THEME 10

Creating metadata: providing

access to the description

INL 120
 Information needs to be found and retrieved in order
to be used.

Retrieval tools
Retrieval tools are systems for retrieving information.
They contain records that are surrogates for
documents / information packages / information
objects.

# When users initiate a search or browse in a digital library, they are often presented with lists or displays that summarize the
digital objects themselves. These summaries are known as document surrogates, which are concise displays that represent
the actual object, typically using some of its metadata.
Bibliographies
 Lists of information packages.
 Bibliographies are essential to scholars and others
involved professionally with information sources
 Bring together lists of sources of information based on
authors, titles, time periods etc.
 Various types:
 Subject bibliography
# Subject bibliographies are books or pamphlets with bibliographic listings of works about a single subject. They're different
from the bibliographies that you find at the end of a book or research paper. A subject bibliography contains bibliographic
information about everything (of quality) that's ever been written about a topic. This includes all the books, periodicals,
pamphlets, journals and works in other languages. The subject might be an area of literature, a person or a time in history,
but the potential topic areas are endless.

 Author bibliography
 Time period
 Locale
 Publishers lists of all products of particular publisher
Form
Catalogues
 Provide access to individual items in a collection
 Description of items done according to a standard style selected by a
particular community e.g. AACR2 for libraries, Dublin Core for Internet
sources etc.
 Purpose of Catalogues:
 To enable retrieval of items or information about the item.
 If user knows what he/she wants can search for it under author, title etc.
Or search for subject/keyword
 In online catalogues keyword searches are useful for helping a person
find a record that looks as if it may be what is needed on the topic.
 Acts as an inventory of a collection- to provide a record/list of what is
owned by the institution.
Union catalogue represents holdings of more than one institution.
 The Internet may someday serve as a giant union catalogue for the world.
At the moment however, users still have to search individual catalogues.
Ideal is a sophisticated system with seamless interface among catalogues.
# A catalogue is a complete list of items, typically one in alphabetical or other systematic order, in particular. Example; a list
of all the books or resources in a library or a ‘computerized library catalogue’
It is a publication containing details of items for sale, especially one produced by a mail-order company.
Or for example; a list of works of art in an exhibition or collection, with detailed comments and explanations.
Indexes
“An orderly guide to the intellectual content … of records… and the
aim of the index is to lead… to previously detected information”
(Cleveland & Cleveland, 1990: 26).
 Provide access to the analysed content of information sources.
 Back-of-book indexes are not retrieval tools in the sense that
we are using the word as they are prepared at the time of
publication and not at a later time in an effort to provide
bibliographic control.
 Indexes that are retrieval tools give access to document in a
tool separate from the source being analysed.
 Indexes found in print and electronic format
 They tend to be created by for-profit organisations. Often

there is a charge for using the online versions directly. Print or
online versions are sold to libraries for example so that their
users have access. (SSCI, SCI, etc.)
Search engines
 Search engines are tools developed for computer systems,
specifically the Internet. They were developed for the purpose
of searching full text documents for particular words or
phrases.
 They may produce results that are as intellectually satisfactory
as the results from other retrieval tools.
 However, users often report satisfaction because they found
something related to what they were searching and find it fast
But do not know if what was found is authentic, authoritative, or
the best available on the topic.
 Search engines are becoming more and more sophisticated e.g.
Google “did you mean …” in response to misspelled word.
Directories
 Involve the use of human indexers to add subject
terms and categorise records. Often according to
hierarchies which differ from directory to directory.
 Subject directories focus on particular subject area
and are often constructed by academic libraries,
sometimes working in groups.
 Means of access
The issue of “aboutness”
 Not always so easy to say what an information
package is about.
 E.g. Book on History of sociology is about the
discipline of sociology, but is more specifically about
sociology from an historical perspective, but not
about the discipline of history.
Subject access
 Verbal methods of providing access to information
packages
 Gives a random alphabetical approach to the
concepts inherent in documents.
Vocabulary control
 Keyword searching e.g. on search engines alone does not
suffice as users become frustrated with so many hits when
searching.
 Also people writing about the same concepts do not
always use the same words to express them
 People searching for the same concepts do not think of
the same word to search for it
Need controlled vocabulary:
 To reconcile all the various possible words that can be
used to express a concepts
 To differentiate among all the possible meanings that can
be attached to certain words – synonyms, homonyms (each
of two words having the same pronunciation but different meanings,
origins, or spelling (e.g., to, too, and two) etc.
Controlled vocabulary falls into three categories:
1. Subject heading lists
 Subject heading lists have been created largely in library
communities.
 Among the best-known and most-used subject heading lists are
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Sears List of Subject
Headings (Sears) and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
2. Thesauri
 Thesauri have been created largely in indexing communities.
 They are more strictly hierarchical than lists of subject headings.
 They are narrower in scope – usually limited to one subject area.
 Are often multilingual.
 There are many thesauri for different subject areas.
3. Ontologies
 An ontology defines the terms used to describe and represent an
area of knowledge.
Classification
 Bibliographic classification is basically categorising by means
of notation.
 Provides a methodical approach to concepts in a document.
 Traditionally provided formal, orderly access to shelves.
 In online environment it is being used to bring order out of
chaos and to provide hierarchical means for browsing for
relevant resources.
 Purpose of classification is to bring related items together in a
helpful sequence – from the general to the specific. Convenient
e.g. all the histories of the country, or all items on a composer,
or all his symphonies etc.
 The ultimate aim of classification of sources is to lead a user of
information to the information packages required.
# Classification is a method of paragraph or essay development in which a writer arranges people, objects, or ideas with
shared characteristics into classes or groups. A classification essay often includes examples and other supporting details that
are organized according to types, kinds, segments, categories, or parts of a whole.

The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system is

the world’s most widely used library classification
system.
 You can use the DDC in several convenient

formats. The four-volume print edition includes

thousands of updates added to the system over
the past seven years.
 The electronic version, WebDewey enhances
the print updates with online delivery that is
updated continuously.
Classes
 000 – Computer science, information & general works
 100 – Philosophy and psychology
 200 – Religion
 300 – Social sciences
 400 – Language
 500 – Science
 600 – Technology
 700 – Art and recreation
 800 – Literature
 900 – History, geography and biography