Canadian <Metadata> Forum

Opening Remarks
September 19, 2003

Ian E. Wilson
National Archivist

Advisory: This presentation is available only in its original bilingual format and is provided for reference purposes in the context of the Canadian Metadata Forum.

Honoured guests,
Mesdames et Messieurs,

On behalf of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Honourable Sheila Copps, and my colleague, Roch Carrier, the National Librarian, I am delighted, as National Archivist, to welcome you to Library and Archives Canada and the Canadian Metadata Forum.

We have just concluded a Symposium on the Preservation of Electronic Records, which we hosted with our partners, the Canadian Conservation Institute and the Canadian Heritage Information Network, and it is an honour for us now to join you on a journey of exploration of the key Metadata challenges facing us today.

Au cours des deux prochaines journées, nous allons examiner plusieurs aspects importants des Métadonnées. Les sujets inscrits à l'ordre du jour sont captivants, et assortis de présentations dynamiques qui seront suivies, j'en suis certain, de discussions animées et éclairées.

We at Library and Archives Canada are especially pleased to be with you on this occasion as we continue on our own journey to create a new, national knowledge institution. As many of you are aware, the Minister of Canadian Heritage Sheila Copps tabled a bill in the House of Commons, in May of this year, to create Library and Archives Canada. The transformation process, now well under way, is bringing together two great cultural institutions, the National Library of Canada and the National Archives of Canada, each with its own proud heritage and traditions, into a new, dynamic, cultural institution.

Bibliothèque et Archives Canada sera une source nationale de savoir durable, contribuera à l'évolution culturelle, sociale et économique du Canada, et préservera la mémoire permanente du gouvernement canadien et de ses institutions.

The mandate of Library and Archives Canada builds upon and modernizes the previous mandates of the National Library of Canada and the National Archives of Canada. The new institution, for example, will be better positioned to respond to the challenges posed by the rapid expansion of the Internet in recent years and the increase of documentary heritage in digital form.

For many years, Library and Archives Canada has been a key player in providing leadership and support for Metadata progress both within and outside government, and domestically and internationally. Here are just a few of our Metadata activities:

• We have helped to develop controlled vocabularies to describe resource types and formats.
• We were heavily involved in the writing and revision of the Government of Canada Metadata Implementation Guide.
• We co-chair the Thesaurus Sub-Group which is the de facto editorial board of the Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus.
• We are registrar of controlled vocabularies for the Government of Canada domain under TBITS 39.2.
• We manage two sets of controlled terminology ourselves: Canadian Subject Headings and the "Répertoire de vedettes-matière".
• We are members of various Dublin Core working groups.

Enfin, la liste continue, mais il est évident que les Métadonnées sont la pierre angulaire de notre travail, la clé d'une gestion efficace du cycle de vie de toute information, qu'il s'agisse de ressources documentaires, de collections, de registres de dossiers ou de documents d'archives.

Les Métadonnées, toutefois, n'intéressent pas seulement ceux d'entre nous qui œuvrent dans l'industrie des ressources d'information culturelle. Elles deviennent de plus en plus importantes pour toute l'administration fédérale, à mesure que progresse l'initiative du « gouvernement en direct » et que nous perfectionnons nos capacités en gestion de l'information.

But let me direct your attention now to an even broader and more challenging perspective. It is no exaggeration, I think, to say that Metadata is one of the keys to unlocking the vast potential of our digital age.

We stand today on a threshold, looking ahead to unparalleled opportunities in resource access and management - providing we can put the Metadata structures in place to make it all happen.

All of us in this room know that using Metadata to manage information is not a new idea. Whether we call it cataloguing, indexing, or Metadata, the concept of describing information is familiar to information management professionals. For more than a century, archives, museums and libraries have developed specialized expertise in cataloguing and indexing their collections. And, until fairly recently, we have done this without the aid of computer technology.

But we live in a whole new digital world now. The last few years have seen an explosive growth in the number and variety of networked resources, and, in particular, the Internet and World Wide Web. So rapid has been Internet growth that Version Four of the Internet Protocol, which allowed for four billion Internet addresses, is no longer adequate, and is now being replaced with a new version that will allow an exponentially greater number of addresses!

Les réseaux électroniques ont créé un nouveau contexte pour la prestation des services. L'expansion d'Internet a engendré une prolifération incroyable de fournisseurs de contenu et une augmentation déconcertante du volume des ressources d'information disponibles sous forme numérique.

As more and more information becomes available electronically, however, the challenge of finding a particular piece of information has reached critical proportions. The fact that more information is available is actually an impediment in our ability to find what we need. Today, there is a vast quantity of high-quality information on the Internet, but what good does this do if we cannot access it in a reasonably convenient and accurate manner?

Malheureusement, lorsque nous avons recours à un moteur de recherche pour trouver de l'information et la récupérer, nous n'obtenons pas toujours le résultat voulu. Le moteur de recherche nous emmène à plusieurs sites plus ou moins utiles - en d'autres mots, beaucoup de volume, mais peu de précision. Et, comme je le disais plus tôt, le problème ne fait que s'aggraver.

Le dilemme est fort ancien. Nos sources de données sont plus volumineuses que jamais et, inévitablement, l'accès et la récupération sont difficiles. Pourtant, le problème demeure le même : comment tirer le meilleur profit de toutes ces réserves d'information?

Heureusement, il y a une réponse. Des solutions basées sur les Métadonnées, bien conçues et bien appliquées, peuvent fournir ce lien essentiel entre les créateurs de l'information et les utilsateurs finals.

But we have many Metadata challenges before us.

A key goal will be to break down the information standards silos that have plagued information sharing in the past.

We have seen that content providers can be very good at creating Metadata schemes that worked for them, but were not wholly transferable across boundaries. Now, with the widespread use of the Internet, this isolated manner of operating is no longer good enough.

As the number and variety of networked resources increase, the need grows for an architecture that will bridge diverse types of Metadata.

Il nous faut bâtir des ponts entre les différentes normes de Métadonnées, de sorte que l'information puisse circuler librement entre les divers secteurs et industries.

Au sein de la communauté culturelle, nous nous efforçons constamment d'ouvrir au grand public, par le relais d'Internet, les richesses de nos bibliothèques, de nos archives et de nos musées, et nous avons fait des progrès impressionnants. De plus, le secteur public et le secteur privé ont les capacités physiques et électroniques de manipuler, de gérer et de transmettre un volume extraordinaire d'information.

But all this physical transmission capability will go for naught without the Metadata-enhanced technologies to permit efficient access and management. We must act now ... discard old thinking ... see ourselves, as we truly are, citizens of a global information society ... and break down the information standards silos.

As I said at the outset, Metadata is an exciting, growing discipline, and there is a great deal of Metadata research, coordination and development activity occurring throughout the world. I am confident that the Forum will make a valuable contribution to this activity and to the progress that will be achieved in the coming months and years. I wish you all the best in your meetings today and tomorrow.

Thank you. Je vous remercie.