Presentation given by Kathryn Cassidy, Software Engineer, Digital Repository of Ireland, on May 11th, 2016 in the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, as part of the DRI Training Series 'Preparing Your Collection for DRI'. The seminar introduced attendees to the principles of metadata and metadata standards, with an emphasis on the standards used for ingest of collections into DRI. The seminar also introduced the subject of XML.

1. Kathryn Cassidy
Software Engineer, Digital Repository of Ireland (Trinity College Dublin)
Metadata & XML

2. Digital Repository of Ireland
DRI is a trusted digital repository for Humanities and
Social Sciences Data in Ireland, launched June 2015
• Provides preservation and access to digital
collections
• Born digital and digitised collections including
maps, photographs, letters,
audio-visual, sound, books,
oral histories, paintings..

4. https://repository.dri.ie/

5. Metadata & XML
• Define Metadata
• Identify benefits of using standards-compliant metadata
• Familiarise ourselves with XML
• Create XML Metadata by Interactive Example
By the end of this morning’s session we will have be able to do the following…

6. What is Metadata?

7. What is Metadata?
Technical metadata – hardware, software, file formats, resolution,
size
Preservation metadata – provenance, authenticity, preservation
actions, responsibility (eg. PREMIS)
Structural metadata – physical/logical structure of digital resources
(eg. METS)
Descriptive metadata – describes the digital resource; catalogue
records/finding aids

8. Human readable metadata
A handwritten or typewritten
listing or finding aid
Can be easily read and
understood
Can be accessible in physical or
digital medium
Can be free-text searched

9. Machine readable metadata
In a format that can be
understood by computers
Structured representation of
information
Described using particular
standards (eg. XML, HTML,
RDF)
Allows processing, exchange
and analysis

10. The importance of Structure & standards

11. Why use standard metadata?
Using standardised descriptive metadata means adhering to the best
practices in your domain.
Standardised metadata allows you to control how records are described
within your organisation too.
Enforcing standards allows greater searchability of your records.
Metadata sharing and interoperability is only possible when a standard is
used.
Quality metadata enables analysis, manipulation and “value-added
services”

12. Seeing Standards: A Visualization of the Metadata Universe, Jenn Riley & Devin Becker,
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/~jenlrile/metadatamap/

13. Digital Archiving in
Ireland:
National Survey of
the Humanities and
Social Sciences

14. DRI metadata guidelines
•Dublin core
and Qualified
Dublin Core
• MODS
• EAD
• MARC

15. Simple Dublin Core Metadata Element Set
1. Title
2. Creator
3. Subject
4. Description
5. Publisher
6. Contributor
7. Date
8. Type
9. Format
10. Identifier
11. Source
12. Language
13. Relation
14. Coverage
15. Rights

16. DRI metadata guidelines

17. 1. Title Ulysses
2. Creator James Joyce
3. Subject Stream of consciousness;
Modern novel;
Turn of century Dublin;
Book covers
4. Description Traces the character Leopold
Bloom as he walks around
Dublin on 16 June, 1904
Or
Scan of first edition, hard cover
5. Publisher Shakespeare and Company
6. Contributor
7. Date 1922

18. Metadata Quality Control – DRI guide
www.dri.ie/publications

19. “Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup
language that defines a set of rules for encoding
documents in a format that is both human-readable and
machine-readable. It is defined by the W3C's XML 1.0
Specification and by several other related specifications,
all of which are free open standards.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML
What is XML?
“Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup
language that defines a set of rules for encoding
documents in a format that is both human-readable and
machine-readable. It is defined by the W3C's XML 1.0
Specification and by several other related specifications,
all of which are free open standards.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML

20. Machine readable metadata
In a format that can be
understood by computers
Structured representation of
information
Described using particular
standards (eg. XML, HTML,
RDF)
Allows processing, exchange
and analysis

21. “Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup
language that defines a set of rules for encoding
documents in a format that is both human-readable and
machine-readable. It is defined by the W3C's XML 1.0
Specification and by several other related specifications,
all of which are free open standards.”
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML
What is XML?

25. <participants>
<person role="teacher">
<id>1</id>
<name>
<personalname>Kathryn</personalname>
<familyname>Cassidy</familyname>
</name>
<affiliation>DRI</affiliation>
<affiliation>TCD</affiliation>
</person>
<person role="learner">
<id>2</id>
<name>
<personalname>Clare</personalname>
<familyname>Lanigan</familyname>
</name>
<affiliation>DRI</affiliation>
<affiliation>RIA</afiliation>
</person>
....
</participants>
XML Structure
An XML document consists of a set
of elements, which can be nested
within eachother
All elements must have an opening
and closing tag of the form
<tagname>… </tagname>
Elements may also have attributes

26. <tramTicket>
<type>return</type>
<from>Central 1</from>
<to>Red 2</to>
<validUntil>Last
Tram</validUntil>
<date>31 Jul 06</date>
<for>Adult</for>
<on>Luas only</on>
<timeIssued>21:15</timeissue
d>
<price>2.90</price>
<number>6004375019</numb
er>
</tramTicket>
XML does not DO anything

27. Useful Links
W3 schools xml tutorial
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp
W3 schools xslt tutorial
http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/default.asp

28. Examples