard produced by RIG, it is the BIDM for software
> reuse, it represents a consensus amongst software libraries for a Standard
> data model of METADATA.

Bob,

There is lots of discussion about metadata among librarians and 
much of it centers on how to/whether or not to/is it appropriate to/
adapt MARC standard to metadata for digital objects.  There are a number
of efforts (and I just learned about 2 more from you)
to handle the problem of creating metadata for digital objects.
The ones I am aware of are the Dienst protocol 
(http://www.ncstrl.org/Dienst/htdocs/Info/protocol4.html) being 
used by the NCSTRL project which - which deals with publishing/
cataloging computer science technical reports.

Then, there is the Los Alamos project (http://xxx.lanl.gov/)
which is an e-print archive with its own scheme for handling
electronic texts related to physics.

There is the GILS (Government Information Locator Service that
has developed its own method for handling metadata for the 
objects and resources it wishes to index.

Then, there is MARC (machine readable cataloging
http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/) which has been an essential tool
for catalogers in creating digital records for *traditionally printed*
materials.  

Anyway, this is where I am focussing my attention more and more
as we build our digital library.  

Hope this sheds some light...

Mark



Mark McFarland
Head, Electronic Information Programs Office
University of Texas at Austin, General Libraries
512-495-4358  /  mac at eipo.lib.utexas.edu