Metadata för det digitala biblioteket : Objektbeskrivning av elektroniska resurser

Cataloguing electronic documents makes new demands on libraries. This thesis discusses the metadata formats Dublin Core and MARC which are, individually or in combination, commonly used for object description in the digital library. The formats are studied with particular emphasis on characteristics such as underlying reasoning (ambitions during the development of the formats), flexibility (possibilities of expansion and adaption to new demands) and interoperability (cooperation between different metadata formats). The formats are dealt with in their context, i.e. we discuss what types of documents the formats are meant to describe, what environment they were originally created for, what functions they are meant to fill (to find, identify, select and acquire/obtain entities), and also how these factors are related. The Swedish projects SAFARI (which uses Dublin Core) and NetSök (which uses MARC) are presented briefly. The thesis also discusses tools for co-ordination between formats; Z39.50 and RDF. A short survey of OCLC´s CORC-project exemplifies co-ordination put to practice. Cornerstones in the construction of functional metadata are simplicity, flexibility, interoperability and standardization. Simplicity and flexibility guarantee that the format is easy to use, and fulfils universal description. At the same time it can be developed to satisfy the specific description needs of individual projects or institutions, such as libraries. The standardization, in turn, guarantees that there is no need to centralize the cataloguing work, and it is also an important condition for interoperability with other collections. The functional metadata format makes it possible for the library to share and copy catalogues. After elaborating on these issues we focus more specifically on a library perspective in the second part of the thesis. We discuss the digital library and the issues that arise when libraries build up repositories for electronic resources. Setting out from the strategy for cataloguing electronic materials that is currently being developed for Lund University Library we finally recommend a combined model: where cross-searchable catalogues using MARC and Dublin Core coexist. We also recommend different description levels for printed and more transitory electronic resources