In trying to provide access to videogame materials for scholars, collecting organizations must build standards for building and structuring collections, and in turn information professionals must assess the information needs of users. In order to begin the assessment, this paper presents a content analysis of scholarly videogame articles. The results of the analysis will provide the basis for structuring videogame archives, libraries, or databases. Metadata schemas are important to access, and to collecting. That metadata will aid patrons is widely accepted, but too often schemas and vocabularies are based on only experts’ opinions without taking into account patrons’ ideas of what is important. To address this dearth, the content analysis presented in this paper combines historical ideas of metadata standards from expert archivists with an analysis of what themes are important, common, and sought for in the literature of videogame scholars, who are the likely users of videogame collections. / text

This research project explains the birth and evolution of an information repository called XTMdb whose basic principles are intended to integrate complementary tagging languages such as: SKOS; MODS, Dublin Core and/or GILS with the paradigm of topic maps. Once the information processing was completed, the repository was tested by means of an efficient information retrieval process which allows the information resources description to be extended in real time. This allowed to obtain greater expressivity, independence in relation to the tagging language, as well as improved searches since the search can be centred on the topic concept. Certain other aspects remain outstanding such as: the topic maps paradigm can provide added value visual information, the development of a support system decision is easy and soft-computing techniques can solve a considerable amount of problems in relation to the information retrieval process.

Very few Indian biomedical journals have found place in international databases due to various reasons like delayed / irregular publishing, lack of quality articles, etc. The National Library of Medicineâ s (NLM, USA) MEDLINE database covers approximately 50 Indian journals. As far as the full-text of these journals are concerned, MEDLINE has only covered three Indian journals. The ICMR-NIC Centre for Biomedical Information, the 17th International MEDLARS Centre has been catering to the biomedical information needs of the medical professionals since 1986. One of the tasks undertaken by the Centre is to meet the glaring and obvious â unavailabilityâ of Indian biomedical research literature. Hence, the Centre took up the challenging task to develop databases of Indian biomedical journals and provide a platform for making this literature available to the Indian as well as international medical community. One such database developed is the IndMED, which covers the bibliographic details from 75 peer reviewed Indian biomedical journals. IndMED has received a lot of recognition and the Centre strives to keep this database at par with the MEDLINE database. The 2nd database being developed is the Online full-text database of Indian biomedical journals, medIND, which would cover the full-text of IndMED journals and serve as one vital resource for all Indian biomedical literature.

Prepared for EAD@10: A Symposium Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Encoded Archival Description.

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In light of the massive growth of creation and consumption of video, in this thesis I explore the concept of user-enhanced video browsing and evaluate the quantitative and qualitative effects of this approach. For this purpose, I create a unique prototype based on the VLC media player. The player interprets user-generated video tagging and annotations in my designed format, and allows the viewing of multiple event layers to create a personalized video playback. I perform evaluations in two user studies for this work. Among my observations I find benefits in navigation, personalization, consumption, and comprehension. I then look at the way viewers behave when contributing data of annotations and tagging. I find their preferred tasks, their perceived quality of other contributions, as well as their opinions on this system. I conclude with a discussion of the results and list possible use-cases for this concept.

This dissertation presents a new metadata design, as part of a large digitization management system being developed, to assist in the consistent creation of digital libraries of phonograph records. The Metadata provides digital libraries with an effective tool for the description, discovery, management, control, delivery, and sharing of digital objects of phonograph record. The metadata design is the outcome of two pilot projects for the digitization of phonograph records that took place at the Marvin Duchow Music Library at McGill University. The new design offers an approach to maintaining and using digital sound and ensures the long-term viability of digital libraries of phonograph records. / The dissertation discusses key areas of preservation and addresses the most common retrieval problems of music in digital libraries. These problems include challenges in the digital context of bibliographic control, cataloging, distribution, and copyright protection. The dissertation revisits traditional cataloging approaches, summarizes historical music cataloging and metadata development, sets up preservation principles and rationales for digitizing phonograph records, and presents state-of-the-art techniques for preserving phonograph records in the digital domain. / The dissertation contains three main parts. The first is an introduction to the new metadata design for phonograph records. The second is a metadata dictionary, which assigns precise syntactic and semantic meanings to metadata elements, to guide digitizers working in libraries, archives, museums, and heritage sectors. These will be followed by two case studies of phonograph record digitization projects using the Metadata and the Data Dictionary. The dissertation concludes by examining three challenges that are critical to future development in both the preserving of and access to phonograph records: the issue of interoperability between different metadata standards, the need for usability and quality evaluation of digitization management systems, and the importance of further development in digital library retrieval services and tools.

Usar metadatos para referenciar, etiquetar y describir recursos es cada vez más usual. Esto permite establecer mejores mecanismos para descubrir y localizar material publicado en repositorios públicos accesibles por la Red. Se están llevando a cabo diversas iniciativas para establecer estándares para esquemas de metadatos, pero cada una se centra en sus propios requerimientos a la hora de definir los atributos, su significado, los posibles valores que pueden tomar y la relación entre ellos. Desde el punto de vista del usuario que pretende buscar recursos en distintos entornos, esto constituye un problema real, porque le obliga a disponer de las herramientas apropiadas para cada caso, o ser consciente de las diferencias que existen entre ellos. En este trabajo de tesis se presenta y valida un modelo de interoperabilidad entre diferentes esquemas de metadatos en el plano semántico, adecuado para entornos de búsqueda de material, cuya principal aportación es que ofrece dicha interoperabilidad de forma transparente. Ni los proveedores de contenidos, que son los que ofrecen los metadatos, ni los usuarios, que son los que los consultan, tienen que ser conscientes de su existencia, permitiendo así que todos los actores presentes en el sistema sigan usando su propio esquema de metadatos. Para ello, el modelo requiere de la presencia de un agente externo que lo implemente. / Fer servir metadades per a referenciar, etiquetar i descriure recursos és cada cop més usual. Això permet establir millors mecanismes per a descobrir i localitzar material publicat en repositoris públics accessibles per la xarxa. S'estan duent a terme diverses iniciatives per a establir estàndards per a esquemas de metadades, però cada un es centra en els seus propis requeriments a l'hora de definir els atributs, el seu significat, els possibles valors que poden tenir, i la relació entre ells. Des del punt de vista de l'usuari que pretén buscar recursos a diferents entorns, això esdevé un problema real, perquè li obliga a disposar de les eines apropiades per a cada cas, o ser conscient de les diferències que existeixen entre els diferents entorns.En aquest treball de tesi es presenta i valida un model d'interoperabilitat entre diferents esquemes de metadades en el pla semàntic, adequat per a entorns de cerca de material, la principal aportació del qual és que ofereix aquesta interoperabilitat de forma transparent. Ni els proveïdors de continguts, que són els que ofereixen les metadades, ni els usuaris, que són els que les consulten, han de ser conscients de la seva existència, permetent així que tots els actors presents al sistema segueixin emprant el seu propi esquema de metadades. Per a fer-ho, el model requereix la presència d'un agent extern que ho implementi. / Using metadata for referencing, tagging and describing resources is becoming more and more usual. This allows better ways of searching and discovering material published in public repositories, accessible through the net. Several initiatives are being carried out for establishing standards for metadata schemes, but each on focuses on their own requirements when defining the attributes, their meaning, the possible values they can have and the relation among them. From the point of view of the user who wants to search for resources in different environments, this is a real problem, because he is supposed to have proper tools for each situation, or he must know about the differences among them.In this thesis an interoperability model at a semantic level is presented and validated. It is suitable for the search process, and its main contribution is that the interoperability is achieved in a transparent way. Neither the providers, who offer the metadata, nor the users, who look them up, have to be aware of the differences among them. Thus, all the actors in the environment can keep on using their own scheme. The model also specifies the existence of an agent to implement it.

Thesis (M.Eng. (Electronic Engineering) -- University of Pretoria, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 96-99)

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 118-121). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.