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Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 14:56:40 +0100
From: Jan Smits <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: RE: WEB INDEX MAP IMAGES
As for web-indexing there is definitely a role for documentary institutions in
being exemplary when putting map-images on the web themselves as well as
educating others who have not their professional background.
There are several possibilities. Either the map-interested community
creates its own indexes or they ride along with mainstream developments.
As some of us know a lot of work has been put in the Internet
description format called "Dublin Core". After several workshops in the
past years the format is
being finalized in such a way that it can be used professionally. For those not
with a documentary background: a format gives rules how certain data should be
coded in order that search engines can retrieve them. The Dublin Core consists
of the following 15 elements:
Title The name of the resource.
Subject The topic addressed by the resource.
Description A textual description of the content of the resource
Source Objects, either print or electronic, from
which this object is derived, if
applicable.
Language Language of the intellectual content.
Relation Relationship to other resources.
Coverage The spatial location and/or temporal duration
characteristics of the resource.
Creator The person(s) or organization primarily
responsible for creating the intellectual
content of the resource.
Publisher The agent or agency responsible for making
the object available in its current form.
Contributor The person(s), such as editors, transcribers,
and illustrators who have made other
significant intellectual contributions to
the work.
Rights A rights management statement
Date The date associated with the creation or
availability of the resource.
Type The genre of the object, such as novel, poem,
dictionary, etc.
Format The physical manifestation of the object,
such as PostScript file or Windows
executable file.
Identifier String or number used to uniquely identify
the object.
[the element 'Coverage' has been extensively discussed by one of the
Alexandria Digital Library Developement Teams. See: URL:
http://alexandria.sdc.ucsb.edu/public-documents/metadata/dc_coverage.html
ADL is a electronic library for geospatial resources and one of the most
advanced electronic libraries presently]
For encoding Dublin Core Elements a special DTD has been developed. For more
information see URL: http://purl.oclc.org/dc/
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has begun implementing an architecture for
metadata for the Web. The Resource Description Framework, or RDF, is designed
to support the many different metadata needs of vendors and information providers.
For more information on spatial metadata see my forthcoming article Metadata, an
introduction in the next double issue of the Cataloguing and Classification
Quarterly (ISSN 0163-9374), edited by Mary Larsgaard and Paige Andrew and
intended as a manual for American map-catalogers.
It is strongly suggested that either the Dublin Core (DC) or one of the other
resource description models in existence is used for electronic sources which
are put on the Internet. The DC-data should be included or attached to the
electronic resource in order that special search engines (and more and more are
developed for this use) can index these data and make them available to browsers.
Many organizations are creating templates for creating metadata which are more
intelligent to non-professional users in order that the metadata is encoded in
the right way. For initiatives in this see URL:
http://purl.oclc.org/dc/tools/index.htm.
I strongly suggests that those who want to involve themselves in creating indexes
of map-resources on the Internet first read up on available Internet literature
before starting to develop some tools which might already be available.
One should not, however, equate DC with ISBD. Though the site Russian Cartography
of The Baltic Sea: Eighteenth Century (http://www.karttaikkuna.fi/Russia/) is
well documented, the ISBD-elements cannot be indexed except as full-texts because
the separate elements do not have distinct encodings like in a MARC-format.
[Machine Readable Catalogue].
If a cartographic items is described in a MARC-database, scanned and put on the
Internet the best way to provide documentation is including the ISBD as part of
the visible item and converting the MARC-record to a DC-record and adding this
to the file. This is already possible for some MARC's as there exist already
several crosswalks like DC-->USMARC and USMARC-->DC [For those interested there
are also crosswalks for FGDC-->USMARC and USMARC-->FGDC].
I hope sincerely that we all propagate the tools made available within the
library- and documentation world as they are for a big part developed to aid
international exchange and co-operation.
Jan Smits
Map Curator Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of The Netherlands
SKD: Department for Cartographical Documentation
P.O. Box 90.407
2509 LK Den Haag
The Netherlands
tel: +31 70 3140241
fax: +31 70 3140450
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
E-mail: [log in to unmask] (encoded)
President Groupe des Cartothecaires de LIBER (GdC, European Map Curators Group)
Chairman Working Group for Mapcuratorship, Dutch Cartographic Society (NVK)
IFLA Representative for the ICA Commission on Standards for the Transfer of Spatial Data
WWW-SKD: http://www.konbib.nl/kb/skd/karto-en.html
WWW-GdC: http://www.konbib.nl/kb/skd/liber/intro.htm
WWW-personal: http://www.konbib.nl/persons/jan-smits/homepage.htm
Na matheis kai na matheis ap'tous spoudasmenous
(To learn and still to learn from those who know
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