Mary Bailey
LI 803 - Information Transfer and the Knowledge Society
November, 2000

CORC : Hope for E-resources and Organization

Today's hottest technology, the Internet, is providing access to information faster than any new technology in our history. New web pages are added to it daily. New search engines are added often along with new and improved web crawlers or web monkeys, yet there is a problem that has not been solved. Because there is so much information on the web, how do you find the specific information that you want and how do you know it is really worthwhile information? Libraries and librarians are working diligently to provide meaningful access to this information, yet seem to be falling behind, because of the speed at which new information is appearing. Many Internet users see no need for a library at all, since they believe everything is on the Internet, yet how do they find what they really need? What can the library do to make itself more useful to scholars and searchers in the future? And how can the library keep up with all the changes?

"As more and more information becomes available electronically, the problem of finding it becomes more acute." (Milstead and Feldman, 1999a) If a search with the same combination of terms gets four hits with one search engine (Lycos) and over 100 with another (AltaVista), it should set off some alarms that all is not created equal in the world of internet searching. But, when looking over AltaVista's 100+ pages, many are just duplicates of the first few. Some may have the term used the way you hoped to find it, while others are on a completely different topic. Some pages are from well known and respected businesses and organizations, and others are personal pages and opinions. How can this be made more useful to the everyday user? How do we go beyond Internet search engines and organize the Web?

Metadata or "data about data", if used effectively, may be part of the answer. By consistently labeling the contents of web pages, metadata creates the pathways needed for finding information. It also allows for the addition of text descriptions for non-text files, such as images, color charts or for matching faces. For text-based searching this is a necessity. This value adding of metadata is the same kind of work librarians and indexers have been doing with other materials for years. It seems to make sense for those same professionals to index and organize electronic resources also.

CORC, or the Cooperative Online Resource Catalog, is doing exactly that, going beyond unequal search engines and lack to common terms to create a catalog of useful web sites, to be used by libraries around the world. This program is sponsored by OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) and works much like the OCLC program does. Librarians are building the catalog by identifying, selecting, describing and maintaining this Web-based resource. This may sound like a lot of work, however CORC has a well developed plan that includes both the cooperation and expertise of librarians across several countries, and the advanced technology that allows for creation of records in several standards (MARC, Dublin Core in HTML or in RDF with more to come). The system cross-maps fields common to both Dublin Core and MARC, so a record created in one standard can be viewable and exportable in the other standard. A third metadata standard (EDA or enhanced archival description) is being considered for addition shortly. When metadata can assume several formats, the project can be used for many applications. (Senecal, 2000) Linked authority records in the CORC toolkit, provide the standardized terms that create the organizational structure that is lacking from the internet right now. Add to this a URL maintenance checker that dynamically updates all connected links when one changes, and this program begins a new era of internet organization.

Cataloging the Web sounds rather ambitious, even for librarians. Yet without some kind of organization, searching the Internet can only become worse. Librarians have found many wonderful sites, but pointing the patron to them is still a problem. Subject pages that link to those sites, or a digital library take time to build and someone has to keep up those pages, add to them and make time to check (and fix) the links. This is very time intensive work. Organizations and researchers all over the world are creating pages and sharing new information, but without much thought to the organization of those pages, or any kinds of standardized terms that would make finding those pages easier for the searcher. While the librarian may know what new research is happening on their university campus or in their local area, how much more is on the web or being added daily that is not known about. Standardized terms used for both the search term and the label could minimize the problems so common at this time, making those new sites easier to locate.

Metadata projects are happening all over the globe. The Nordic Metadata Project that includes public documents of Finland and Denmark, was recently completed, using Dublin Core. The MetaWeb Project, in Australia also used Dublin Core metadata elements in creating records. The ROADS project in the United Kingdom, the Computer Interchange of Museum Information Consortium and the Instructional Management Systems project are just a few among many, interested in organizing web resources into a more manageable form. (Milstead, and Feldman, 1999b) With their records already in a standard format on the Web, the library, using CORC, can find and catalog these sites quicker, because the metadata is already in place.

CORC, with it's emphasis on cooperative cataloging, and by sharing the catalog in the same way that it shares catalog records for books, media and other formats, will allow quick growth of a world-encompassing catalog, making local information available worldwide in an organized manner. Instead of searching the Internet, library patrons would first search their favorite library catalog online and find not only books and journals, but web sites that would be practical to their research also. Instead of hundreds of web pages to sort through, they would be offered some of the best web sites from world wide, cataloged by librarians around the world. Local public libraries could catalog the web pages from their local art or history museums along with images of their displays or exhibits. Exhibits would not need to end when they are physically taken down, but could be archived on a web site for future generations to continue to enjoy for years or for classes to use for research projects year after year. Virtual exhibits such as those at the Smithsonian (http://www.si.edu/info/education.htm) would be easier to find because you could do it from your libraries catalog, without having to use a Web search engine, that gives 143,026 hits on "Smithsonian Institution". (AltaVista, November 4, 2000)

Libraries need to define their role in the Internet world. One of the problems has been keeping up Web pages that link to internet sites and maintaining the links that are not only on those pages, but through out the entire library database. The Kansas State University Libraries' online catalog had 1500 Internet sites in December 1998. Less than two years later there are over 8200 sites in the catalog. CORC's pathfinder program would build the web pages for the library dynamically, allowing for customized content and integration of all library materials on one page. When the CORC catalog finds a broken or redirected link, all catalogs showing holdings for that url are notified. A single update of the master record by one institution updates all the others immediately. (Cooperative Online Resource Catalog, October 28, 2000)

Though CORC is still in an early phase, Norm Nedeiros, (1999) a technical services librarian at New York University's School of Medicine, believes the "potential is huge. At it's least, CORC could become the WorldCat for Internet resources. At best, it could compete with existing search services becoming the de facto scholarly search engine on the Web." (Medeiros, 1999)

With each advance in technology, there is a time of creation that is not organized, but if that technology gains popularity or acceptance, some form of organization must take place. CORC has just begun to change practices in the library world, but the addition of metadata to web pages is already changing the behavior of those using the Web to share information, and as metadata becomes more familiar, the CORC way of cataloging those resources will have a chance to change not only the way we search for electronic information, but also the way we organize the information. Information professionals will have a quicker way of finding, organizing, and sharing the information with those they serve, and a means of keeping the information up to date. Electronically generated pathfinders, like the paper bibliographies of yesteryear, may be another way of keeping the library and the information professional as an integral part of the fast-paced electronic world. Even if tomorrow's researchers do not come to the physical library, they may go through the library's virtual door more often than ever before.

Bibliography

Cooperative Online Resource Catalog. (Viewed October 28, 2000)
http://oclc.org/oclc/corc/index.htm

Medeiros, N. (November, 1999). Making room for MARC in a Dublin Core World. Online [On-line], (Viewed October 27, 2000) http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OL1999/medeiros11.html

Milstead, J., & Feldman, S. (January 1999). Metadata: Cataloging by any other name... Online [On-line], (Viewed October 27, 2000) http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OL1999/milstead1.html

Milstead, J., & Feldman, S. (January 1999). Metadata Projects and Standards. Online [On-line], (Viewed October 27, 2000) http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OL1999/milstead1.html

Senecal, K. (2000). The Twofold promise of the CORC project. OCLC Systems & Services, v. 16, no. 2, 84-90.

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