Subject: Re: IRDS and PCTE

From: [email-masked] (Todd King)
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 94 20:17:39 PST

To all:

There seems to be great interest in existing systems for managing
data and metadata in an effective way. It also seems that there are
many groups out there who must deal with this issue, as well as
groups how have already developed solutions. Perhaps it would be a group
idea to ask everyone to present a short description (a paragaph) description
of their systems. It would also be use if everyone would include information
about where to obtain a copy of the system, if available.

I'm willing to volunteer as a moderator for such a list and then would
post it to the mailing list when assembled.

As an example of what I think is appropriate here's a description of
our metadata system:

DITDOS (Distributed Inventory Tracking and Data Ordering Specifications)

DITDOS is a set of specifications for building format independent
information systems to manage and distribute data. DITDOS compliant
systems maintain inventories of data holdings and provide a means for
accessing the actual data. DITDOS contains specifications for metadata
content, a protocol for client/server access, a portable inventory
description language and interface specifications to format specific
readers, writers and viewers. Inventories can be placed on any media
including portable media like CD-ROM. Inventories can easily be
merged together to build large scale information systems. An inventory
reader (whether standalone or a client) can provide inventory browsing
capabilities and data ordering and viewing capabilities.

We have developed an initial DITDOS compliant system that runs on
Sun SPARCstations under SunOS. It is available form anonymous FTP
at "ftp.igpp.ucla.edu" in the compressed tar file "igpp/ditdos.tar.Z".

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Todd King                                         | email:  [email-masked]
5881 Slichter Hall                                | Office: 1-310-206-7201
UCLA/IGPP                                         | FAX:    1-310-206-8042
Los Angeles, CA   90024-1567                      |
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From: [email-masked] (Dale Lancaster)
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 94 13:50:10 -0600

> post it to the mailing list when assembled.
At the workshop, we felt this kind of thing was very needed and very
important.  We know there are lots of things going on out there and
we need to be aware of them (no since in re-inventing the wheel).
It would be great if you could collect this and then email a copy to
the reflector.  At some point, Robyn Sumpter will take that and
hopefully create some pointers to papers/archives in the WWW home page
that she is setting up that will help us all track all the different
activities.

thanks
:-)
dml