Re: [metadata] Who will consume our metadata?

Gerardo,

This is a perfect example of what I hope for:

[1] the publishers have information to convey,
[2] there's a vocabulary to describe that information
[3] there's a syntax to embed the information in commonly-used files
[4] there's a way for the information to get from the published content to the outside world
[5] there's a user community to read and act on the information

I'd like to see at least a sketch of how this would work for all the different types of metadata we talk about.

Thanks!

Dave


On 2/4/14 11:22 AM, "Gerardo Capiel" <gerardoc@benetech.org<mailto:gerardoc@benetech.org>> wrote:

Dave and all,

This is good stuff. From an accessibility point of view, what I would like to see happen is the following:

1) The publisher or their accessibility/distribution partners include in the EPUB 3.0.1 package document what accessibility features are in the EPUB based on Schema.org<http://Schema.org> properties: http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/Accessibility and http://www.idpf.org/accessibility/guidelines/content/meta/schema.org.php. Alternatively they can use ONIX accessibility fields for which these is a crosswalk to Schema.org<http://Schema.org>: http://www.a11ymetadata.org/the-specification/metadata-crosswalk/.

2) The online retailer includes these accessibility properties (aka rich snippets) along with the other Schema.org<http://Schema.org> properties they should also be using from an SEO rationale: http://www.moosylvania.com/blog/4-simple-website-optimizations-to-level-up-your-website/.

3) Consumers discover these accessible EPUBs via search engines. Though, Google's current search UI does not enable you to filter by a book's accessibility features, they are indexing these properties. You can see this by using their Custom Search Engine, which does allow you to narrow results by accessibility features in the search box:

http://www.google.com/cse?cx=001043429226464649088:WMX1711548652&q=history%20more%3Ap%3Abook-accessibilityfeature%3AstructuralNavigation

4) When a consumer lands on the retailer's website based on the search above, the accessibility features are clearly presented. Bob Martinengo presented at a EDUPUB 1 a proposal for this: http://idpf.org/sites/default/files/file_attach/AMAC%20Presentation%20for%20EDUPUB.pdf and http://stepp.gatech.edu/dap.php.

The CSE above is configured to only search a narrow set of sites, but you can configure it to return results across the entire web. I hope the mainstream Google search expands their UI to includes these filters. They already have a filter for closed-captioning, which contextually appears when videos are in the search results.

I would welcome ideas on how we drive and facilitate adoption of these existing standards and technologies.

Gerardo

Gerardo Capiel
VP of Engineering
Benetech

On Feb 4, 2014, at 7:29 AM, "Cramer, Dave" <Dave.Cramer@hbgusa.com<mailto:Dave.Cramer@hbgusa.com>> wrote:

For metadata to accomplish something, it needs to be both created and consumed. For us book publishers, ONIX is a good example of a very successful metadata standard. The people who make books create ONIX records that describe the books. We then send these records to the retailers, who use this information to populate their web pages. Consumers then read about the books, and (we hope) buy them. BISAC is another similar example—bookstores wanted to know which shelves to put the books on. Publishers, who presumably have read their own books and know what they are about, assigned codes to tell the bookstores what they needed to know.

Who are the consumers of all the other metadata we're talking about? Many of us publishers have already implemented some kinds of semantic data, like putting epub:type="chapter" in our ebook content. But is anyone doing anything with that information? We also want metadata to drive the discovery of our books. How would that work when most of our content is not exposed to the web (due to file formats, DRM, or the need for payment)? Who is listening, besides Google's spiders?

Dave

:: :: ::

Dave Cramer | Content Workflow Specialist | Hachette Book Group | 237 Park Avenue NY | NY 10017 | 917 207 7927 | dave.cramer@hbgusa.com<mailto:dave.cramer@hbgusa.com>


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