Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat is a collection? UKOLN defines a collection as "an aggregation of physical and/or electronic items. e.g. library collections; museum collections; archives; library, museum and archival catalogues; digital archives; Internet directories; Internet subject gateways; collections of text; images; sounds; datasets; software etc. A collection may be made up of any number of items from one to many." What is a digital collection? Contents of a digital collection might include:
Examples of digital collections include:
* Comprising the sub-collections OMNI, Vetgate, Biores, Natural and Agrifor What is a physical collection? Contents of a physical collection might include:
Examples of physical collections:
What is a Service or Product? A service (or product) is a means of providing access to a digital collection. This includes:
What is a Collection Description? A Collection Description is a written description of the contents of a collection based on a standard information structure. UKOLN defines a Collection Description as "a description of a collection which provides information about the collection as a whole rather than individual items within a collection." How long does it take to write one? The length of time depends on how experienced you are in writing Collection Descriptions, the quality of the information available to you, your familiarity with the MICHAEL and Cornucopia systems, and how much preparation you have been able to do in advance. Initially, it is likely that you could spend between 1-2 hours writing a Description assuming that you have suitable source material to work from. Once you are more familiar with the process it is possible to write 8-10 Descriptions a day. How many do I need to write? This depends on your collections and your aims in creating the Descriptions. For many smaller institutions and projects, one Description is sufficient to describe the contents of the collections. For larger institutions with many, clearly-defined collections, it is useful to provide a Description of each. Does this cover digital collections adequately? It is equally important not to create too many descriptions of sub-collections. Collection Descriptions are useful precisely because you don't need to go into the same depth of detail as you would with individual item descriptions. When deciding whether to create a record for a sub-collection a useful rule-of-thumb to consider is how members of the public will be able to access it. For example, if your organisation has created a thematic digital collection that is available through a web-page with a URL that you can advertise it may be useful to create a sub-collection record. How long do they need to be? Some elements of the Collection Description allow you to enter an unlimited amount of free-text description. It is important to remember that people are less willing to spend time reading large amounts of text on screen, so descriptions should be kept short and relevant. The length of your Collection Descriptions will also be defined by the audience you are communicating with and the size and complexity of the collection being described. It is useful to spend some time browsing MICHAEL and Cornucopia records to get a feel for the average length of a Collection Description. This will also help you to develop you descriptive style. How do I know what audience to write for? This is a difficult question to answer. Collecton Descriptions are designed to be published across the Internet and in a variety of different contexts, so you will not always know who is going to be reading them. It is best to think of Collection Description as a broadcast medium. In this context, it is important to develop an idea of a generic 'level' of audience to whom you are communicating, for example an 'intelligent twelve-year old' and to write accordingly. More information on this important topic is provided in the [Style Guide]. How often do they have to be updated? One advantage of describing your holdings at collection-level is that the information does not usually need frequent or wide-ranging revisions. It is quite rare to have to rewrite a Collection Description from scratch in response to changes in the collection. But collections may grow, for example as a result of new digitisation projects and it is important to keep the information up-to-date. It is also important that the associated information is kept up-to-date. For example, both MICHAEL and Cornucopia offer the option to publish your opening hours and information about the availability of the collection through services or products. It is important to remember that, when this information changes or when you develop a new web-site or web-service, you need to update your records in the system to reflect the change. Your Descriptions will be included in information provided through national and international information services such as the People's Network Services and MICHAEL's European portal . For this reason, you should approach Collection Description as you would any other published information about your organisation. Why should I invest the resources in doing them? Collection Descriptions are a powerful tool for marketing your organisation and for promoting your collections. Both MICHAEL and Cornucopia have been designed to make the process of creating Descriptions as painless as possible, and you should not have to invest extensive resources to ensure that your collections are represented. The Collection Description Service (CDS) is a model for publishing information. This information reaches a wider audience than just the traditional users of library, archive and museum services. it makes good economic sense to invest limited resources to create Descriptions within the existing framework which can then be shared out to a potentially global audience. Who owns the copyright on my Descriptions? You will be asked to agree that your Collection Descriptions be made available through the Creative Commons Licence. This means that you are granting a licence to allow people to download, read and re-use your Collection Description on a non-commercial basis or as the basis of study. What is Creative Commons? Creative Commons is a new approach to copyright which seeks to encourage people to make use of conent. It is based on the idea that you can use a licence to permit people to do certain things with your content. All content in the Collection Description Service is governed by a Creative Commons licence called an [Attribution - Non-commercial - Sharealike] licence. This means that other people can use your description so long as they credit MICHAEL as the source of the information and do not use it for commercial purposes. It also means that, if they pas it on to another 3rd party, these requirements will also transfer onto that 3rd party. You can find out more about the Creative Commons movement by visiting [http://www.creativecommons.org] |