Scriblio in Use

Lamson Library at Plymouth State University is now using the Scriblio library catalog. Casey Bisson provides more info in his weblog maisonbisson.

DC Papers

The papers from the Proceedings of the 2007 International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications are now available. Lots of good reading here.

Houston Area

District 8 of the Texas Library Association has announced that registration is open for those who wish to register for the Fall Meeting.

I personally like this meeting very much. I think it is the size of some state conferences, it gets about 1,000 attendees I guess. But, compared to TLA it is much more intimate. It is large enough to have a session or two I like, small enough to sit down and chat with folks I've not seen in too long.

Tagging and Controlled Vocabalaries

EntityDescriber is an add-on tool for Connotea that allows taggers to select terms from a controlled vocabalary.

E.D. is a mechanism for intersecting the Semantic Web with the normal Web. It lets Connotea users (though we may extend it to other systems such as Del.icio.us) annotate (tag) resources on the Web with terms from existing controlled vocabularies such as MeSH, the Gene Ontology, the Atom ontology, and the Person ontology. For more thoughts on and progress with ED, see blog posts about ED.

You might enjoy using ED if any of the following apply to you:

• You would like to organize your tags more effectively
• You are using Connotea to create a reference system - for example for a class
• You are a member of a group of people that would like to use a common set of tags - possibly with the aim of creating a nice reference library
• You like the idea that every time you tag something you are contributing to the semantic web
• You would like to utilize queries over your collection and others that take advantage of the structure of ontologies. For example, queries for "brain", that return resources tagged with "hippocampus", "cortex", "cerebellum", etc...
• You would like to help an aging graduate student add one more chapter to his thesis...

Telescope Metadata

More and more people are getting into the metadata game. Here is a proposed XML metadata schema for telescopes.

Earlier I described my idea for an RSS-like XML feed for telescopes. The idea was to allow anyone to keep up with what particular telescopes were doing. In this post I will try to describe my current idea.

He is looking for comments.

PERSNAME-L

PERSNAME-L, exists for the purpose of dealing with issues about personal names. To subscribe to PERSNAME-L, follow this link and click on "Join or leave the list (or change settings)". Or send a message to LISTSERV@LISTS.OU.EDU with the words SUBSCRIBE PERSNAME-L followed by a forename and surname. I've found this to be a very useful group.

BookTour

Here is a very useful website for book-lovers, BookTour. Shows what authors are speaking in an area.

We're a free online service that connects authors and potential audiences of all sorts, from book groups to civic organizations, from bookstores to corporate events. Authors create their own page (biography, books, tour dates and availability) and any group looking for speakers can find them and contact them directly to arrange for an appearance. Relevant information for both authors and venues can be added in minutes through a simple fill-in-the-blanks interface. Connecting authors with potential audiences then becomes as easy as searching (by geography, book titles, subject, dates of availability) and sending an email.

There is an interview with the site's creators, Kevin Smokler and Adam Goldstein, on IT Conversations.

Text Encoding Initiative

TEI@20: 20 Years of Supporting the Digital Humanities.

• Pre-Conference Workshops: 31 October 2007
• Conference: 1-2 November 2007
• Members Meeting: 3 November 2007

McKeldin Library, University of Maryland College Park

Zotero Has an New Version

Zotero, the open source citation manager, has added some new features.

• Zotero now offers full-text indexing of PDFs, adding your archived PDFs to the searchable text in your collection.
• Zotero’s integration with word processing tools has been greatly improved. The MS Word plugin works much more seamlessly and we now support OpenOffice on Windows, Mac (in the form of NeoOffice), and Linux.
• Zotero is also now better integrated with the desktop. Users can drag files from their desktop into their Zotero collection and can also drag attachments out of their Zotero collection onto their desktop.
• We have begun to add tools to browse and visualize Zotero collections in new ways. Using MIT’s SIMILE Timeline widget, Zotero can now generate timelines from any collection or selected items.

Here is their description:

Zotero is an easy-to-use yet powerful research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources (citations, full texts, web pages, images, and other objects), and lets you share the results of your research in a variety of ways. An extension to the popular open-source web browser Firefox, Zotero includes the best parts of older reference manager software (like EndNote)—the ability to store author, title, and publication fields and to export that information as formatted references—and the best parts of modern software and web applications (like iTunes and del.icio.us), such as the ability to interact, tag, and search in advanced ways. Zotero integrates tightly with online resources; it can sense when users are viewing a book, article, or other object on the web, and—on many major research and library sites—find and automatically save the full reference information for the item in the correct fields. Since it lives in the web browser, it can effortlessly transmit information to, and receive information from, other web services and applications; since it runs on one’s personal computer, it can also communicate with software running there (such as Microsoft Word). And it can be used offline as well (e.g., on a plane, in an archive without WiFi).

Social Software in Libraries

One of the books I'm currently reading is Social software in libraries : building collaboration, communication, and community Online by Meredith G Farkas (Amazon). It is a very readable, and seems to me reasonable treatment of the topic. Finding a mention of Catalogablog was a nice surprise.

Revised Dublin Core

Revised Dublin Core has been published as RFC 5013. This replaces the old version, RFC 2413.

Scriblio Download Now Available

Scriblio, the Mellon Award winning front end for the catalog, is now available for free download. It is based on WordPress, the popular blogging tool.

Scriblio (formerly WPopac) is an award winning, free, open source CMS and OPAC with faceted searching and browsing features based on WordPress. Scriblio is a project of Plymouth State University, supported in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

• Free and open source
• Represents bibliographic collections — library catalogs and such — in an easily searchable, highly remixable web-based format
• Leverages WordPress to offer rich content management features for all a library’s content
• Free and open source

Metadata Object Description Schema Revision

Revisions to MODS.

We have revised the draft of the MODS schema version 3.3, which we had released for review in April. The revision is based on comments from the review of that draft.

Substantive changes to the previous (April 12) version:

1. Add Xlink attribute to physicalLocation This would allow for a link to the website of the entity in physicalLocation. This is equivalent to MARC 21 852$u, e.g.
   Library of Congress
2. Add additional enumerated values for authority under : ISO 639-3 and RFC4646. ISO 639-3 is a new standard that codes all individual languages without the criteria for usage that ISO 639-2 has. RFC4646 updates RFC3066, which details how to use language codes in Internet applications. (RFC3066 already defined in MODS). We are planning to add these to the MARC source code list used for field 041$2.
3. Changes to MODS holdings to be generally consistent with the ISO XML holdings standard, now out for ballot as a Draft International Standard (ISO TC46).

A review of the MODS approach to holdings information is documented.

The new schema and the main MODS site has additional information about MODS 3.3 including the outline of elements and attributes.

We would like to have a 2 week review period. Please send any comments to the MODS list by Sept. 5.

Z Copy Cataloging

Z Copy Cataloging is a Z39.50 client with additional features. It is a free to use. Features:

• Z39.50 search for records
• Search by Title, ISBN or LCCN
• Sort your result sets by relevancy (title search only), date, content (AACR, ISBD), or any chosen subfield (first instance only)
• See the most important fields for copy cataloging when choosing correct records
• View the full MARC record before choosing
• Compare two records and choose the best
• Optional: Check the record for common errors
• Choose records from different targets and then choose among them to find the best record
• Scripted changes to records
• Output to CSV file
• Light editing of subfields

This is an alpha release, use with caution. The developer will work for Ruby books, if you need a feature added.

VuFind, New Release

The latest version, 0.6, of VuFind has been released.

VuFind is a library resource portal designed and developed for libraries by libraries. The goal of VuFind is to enable your users to search and browse through all of your library's resources by replacing the traditional OPAC to include:

• Catalog Records
• Digital Library Items
• Institutional Repository
• Institutional Bibliography
• Other Library Collections and Resources

VuFind is completely modular so you can implement just the basic system, or all of components. And since it's open source, you can modify the modules to best fit your need or you can add new modules to extend your resource offerings.

Additions to the MARC Code Lists for Relators, Sources, Description Conventions

The codes listed below have been recently approved for use in MARC 21 records. The codes will be added to the online MARC Code Lists for Relators, Sources, Description Conventions.

The codes should not be used in exchange records until after October 13, 2007. This 60-day waiting period is required to provide MARC 21 implementers time to include newly defined codes in any validation tables they may apply to the MARC fields where the codes are used.

Other Sources

The following code is for use in subfield $2 in field 017 in Bibliographic records (Copyright or Legal Deposit Number).

Addition:

rocgpt

R.O.C. Government Publications Catalogue
(Tapei: Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, Executuve
Yuan) [use only after October 13, 2007]

The following code is for use in subfield $2 in field 042 in Authority, Bibliographic and Classification records (Authentication Code).

Addition:

ukblderived

British Library derived cataloging Code ukblderived signifies that the British Library has re-used another organization's catalog record for its cataloging. Headings have not been validated against the relevant authority file. [use only after October 13, 2007]

Term, Name, Title Sources

The following code is for use in subfield $2 in fields 600-657 in Bibliographic and Community Information records, and in subfield $f in field 040 (Cataloging Source) in Authority records.

Addition:

muzeukv

MuzeVideo UK DVD and UMD film genre classification
(London: Muze Europe Ltd) [use only after October 13, 2007]

The following code is for use in subfield $2 in fields 600-657 in Bibliographic and Community Information records, in subfield $f in field 040 (Cataloging Source) and in subfield $2 in 7xx (Linking Entry) fields in Authority records.

Addition:

tesa

Tesauro Agrcola (Beltsville, Maryland; National Agricultural Library) [use only after October 13, 2007]

Metadata Editor

SHAME (Standardized Hyper Adaptable Metadata Editor) is a free metadata editor capable of working in Dublin Core, LOM, FOAF and more.

SHAME is a library that leverages editors, presentations and query interfaces for resource centric RDF metadata. The central idea of SHAME is to work with Annotation Profiles which encompasses:

• how the metadata in RDF should be read and modified.
• what input is allowed, e.g. multiplicity and vocabularies to use.
• presentational aspects like order, grouping, labels etc.

These annotation profiles are then used to generate user interfaces for either editing, presentation or querying purposes. The user interface may be realized in a web setting (both a jsp and velocity version exists) or in a stand alone application (a java/swing version exists).

BISAC

Recently there has been plenty of discussion about the library in AZ using BISAC to arrange the collection. Phoenix Public is also adding BISAC terms to the catalog record. Personally I don't see how SCI004000 is any easier to a patron than 520 or QB, but it is good to experiment and they seem to have a significant increase in circulation. If you want to see what they are using, the BISAC classification is available online.

ONIX Records for Libraries

Roy Tennant's ONIX Records for Libraries has a new home. The site contains over 100,000 records from:

• Cambridge University Press
• Harvest House Publishers
• Ingram
• McGraw-Hill
• Penguin
• Random House
• University of California Press

If you know of any other publishers offering free ONIX records please let him know.

TLA District 8 Meeting

Looks like I may be presenting on tagging at the TLA District 8 Meeting. If you have any favorite tagging tools, papers or sites please let me know. The meeting will be at Aldine High School Oct 13, 2007 (Sat).