CIC Metadata Portal

CIC Collection Development Policy

This site provides access to digital collections developed in various CIC institutions. Each of these universities has defined its own collection development policies, their own digitization policy and their own priorities for sharing their content with the CIC-OAI metadata portal and other information services.

The CIC metadata portal has, however, adopted a series of principles to aggregate metadata from partner institutions. Metadata "shared" with the OAI protocol by partner institutions are systematically made available within the metadata portal in accordance with the following principles.

Collection Development Principles

Included resources are limited to those produced or developed, at least in part, by CIC institutions.: This excludes external content simply aggregated by partner CIC institutions.
Included metadata describe a digital or physical resource.: This excludes any metadata record aimed at cross-referencing for example (only containing the information on the relation between two resources).
Included metadata refer to resources of interest to academic / research communities.
Included metadata facilitate resource discovery and representation: Metadata facilitatates resource discovery and representation within the CIC portal, and can be in any relevant format. Most partner institutions make their content available in simple or qualified Dublin Core.

The CIC Metadata Collection

Since the CIC metadata portal aggregates metadata produced in various institutions, according to local policies, its collection and its evolution over time depends on the priorities defined by each of those institutions for describing their content (metadata), digitizing it and sharing their metadata.

Currently, 70% of the records in the metadata aggregation refer to digital objects. The CIC metadata aggregation is divided into approximately 200 sub-collections . About half of these digital resources are restricted access, with access only available to affiliates of universities that have licensed access. The number and the type of records depend on the decisions and resources of each institution. The resources include text, images, thesis and dissertations, audio, articles, archives and manuscript, Websites, softwares, sheet music, etc. They are of scientific and cultural interest and reflect the diversity of the Midwestern universities intellectual treasures.

By aggregating content from the CIC institutions, the portal can expand students information searches, highlight the complementary resources of Midwest academic libraries and provide innovative interfaces through a joint and coordinated effort of universities.

It is expected that a larger community of researchers and students can benefit from this joint effort, through the enhanced services it will make available for cross-searching into various libraries collections and new representations of the resources.

It is of the utmost importance to the CIC libraries to coordinate their skills and resources to fully explore the benefits of new knowledge-access technologies.

	Home Contacts Partner Section Institutions Search Metadata
experimental interfaces faceted interface geographic browse collection browse EAD test portal Project presentations & reports CIC collection development CIC Metadata guidelines Schemas and crosswalks Metadata aggregation OAI Content Providers Institutions participation The DLXS software Resources	CIC Collection Development Policy CIC Metadata Portal > CIC Collection Development Policy This site provides access to digital collections developed in various CIC institutions. Each of these universities has defined its own collection development policies, their own digitization policy and their own priorities for sharing their content with the CIC-OAI metadata portal and other information services. The CIC metadata portal has, however, adopted a series of principles to aggregate metadata from partner institutions. Metadata "shared" with the OAI protocol by partner institutions are systematically made available within the metadata portal in accordance with the following principles. Collection Development Principles Included resources are limited to those produced or developed, at least in part, by CIC institutions. This excludes external content simply aggregated by partner CIC institutions. Included metadata describe a digital or physical resource. This excludes any metadata record aimed at cross-referencing for example (only containing the information on the relation between two resources). Included metadata refer to resources of interest to academic / research communities. Included metadata facilitate resource discovery and representation Metadata facilitatates resource discovery and representation within the CIC portal, and can be in any relevant format. Most partner institutions make their content available in simple or qualified Dublin Core. The CIC Metadata Collection Since the CIC metadata portal aggregates metadata produced in various institutions, according to local policies, its collection and its evolution over time depends on the priorities defined by each of those institutions for describing their content (metadata), digitizing it and sharing their metadata. Currently, 70% of the records in the metadata aggregation refer to digital objects. The CIC metadata aggregation is divided into approximately 200 sub-collections . About half of these digital resources are restricted access, with access only available to affiliates of universities that have licensed access. The number and the type of records depend on the decisions and resources of each institution. The resources include text, images, thesis and dissertations, audio, articles, archives and manuscript, Websites, softwares, sheet music, etc. They are of scientific and cultural interest and reflect the diversity of the Midwestern universities intellectual treasures. By aggregating content from the CIC institutions, the portal can expand students information searches, highlight the complementary resources of Midwest academic libraries and provide innovative interfaces through a joint and coordinated effort of universities. It is expected that a larger community of researchers and students can benefit from this joint effort, through the enhanced services it will make available for cross-searching into various libraries collections and new representations of the resources. It is of the utmost importance to the CIC libraries to coordinate their skills and resources to fully explore the benefits of new knowledge-access technologies.
A collaborative project of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. Hosted by Grainger Engineering Library and Information Center and the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign. Questions or comments about this web page? Contact mfoulonn@uiuc.edu. © 2004 University of Illinois.