Metadata : RDF Site Summary (RSS). To web people, metadata might seem to be the equivalent of calculus to a high school senior. That is, what's often heard when discussing the topic, is "when will I ever be able to use this in the real world".

That is further echoed in the use of RDF, which is seen as one of the most obfuscated metadata standards out there. But in recent months it has become more and more useful. Suddenly this stuff is able to be used by the Joe 6-Pack web user.

There have been several interesting announcements in the last few weeks about content providers and publishers using RDF Site Summary (RSS). RSS is a variation on the RDF theme. It allows content providers (like me) to expose and syndicate their content for inclusion in other web sites, databases, instant messaging software, and many other useful tools. For example, I syndicate news feeds from sources such as the Washington Post into my instant messaging software.

First came the announcement in July that Elsevier would expose their PRISM metadata in an RSS compliant manner. In doing so, libraries and end users could access tables of contents for Elsevier journals in their favorite tools.

It's evident that other publishers are catching on. Earlier in the week, a primer was released to help publishers gain a better understanding of RSS. And now there's an announcement from NISO about their publication, Metadata Demystified: A Guide for Publishers. Let's hope they start using it in a major way. This publication addresses the ONIX standard, which book publishers are using to translate similar types of information as the PRISM people. LC is using ONIX in conjunction with the 856 MARC field to provide tables of contents for new books.

So, you might be asking again, how can you use this in the real world? Well, imagine being able to display the current issue's TOC next to the PULinks logo in the online catalog, or having the RSS feed the EJournals page automatically without having to maintain a separate database or a kludged catalog record! That's the power of XML -- make the content providers do some of the work for you! [inSilico - A Princeton University Library metadata and digital library blog]

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