CDNLAO top > CDNLAO Newsletter

• Index of this issue

No. 61,  March 2008

• NLB Digital Library
• Records Creation using Dublin Core

NLB Digital Library

The mission of National Library Board (NLB) of Singapore is to provide a trusted, accessible and globally-connected library and information service so as to promote a knowledgeable and engaged society.  The earnest pursuit of this mission has brought libraries closer to patrons through better user experience in the library, and in cyberspace where online digital content and services may be accessed wherever and whenever they are needed.

In January 2005, NLB launched its first digital collection, the NLB Online Repository of Artistic Works (NORA), which showcased a digitised collection of previously unpublished works, out-of-print works or excerpts of works by prominent Singapore writers and artist(e)s.  To date, NLB Digital Library has grown substantially and provides online access to the following:

1. NORA - Online Repository of Artistic Works;
2. Databases - a total of 154;
3. ebooks, eZines and audiobooks - more than 700,000 fiction and non-fiction titles;
4. Digitised Singapore Rare Materials - a collection of cultural and historical content;
5. Singapore Pictures - Singapore local still images;
6. Singapore Infopedia - articles about Singapore;
7. Researched Guides - bibliographies, Singapore stories, Indexes contributed by NLB librarians;
8. Web Archives - more than 15,000 archived Singapore websites; and
9. Circulation services.

Records Creation using Dublin Core

NLB uses Dublin Core (DC) Metadata Schema with elements from other metadata standards to form an Application Profile to create metadata records for electronic resources.  Metadata value assignment rules are implemented based on Diane Hillman’s “Using Dublin Core”. Other tools and vocabularies are also used in record creation, these include AACR2, LCSH, LCNA, DL Taxonomy, Singapore Heritage Taxonomy, Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names, Singapore Geographic Names Thesaurus, etc.

When creating records, NLB applies the appropriate application profiles depending on the types of digital resource (text, images, websites), its domain and content.  For example, NLB has a specific application profile for websites, 22 out of the 55 elements of NLB application profiles are used to catalogue websites.  NLB Application Profiles include 3 MODS elements, DC 15 core elements and other applicable enhancements such as “Created”, “Available”, “Valid”, “Modified”, “Table of Contents”, “Abstract” etc.  

NLB chooses DC for digital resource metadata records because DC is simple, extensible, easy to learn and implement due to fewer rules required for record creation.  The other benefits of using DC are:

1.    It allows the creation of relationships among all manifestations of a work.  For example, “Napoleon’s love letter to Josephine” can be represented in various forms such as an original manuscript, word document, or in “pdf”, “jpeg” and “tiff” formats, etc.  Each manifestation of this letter has its own record and the DC Relation field links all these manifestations together to form a cluster of related DC records.

2.    DC records could be searchable by web search engines like Google and Yahoo if metadata are embedded in webpages.  DC metadata provide better precision in resource discovery and retrieval.

3.    Interoperability between schemas allows both MARC, used for print materials and DC, used for non-print to be stored in one single repository.  It also promotes sharing of repositories among various libraries and institutions.  

While there are advantages in using DC to create records, NLB is also facing some implementation issues.  One concern is the loss of information when print records are crosswalked to DC records because MARC fields are dumbed down to simple DC fields.  For example, MARC records of authors and co-authors in tag 100 and 700 respectively will appear in the DC Creator field without explicit distinction between the roles of these authors.  In addition, the implementation of One-to-One Principle imposes restriction that all information in one metadata record should only describe a single content.  As such, it could be difficult to determine, for example, whether the link of a digital content should be put in a single record if a physical book publisher also has an online version of the book.

Nonetheless, the benefits of DC still outweigh the abovementioned issues.  NLB is cognizant that there is no “one size fits all” solution in the current market and hence will continue to use DC metadata schemas to meet its needs.

Reference:

This article is based on Haliza Jailani’s “National Library Singapore Dublin Core in Practice” presented in DC2007 “Application Profiles: Theory and Practice”.