Ensuring Interoperable Digital Object Management Metadata in Scotland : Report of the SLIC-funded CMS Metadata Interoperability Project : Findings, Conclusions, and Guidelines for Best Practice

Nicholson, Dennis and Macgregor, George (2006) Ensuring Interoperable Digital Object Management Metadata in Scotland : Report of the SLIC-funded CMS Metadata Interoperability Project : Findings, Conclusions, and Guidelines for Best Practice. University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

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Abstract

As in other parts of the developed world, digital resources are being created in ever increasing numbers by a growing range of archives, libraries, museums, and other organisations in the Scottish Common Information Environment (SCIE). Interoperability in respect of the often complex metadata required to manage digital materials is a prerequisite of providing seamless and long-term access to distributed resources for users, optimising resource re-usability, and maximising value from scarce funding and staffing resources. Recognising this, SLIC4 funded the CMS Metadata Interoperability Project5 to survey the Scottish scene, research and analyse the issues, identify a 'safe path' towards ensuring interoperability in the area, and formulate guidelines for best practice as a basis for implementing it. This report summarises the results of the study under four headings: 1. Study Findings and Conclusions. 2. Guidelines for Best Practice: National SCIE-wide Actions. 3. Guidelines for Best Practice: Institution or Sub-SCIE Group Actions. 4. Appendices (including lists of participants and references, and a glossary). The study concludes that a prescriptive approach to ensuring interoperability of digital object metadata in the SCIE is both difficult and inadvisable and proposes instead: 1. The development of an informed 'interoperability consciousness' in key staff as the best route forward, with the guidelines provided in the body of the report, the associated support website, the OSIAF6 infrastructure, and relevant training programmes, as key mechanisms. 2. Strengthening this through the publication and dissemination of a series of advisory notes on a range of key interoperability issues. These would be indicative rather than prescriptive, but would have the authority of the OSIAF-backed Cultural Technical Group (CTG)7 behind them. It also proposes the creation of a Scottish Metadata Registry as a tool to encourage, enhance, and support interoperability in this important area.

ORCID iDs

Nicholson, Dennis and Macgregor, George ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8482-3973;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)