UKOLN
Raising Awareness

"A centre of excellence in digital information management, providing advice and services to the library, information and cultural heritage communities."

UKOLN is based at the University of Bath.

Collection Description Focus

What CD Focus Does

The aim of the Focus was to improve co-ordination of work on collection description methods, schemas and tools, with the goal of ensuring consistency and compatibility of approaches across projects, disciplines, institutions, domains and sectors. The Focus provided support for projects actively involved in collection description work and for those investigating or planning such work. One of the major strands of this support work was been the development of the CLD (Collection-Level Description) Online Tutorial. This was been created both as an aid to Implementers and as a tool for training.

The Focus promoted and facilitated the use of the RSLP Collection Description Schema as the basis for collection description implementations. The Focus also worked with the Dublin Core Collection Description Working Group on the development of a DC-based schema for collection-level description, using the collection description attributes of the RSLP CD Schema as a starting point. Implementers were encouraged to join the DC-Collections list and contribute to the work.

The Focus supported a range of initiatives including the NOF Digitisation of Learning Materials Programme, Peoples Network Programme, Resource Regional Cross-Domain research projects, British Library Co-operation and Partnership Programme and a range of JISC projects. The Focus also sought to engage with the FE sector through contact with the Regional Support Centres.

About Us

The work of the Focus was carried out between 2001 to 2011 by Ann Chapman, Marieke Guy, Pete Johnston and Bridget Robinson. Other UKOLN staff working on related projects provided support through expertise and knowledge.

During the period June 2001 - July 2004, when it was separately funded, the Focus reported to a Management Board. Focus work now forms part of UKOLN core activities. The Focus is located within UKOLN and physically based at the University of Bath. The staff at UKOLN are supported by their partners in the CD Focus Initiative, the Archives Hub and the mda (now the Collections Trust).

The Focus can be contacted at ukoln@ukoln.ac.uk

An archive version of the CD Focus site is available on the Internet Archive. On 13 March 2013 http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/ had been crawled 84 times going back to 29 June 2001.

There is a project page for CD Focus on the Jisc Web site.