People's Network
How to contribute
Each of the content areas within Discover will continue to grow as the sector engages more with the technologies and standards that underpin Discover.
Below are ways to support content development for each of the different types of information in Discover.
Item information
This area of content will grow through funding programmes such as Renaissance and the Designation Challenge Fund and individual initiatives with cultural organisations. (If you know of digital projects whose items you think people would like to access from Discover please contact staff@peoplesnetwork.gov.uk with further details, including urls).
Requirements for connecting item information into Discover (available to download as Word .doc)
Item information, (about individual objects etc), should be made available to Discover via the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting, (OAI-PMH).
This means organisations seeking to connect item information into Discover should provide an OAI ‘repository’ with records conforming to the ‘application profile’ for Discover.
OAI
OAI repository functions may be available on existing collections / content management systems, or from suppliers of such systems, or could be added on to existing systems by in-house or contracted developers.
All Information on setting up an OAI repository and OAI-PMH in general is at: http://www.openarchives.org/
Guidelines on setting up an OAI repository are at: http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/guidelines-repository.htm
Tools to set up an OAI repository are at: http://www.openarchives.org/pmh/tools/tools.php
OAI implementation advice is available from http://www.openarchives.org/mailman/listinfo/OAI-implementers
The Discover ‘profile’
The Discover ‘profile’, developed by UKOLN, supports user-centred search and retrieve, including ‘who; what; where; when’ access and is Dublin Core based.
All information on the 'application profile' for Discover is at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/pns/pndsdcap/
A description of the XML format for encoding item-level metadata records for harvesting by Discover is at: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/pns/pndsdcxml/
It includes pointers to a set of XML Schemas: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/pns/pndsdcxml/2005-06-13/xmls/
The schema to be referenced from instance documents is: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/pns/pndsdcxml/2005-06-13/xmls/pndsdc.xsd
A spreadsheet to map information structures to the ‘profile’ for Discover (& simple Dublin Core) is available for download.
Notes on mapping process:
Drafting a ' mapping' using the spreadsheet should be an initial step as part of supplying informtion into Discover
People best placed to draft mappings are those most familiar with the information structure and content being mapped e.g. Collection / Data / Information Managers etc
Draft mappings should be sent to staff@peoplesnetwork.gov.uk for review.
Notes on other ways to connect item information into Discover:
Other standards based means of providing item information, if already available, such as SRU / SRW or Z39.50 can be accepted to connect into Discover.
A Data Upload Tool is also available for content that is either static or very infrequently updated, or where setting up an OAI repository is unfeasible.
Contact staff@peoplesnetwork.gov.uk to discuss any issues regarding adding item content to Discover.
The above information regarding requirements for connecting item information into Discover is also available to download.
Collections information
This content area will grow through the Collection Description Service initiative and via programmes such as Renaissance and projects such as Subject Specialist Networks and Inspire etc
Collection Description Services include Cornucopia (for physical collection description) and MICHAEL-UK (for digital collection description)
Staff in the sector can directly add collection descriptions to these service.
Contact Cornucopia or MICHAEL-UK directly to manage collection descriptions for your organisation.
Organisation information, (e.g. for Find a Library)
This information is primarily managed by organisations themselves, via the Collection Description services above.
News (RSS)
Contact staff@peoplesnetwork.gov.uk with details of RSS news feeds from your organisation, or elsewhere, that you think people would like to access through Discover.
Web Links
Contact staff@peoplesnetwork.gov.uk with details of general interest web sites that you think people would like to access from Discover. Please include a url and which Web Links subject the site falls into. Alternatively, provide details of web site records you hold locally, the systems they are in and how they could be made available to Discover.