[Metadata] EDItEUR Metadata Newsletter

["Brian Green" <brian@bic.org.uk>]

Yes, the EDItEUR metadata mailing list still exists. We have been quiet
since last autumn awaiting the outcome of a number of related projects which
the EDItEUR Metadata Group has either inspired or influenced, the INDECS
project, EPICS (the EDItEUR Product Information Communication Standards),
the DOI metadata activities and the Vista / Yankee / Xerox rights project.

Now that these projects are bearing fruit, we thought it might be useful to
provide this modest newsletter to brief you on progress and invite your
comments.

1. The INDECS (Interoperability of Data in E-Commerce Systems) Project is a
truly cross-media and international project in which EDItEUR represents the
publishing and library sectors. The project aims to develop a framework of
standards and service specifications to support electronic commerce in
intellectual property, including a rights metadata model for describing and
uniquely identifying creations, the people, businesses and organisations who
create and trade in them and the rights agreements they make. The draft
rights metadata model has just been posted on the INDECS web site
www.indecs.org.uk

Following discussions and interventions at last year's Dublin Core meeting
in Washington, INDECS and The Dublin Core community have agreed to
collaborate on compatibility between the new version of the Dublin Core and
the INDECS model.

The project is organising a conference on 7 and 8 July in London to present
and facilitate evaluation of its work and details are being sent to list
subscribers.

2. The EPICS (EDItEUR Product Information Communication Standards) data
dictionary is the product of the Title Information Project, originally
sponsored by Baker & Taylor, Book Data, Bowker, Ingram, OCLC and Whitaker.
The first draft is available from www.bic.org.uk/ddinfo.html. In its new
version, available in early May 1999, it will be entirely compatible with
the INDECS data model and is also being expanded to include serial products.

The data dictionary will be invaluable to publishers and other organisations
updating their product database design and is likely to become an
international standard for the exchange of book and serials trade product
information.

Work is currently in progress on both XML DTDs and EDIFACT implementation
guidelines for the transmission of product information, based on the EPICS
data dictionary.

3. The International DOI Foundation (IDF) is proposing a DOI 'Kernel'
metadata set based on the INDECS model and associated with each DOI entity
at the time of its registration, to enable the construction and
implementation of DOI applications. The IDF also proposes adding a multiple
resolution protocol to the DOI, which would enable some services to be
standardised and fully automated.

There have been interesting discussions about the extent of the Kernel,
whether submission of the metadata will be mandatory and on what basis it
will be made available. The paper, 'The DOI initiative: metadata
implications' by Norman Paskin and Godfrey Rust, can be found at
www.doi.org/P2VER3.PDF and its companion paper on 'DOI Metadata Princilples'
at www.doi.org/META-PRIN.PDF


4. The informal Vista/Yankee Rights/Xerox project was set up following the
EDItEUR Metadata Workshop in New York last summer with a view to testing the
EDItEUR metadata group's rights classifications, exploring how publishers
can provide the necessary information to feed an automated rights system and
explore user interfaces.

Vista and Yankee report that they have now completed the first part of the
project. This allows some data (mainly basic title information and some
commercial data) to be transferred directly from Vista systems to Yankee
systems. It also allows transactional data to be sent directly from Yankee
systems to Vista systems, once Yankee's systems have made a sale. All data
transferred is expressed in XML and could be the basis for standards in this
area. They have not been able to transfer detailed rights metadata because
of the lack of standards - an area that the EDItEUR Metadata Group, in
collaboration with the INDECS project is now progressing as a matter of
urgency.

------------
Brian Green
BIC / EDItEUR
39-41 North Road
London N7 9DP
Tel: +44 (0)171-607 0021
Fax: +44 (0)171-607 0415
email: brian@bic.org.uk


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