The full metadata record I found, on the Flinders University website, as requested. Whew, this is pretty intense stuff. I am getting the general idea, but the topics so far seem to be creating more questions than they answer. That's how life should be though isn't it :)

Full metadata record
DC Field Value Language
dc.contributor.author Zott, Debra -
dc.date.accessioned 2011-05-26T06:48:07Z -
dc.date.available 2011-05-26T06:48:07Z -
dc.date.issued 2011-04 -
dc.identifier.citation Zott, D. 2011. How leaders emerge in realtime. InCite, 32 (4), p. 12. en_US
dc.identifier.issn 0158–0876 -
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2328/23534 -
dc.description.abstract Discussions about leadership training generally raise the objection that leadership cannot be taught or learned, because true leaders are born. While there is an element of truth in this, training programs can be effective in developing library professionals who aspire to management roles, or who wish to increase their strategic awareness. en_US
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher ALIA en_US
dc.subject Leadership en_US
dc.subject Academic Libraries en_US
dc.title How leaders emerge in realtime en_US
dc.type Article en_US
Appears in Collections: Staff Publications

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Having a go at Metadata

We have been asked to have a go at coming up with what we think are the important data attributes for our textbook and for a given website (i.e. what we think people might use to try to locate it). I have a feeling this may be an interesting exercise - I wonder if what I think now would be different to what I would come up with at the end of this subject...

Firstly, a book (Hider, 2008):
Author
Year of publication
Title
Publisher
Colour of binding (if they remember that it was blue, but cannot remember what it was called)
ISBN
Overview of content
Key/tag words. In this case things like: information organisation, metadata, cataloguing, digital information resources, tagging, Web 2.0, Resource Description and Access, RDA, information retrieval systems, bibliographic description, bibliographic data, subject access, classification, standards, OPACs.

Secondly, a website (Handpress - I am not sure if it is intended that we analyse this page or the one it links to):
URL
Creator (changed from Author)
Title
Date most recently updated
Overview of content
Key/tag words. E.g. handpress, printing, presswork, books...

I am unsure as to whether I have completed this task correctly. I originally collected the actual information and included it with the aspects I had outlined, and I am not convinced that we are not supposed to do that, but at this point I think that will take time and not really teach me anything that I don't already know, so I will leave it as is and move onto the next activity.

Reference

Hider, P (with Harvey, R) 2008, Organising knowledge in a global society, rev. edn. Wagga Wagga, NSW: Centre for Information Studies.

A rough transcription - my interpretation

For one of our exercises for ETL505 we had to listen to a recording of the metadata librarian of the State Library of QLD. It sounds like she has done an amazing job and works very hard, and she had some interesting things to say about her role - but she was rather difficult for me to understand. Because of this I have tried to write down what she said in the talk. I may not have gotten it all right, so please let me know if this is the case, but I have written down what she said as I understand it (in my own words).

I found one of her papers online and I this made me think maybe some of the words I couldn't understand were 'Dublin Core'... Had a read of the abstract and it gave me a bit more of an idea of what she was talking about:

In her first role she had to do research to decide which was the best outline for metadata standards for the QLD state library. She had to write a paper justifying the use of Dublin Core outlines for web resource description. She created the outline and implementation plan for metadata at the QLD library. She stays informed of trends, monitors development of international standards (including Dublin Core), and Australian and QLD ones. She keeps the website up to date. She revises the metadata guidelines when there are changes, and provides workshops to address these changes. She doesn't decide on the individual terms used for each item, there are people who do that. She also attends conferences, and writes papers and for journals.

Now I need to investigate what Dublin Core is, because I don't think I know yet...

Libraries, museums and archives

I now need to think/talk about the difference between these three information outlets, using the following prompts:

What information is each dealing with?
Libraries predominantly print texts, though other things too; Museums predominantly 3D objects, though they "theoretically have no limit"; Archives predominantly records. There are objects which could be found in all three, but usually the purpose of your search would take you to one in particular.

How different is it?
These types of information are different in that the metatdata they have varies - they cannot necessarily be entered into the system the same way. Where print resources generally have things such as an author, title and year of publication to describe them, items in a museum or archive generally have less concrete descriptors.

How does it change what information we might want to organise and retrieve?
As stated above, there is some crossover between objects found in each institution, but usually you would go to the one which will primarily deal with the type of information you are after, for example if you are looking for family history, you are more likely to go to an archive than a library. Whilst libraries can still have information on family history, they are likely to allow archives to concentrate on organising records. This makes it easier for the cataloguers/archivers, as well as for the consumers.