APIS Metadata

2. APIS Metadata

Path: Digital Library Projects : APIS Documentation Metadata

Cataloging conventions and practices among the APIS partners varied widely, as did the formats in which descriptive metadata was contributed. An overview of the data elements present in metadata contributed to the project is available in the APIS Partner Metadata Element Comparison chart.

The table below provides links to actual original and converted partner metadata files, along with the conversion specifications that were applied in order to provide relatively consistent retrieval and display from the composite database.

Institution (w/ link to definitions if avail.) Source records as received Source records as converted to ASCII text Source records as converted into 'APIS Interface Format' Source-to-APIS IF conversion specifications

Columbia MARC-like Source Converted Specification

Duke MARC Source Converted Specification

Princeton MARC-like Source Converted Specification

U. Michigan Filemaker Pro Source Converted Specification

UC Berkeley MS Access Source Converted Specification

Yale Filemaker Pro Source Converted Specification

Variations in cataloging practices included some of the following:

Unique Catalog Record Identifier: Not all partners provided a record ID suitable for uniquely identifying the catalog record in a composite database.
Modern dates: While all partners provided modern date equivalencies where known/available, the conventions for recording these dates varied considerably.
Normalized dates: Computer-readable dates were often not included in contributed catalog records
Title element: Titles strings were not included in contributed catalog records and needed to be supplied from data in other fields.
Subject headings: While subject headings were included by some partners, it appears that
vocabulary and usage were not consistent across partner sites.
Translations: Not all partners included translations.
Name headings: Some partners enumerated name headings according to standard AMC practice, others simply listed them in a note field.
Publication Number: The key element of "Publication Number" was not encoded in a predictable way by most partners.
Structural metadata / Image links: Conventions for image file naming and for communicating image links associated with metadata records was not in any way standardized among the partners.

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