PICS -> ICRA

Somewhere along the way the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) evolved into the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA).

As a web author, we invite you to use our system to describe, that is, label, your online content in a way that can be processed by computers. The system is designed to be as objective as possible: ICRA makes no value judgements at all about any content.

Users, principally parents of young children, then apply their own judgement in deciding which sites should and should not be available in their homes or workplaces. This is done by means of software that can read and interpret the labels found.

Simple Knowledge Organization System Document

The W3C Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has announced the publication of the SKOS Primer as a W3C First Public Working Draft.

This is a substantial update to and replacement for the previous SKOS Core Guide W3C Working Draft dated 2 November 2005. It is a companion document to the SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference W3C Working Draft dated 25 January 2008.

The Weblog

I was thinking of moving this weblog over to Wordpress. It is just time for a change. However, that would break too many links. I think I'll just do a complete redesign of this site for March 5. That was the date in 2002 this got started. Just seems like a good time for a new look. Comments?

FRBR and Moving Image Materials

Greenwood Publishing Group kindly gave Martha Yee permission to post her chapter (Chapter 11, FRBR and Moving Image Materials: Content (Work and Expression) versus Carrier (Manifestation)) from Arlene Taylor's book, Understanding FRBR, at the UC eScholarship repository.

Some of the major problems with Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second Edition (AACR2R) stem from the failure to clearly analyze the FRBR entities work and expression (content) so as to distinguish them from manifestation (carrier) for nonbook materials such as moving image materials. In this chapter, a clearer and more logical analysis of these concepts is attempted, and, at the end of the chapter, the progress made so far in RDA (Resource Description and Access) development is assessed as well.

Tagging and Culture

Collaborative and Social Tagging Networks by Emma Tonkin, Edward M. Corrado, Heather Lea Moulaison, Margaret E. I. Kipp, Andrea Resmini, Heather D. Pfeiffer and Qiping Zhang appears in Ariadne issue no. 54. Covers "a series of international perspectives on the practice of social tagging of documents within a community context".

Yee's Cataloging Rules

Martha M. Yee has updated her suggested cataloging rules and RDF model.

This is still a work in progress, so I would love to hear more suggestions for improvement from anyone who can afford the time to look it all over. James Weinheimer is helping me work on a wiki site for the cataloging rules, so keep your eye on this space (smile)...

CONSER/BIBCO ALA At-Large Meeting Summary

The CONSER/BIBCO ALA At-Large Meeting Summary is now available. Topics discussed include:

• CONSER standard record
• Title presentation on e-resource web sites
• PCC Series discussion paper
• Integrating resource cataloging manual issues

Omeka Now Public

Omeka 0.9.0 is now available to the public.

Omeka is a web platform for publishing collections and exhibitions online. Designed for cultural institutions, enthusiasts, and educators, Omeka is easy to install and modify and facilitates community-building around collections and exhibits. Omeka is free and open source.

Here is the news release.

The Omeka team has worked very hard over the past few months to bring you the public beta, Omeka version 0.9.0, which is now available for everyone to download.

Here’s what you get bundled in your installation:

• Basic themes that are easy to adapt with simple CSS changes
  
• Exhibit building with 12 basic page layouts
  
• Tagging for items and exhibits
  
• RSS feed for new items
  
• COins plug-in making all Omeka content readable by Zotero (zotero.org);

Find additional functionality by downloading plug-ins :

• Bilingual plug-in for adding language fields to item metadata
  
• Contribution plug-in for collecting items from visitors
  
• Dropbox plug-in for batch adding items
  
• Geo-location plug-in for displaying items on a map
  
• Sitenotes plug-in for administrators to leave instructions for users
  
• Tag Suggest plug-in for suggesting tags based upon their frequency in the item text areas

Lots of metadata there, COinS, tags, and RSS.

Work Begins on the RDA Vocabularies

The DCMI/RDA Task Group was formed in April of 2007, when members of the Joint Steering Committee for the Development of RDA, Dublin Core and the W3C Semantic Web Deployment Working Group met in London. At that meeting, two tasks relating to RDA vocabularies were identified:

1. definition of an RDA Element Vocabulary
   
2. disclosure on the public web of RDA Value Vocabularies using RDF/RDFS/SKOS technologies

The RDA Vocabularies Project proposes to surface these underlying bibliographic elements in the form of Semantic Web vocabularies, thereby making them reusable in Semantic Web applications and citable with Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). This will be based on RDF (Resource Description Framework), a generic grammar for expressing data for use not just by humans, but also in automated processes of data integration and "intelligent" reasoning.

The work will be lead by the DCMI/RDA Task Group chairs: Gordon Dunsire of the University of Strathclyde and Diane Hillmann of Cornell University (with support from Tom Baker of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative). Other participants working closely with the project are:

• Karen Coyle (independent consultant well known in the library world)
  
• Alistair Miles (editor for the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) and member of the W3C SWDWG)
  
• Mikael Nilsson (researcher in the Knowledge Management Research Group, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden and co-chair of the DCMI Architecture Forum)

Partial funding for the effort has been secured, and sources of additional funding are still being sought. Potential funders should contact Diane Hillmann at dih1@cornell.edu for further information.

Public information on the progress of the project is available on the DCMI/RDA Task Group wiki. Continuing discussion on the work of the Task Group will take place on the public mailing list maintained by the task group and available for open subscription. Feedback, comment and experimentation with the products that the group will be presenting is both welcome and essential to the success of the work.

MARC and RDF

Semantic MARC, MARC21 and the Semantic Web by Rob Styles, Danny Ayers, and Nadeem Shabir is available as a preprint.

The MARC standard for exchanging bibliographic data has been in use for several decades and is used by major libraries worldwide. This paper discusses the possibilities of representing the most prevalent form of MARC, MARC21, as RDF for the Semantic Web, and aims to understand the tradeoffs, if any, resulting from transforming the data. Critically our approach goes beyond a simple transliteration of the MARC21 record syntax to develop rich semantic descriptions of the varied things which may be described using bibliographic records. We present an algorithmic approach for consistently generating URIs from textual data, discuss the algorithmic matching of author names and suggest how RDF generated from MARC records may be linked to other data sources on the Web.

Consolidated Edition of the International Standard Bibliographic Description

The consolidated edition of the International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) is now available online.

Due to arrangements with the publisher, K.G. Saur, the file cannot be printed or copied from.

Princeton's Slavic Cataloging Manual

Princeton's Slavic Cataloging Manual is a resource I'd not heard of before. Bookmarked. Thanks to all who helped create this resource.

LCCN Permalink

The Library of Congress is pleased to announce "LCCN Permalink" -- a new persistent URL service for creating links to bibliographic records in the Library of Congress Online Catalog using the Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN).

LCCN Permalink is a convenient way to cite items from the Library's collection in your bibliographies, reference guides, emails, blogs, databases, web pages, etc. Not only can you easily construct a permalink yourself, but we also display them as part of the bibliographic record in the LC Online Catalog (http://catalog.loc.gov/).

How to create an LCCN Permalink

Simply begin your URL with the LCCN Permalink domain name -- http://lccn.loc.gov/ -- then add an LCCN.*
Examples: http://lccn.loc.gov/2003556443 or http://lccn.loc.gov/82643250 or http://lccn.loc.gov/mm78044693

* LCCNs should be formatted according to the info:lccn URI specification. Instructions are also available in the LCCN Permalink FAQ.

How LCCN Permalink works

An LCCN Permalink retrieves a MARCXML-formatted bibliographic record using the Z39.50/SRU protocol. Both valid and cancelled LCCNs (MARC 21 fields 010a and 010z) are searched. LCCN Permalink displays are based on the Full Record display in the LC Online Catalog. Not only can you link directly into the LC Online Catalog, but you can also view the record in MARCXML, MODS, and Dublin Core formats.

More Information

The LC Permalink FAQ provides additional information on this new service. Specific questions can also be sent to the Library's Ask-A-Librarian service.

MARC Advisory Committee Papers

The cover sheets for the proposals and discussion papers presented at the
2008 Midwinter meetings of the MARC Advisory Committee have been updated with the results of the discussions. They are available at:

• Proposal 2008-01: Representation of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) System in MARC 21 formats
• Proposal 2008-02: Definition of field 542 for information related to copyright status in the MARC 21 bibliographic format
• Proposal 2008-03: Definition of first indicator value in field 041 (Language code) of the MARC 21 bibliographic format
• Discussion Paper 2008-DP01: Identifying headings that are appropriate as added entries, but are not used as bibliographic main entries
• Discussion Paper 2008-DP02: Making field 440 (Series Statement/Added Entry--Title) obsolete in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
• Discussion Paper 2008-DP03: Definition of subfield $3 for recording information associated with series added entry fields (800-830) in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
• Discussion Paper 2008-DP04: Encoding RDA, Resource Description and Access data in MARC 21

Text Mark-up

Calais looks like an interesting tool for semantic mark-up of text. Not sure how good it is, experimetns to generate keywords or a summary from texts have been just OK at best. Still it may be useful in some instances and is something to be aware of. What would this mean for TEI encoding, for example?

The Calais initiative seeks to help make all the worlds content more accessible, interoperable and valuable via the automated generation of rich semantic metadata, the incorporation of user defined metadata, the transportation of those metadata resources throughout the content ecosystem and the extension of it’s capabilities by user-contributed components.

Seen on LISNews.

Wordpress Plug-in

The CrossRef Citation Plugin is a "WordPress plugin that allows blog entry authors to search CrossRef's metadata using full or partial citations and then insert the formatted and DOI-linked citation into their blog posting along with COINs metadata." Can these plug-ins work on the hosted version of Wordpress? Have to investigate. If so, makes my decision to move much easier.

Wordpress

I've made a copy of this weblog on the Wordpress site. Thinking of moving over. Comments?

Cali Lewis @ TLA

I notice that Cali Lewis is scheduled as part of New Fair. In the past this has been a draped-off area in the exhibit area. Both small and noisy. I'm not sure this is the best venue for a Web 2.0 star. As someone who been on MSNBC and the CBC TV as well as having a very big Web presence she deserves a better space. I think she may also draw a larger crowd than the Nat Fair can handle. I'm going by the spaces I've seen in the past. Maybe this year's Net Fair is both quiet and spaciuos. I hope so.

Having someone like Ms Lewis speak well of the conference and profession is excellent PR. This is a chance to show the Web 2.0 crowd what the library 2.0 crowd is doing. I just hope we don't waste the opportunity.

TLA Conference

The program for the Texas Library Association Annual Conference is now available. What a line-up. Cali Lewis, Walt Crawford, Roy Tennant, Stephan Abram, Karen Schneider, etc. Most time slots have too many sessions I want to catch. Hope to see some of you there.

I plan to Twitter at the conference, see if that helps make connections for meals, and drinks.

Taxonomies

Better Living Through Taxonomies by Heather Hedden appears in the latest Digital Web Magazine.

Large websites and intranets can benefit from improved methods of search and navigation. These include site maps, A-Z indexes, sophisticated search engines, and generally improved navigational design--and playing a potential role in all of these methods is well-planned taxonomy.

THATCamp

The Center for History and New Media, George Mason University is having an unconference.

Short for “The Humanities and Technology Camp”, THATCamp is a BarCamp-style, user-generated “unconference” on digital humanities. THATCamp is organized and hosted by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, Digital Campus, and THATPodcast.

May 31 - June 1, 2008. Limited space, so apply for a spot early.

THAT Podcast

The Humanities and Technology, THAT podcast sounds interesting. Brought out by the folks at The Center for History and New Media
@ George Mason University. The 1st show is about Wordpress.

Our inaugural episode of The Humanities and Technology Podcast explores Wordpress, the popular open source blogging platform. We interview Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress, and demonstrate how to install the ScholarPress Courseware course management plugin used to set up a course website and blog.

IFLA Cataloging News

IFLA Cataloging News.

The annual report of the Cataloguing Section for 2007 has been posted on IFLANET and is available from the section's home page.

Also, draft version 0.9.1 of the object-oriented definition of FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) is available from the page of the Working Group on FRBR/CRM Dialogue

Capturing Government Documents

Managing Web Harvested Content: Results from the EPA Harvesting Pilot Project describes the results of a crawl of the EPA site by the GPO. They have questions about thier use of PURLs, keeping local copies of the harvested items and bib level considered useful. Comments accepted through Feb. 8.

LSCM believes that providing access to the monographs and serials harvested as part of the EPA Pilot Project via the CGP best serves the needs of the depository community and the general public. As can be seen from the sample of 300 publications, making the content from the EPA Pilot Project accessible to the public is a multi-step process and involves the commitment of a significant amount of time. However, as staff become more familiar with the new brief bibliographic record format the time required to create one of these records will decrease. The identification of complete publications, the identification all the parts or issues of a title scattered within the results of the harvest and the de-duplication of the contents will continue to require a significant amount of time and staff to complete.

Additionally 1,000 monographs within scope of the FDLP have been identified from EPA Pilot Project for inclusion in the Automated Metadata Extraction Project. This is a two year project with the Defense Technical Information Service (DTIC) and Old Dominion University (ODU) to use automated metadata extraction software tools to create metadata for groups of electronic publications in GPO’s electronic collection. This is a two year project and the results are not expected until near the end of the project.

Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme

Some classification news.

The 2008 edition of the AIP's Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme (PACS)--an essential tool for classification and efficient retrieval of scientific literature--has been released. PACS, used by AIP and other international publishers, is a hierarchical subject classification scheme, comprised of ten broad subject categories subdivided into narrower categories. For PACS 2008, five categories received extensive revisions based on the contributions of experts from the physics community.

We have also prepared a Special Edition of PACS, which contains embedded mapping instructions for transforming the deleted 2006 PACS codes into the new 2008 codes.

Free downloads.

Blacklight, Another OPAC Option

Blacklight, an open source OPAC using ruby on rails and solr, has now been released.

A next generation library catalog written in ruby, using solr as the underlying search engine. All you have to do is export your marc records, index them with the scripts provided, start up ruby on rails, and you're on your way to faceted browsing bliss.

Metadata Object Description Schema Revision

MODS version 3.3 is now available. Changes from version 3.2 are documented online.

ISBN Service

LibraryThing has a new API, one that corrects ISBNs and returns both a 10 and 13 digit ISBN. Very Restful. Just send an ISBN to http://www.librarything.com/isbncheck.php?isbn= and it will:

• Give it any old ISBN and it does the math to return the ISBN10 and ISBN13 forms, if both exist.
• It removes dashes and other junk.
• It transparently fixes missing initial zeroes. This is a common problem with data from Excel files, which turn 0765344629 into 765344629.
• If the ISBN isn't valid and can't be easily fixed, it returns an error.

They ask not to send more than 10 requests per minute second.

Photo Preservation Metadata

Photoplus: Auxiliary Information for Printed Images Based on Distributed Source Coding by Ramin Samadani and Debargha Mukherjee (HPL-2008-2) discusses some metadata for photographs that may be useful for preservation.

A printed photograph is difficult to reuse because the digital information that generated the print may no longer be available. This paper describes a mechanism for approximating the original digital image by combining a scan of the printed photograph with small amounts of digital auxiliary information kept together with the print. The auxiliary information consists of a small amount of digital data to enable accurate registration and color-reproduction, followed by a larger amount of digital data to recover residual errors and lost frequencies by distributed Wyner-Ziv coding techniques. Approximating the original digital image enables many uses, including making good quality reprints from the original print, even when they are faded many years later. In essence, the print itself becomes the currency for archiving and repurposing digital images, without requiring computer infrastructure. Publication Info: To be published and presented at VCIP 2008 - Visual Communications and Image Processing 2008, San Jose, CA

Cataloging Streaming Media

Good news from OLAC.

The Best Practices for Cataloging Streaming Media document is available on the OLAC website. Created by the CAPC Streaming Media Best Practices Task Force, it presents best practice guidelines and examples for cataloging both streaming video and audio, based on AACR2. It also presents definitions and examples of resources that can be considered as streaming media.

This document is available in both HTML and PDF formats.

Thanks.

Freebase Books Schema

Freebase is an interesting project, they accept data sets and then provide a platform to access them. Something like the Talis platform? They have a section for books and have a schema for book information. I'm not sure of the mechanics behind it all. I'd guess RDF would make the cross data set links easier. Here is an example of bibliographic data being just one type of data in a much larger system with connecitons to other data sets. Interesting.

Freebase is an open database of the world’s information. It is built by the community and for the community--free for anyone to query, contribute to, built applications on top of, or integrate into their websites.

Already, Freebase covers millions of topics in hundreds of categories. Drawing from large open data sets like Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, and the SEC, it contains structured information on many popular topics, like movies, music, people and locations--all reconciled and freely available via an open API. This information is supplemented by the efforts of a passionate global community of users, who are working together to add structured information on everything from philosophy to European railway stations to the chemical properties of common food ingredients.

In fact, part of what makes Freebase unique is that it spans domains--but requires that a particular topic exist only once in Freebase, even if it might normally be found in multiple databases. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger would appear in a movie database as an actor, a political database as a governor and a bodybuilder database as a Mr. Universe. In Freebase, there is only one topic for Arnold Schwarzenegger, with all three facets of his public persona brought together. The unified topic acts as an information hub, making it easy to find and contribute information about him.

For books they have a work-like idea, a bit FRBR-like.

"Book" represents the abstract notion of a particular book, rather than a particular edition. It is on this level that articles or discussion about a book should generally occur (e.g., the article about Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" is on the book topic, rather than on one or more of the hundreds of editions it has gone through). The book topic should also be used for connections to other types, such as films that have been adapted from a book.

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

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

This code should not be used in exchange records until after March 18, 2008. 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. Term, Name, Title Sources

The following code is for use in subfield $2 in fields 600-657 (Subject Added Entries) in Bibliographic and Community Information records, field 662 (Subject Added Entry) in Bibliographic records, fields 700-788 (Heading Linking Entries) in Authority records and in subfield $f in field 040 (Cataloging Source) in Authority records.

Addition:

qlsp

Queens Library Spanish language subject headings (Queens, NY: Queens Library) [use only after March 18, 2008]

Authority Tools

OLAC has announced an update to one of their resources.

The online resources Authority Tools for Audiovisual and Music Catalogers: an Annotated List of Useful Resources, has been revised and updated. Along with some editorial updates of URLs and new edition information, reviews were added for the following titles:

• Opera : an encyclopedia of world premieres and significant performances, singers, composers, librettists, arias and conductors, 1597-2000
• A dictionary-catalog of modern British composers
• Encyclopedia of the blues (ISBN: 0415926998)

I've also just received my OLAC Newsletter.

FRBR Talk

Wiliam Denton mentions on his FRBR Blog that he will be speaking at the Ontario Library Association’s 2008 Superconference. I just finished his essay in Arlene Taylor’s Understanding FRBR: What It Is and How It Will Affect Our Retrieval Tools (Amazon WorldCat) and if speaks even half as well as he writes it should be an enjoyable session. If you want or need a history of cataloging, his essay would be a good start.

LOC Tagging Experiment on Flickr

The Library of Congress has uploaded two collections of photographs to Flickr and invited people to add tags. The sets are 1930s-40s in Color and News in the 1910s. It will be interesting to see how sucessful the tagging project is.

These images have the rights statement "no known copyright restrictions", an experimental rights statement for Flickr. Reaction from Flickr users seems to be extremely positive.

NISO to Develop Standard Identification for Institutions

FOAF for institutions from the folks at NISO.

Members of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) have voted to approve the creation of a working group to explore issues surrounding institutional identification. This working group will be charged with proposing an identifier that will uniquely identify institutions and that will describe relationships between entities within institutions. This new NISO group will also consider what minimum set of data is required for unique identification as well as what other data may be used to support the business models of respective organizations, while also taking into account privacy and security issues.

There are and have been other schemes to identify institutions. The MARC Code List for Organizations is a good source for libraries and their parent institutions. You can even request codes there. Does your institution have a code? Then there is the SAN (Standard Address Number) for organizations in (or served by) the publishing industry. Once there was someone who kept track of institution numbers in barcodes, but I'm sure that has gone the way of the 8-track.

Next Generation Catalog

The Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science has made available 3 podcasts of recent talks on the next generation catalog.

• Anne M. Prestamo / AquaBrowser
• Jennifer Ward/WorldCat Local
• Next Generation Library Catalogs: David Lindahl

The cataloger in me wants to see title / statement of responsibility, it just looks backwards.

This is part of a larger podcasting series by GSLIS at Simmons. All are well worth a listen, even if they are out of scope of this weblog.

Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control

The final report of the working group, On the Record: Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, is now available.

SCATNews

The latest issue of SCATNews , the Newsletter of the Standing Committee of the IFLA Cataloguing Section, is now available on the IFLA website.

2007 Annual MARBI Meeting Minutes

The 2007 Annual MARBI Meeting minutes are now available online.

MARC module for Drupal 5

Drupal, an open-source CMS, now has a MARC module.

This module provides a way to map data in the MARC record to Drupal content types and import sets of MARC records.

The module currently supports mapping to the default node fields, taxonomy fields and CCK text fields.

Why
By importing a library's MARC records directly in to Drupal as nodes, you can easily recreate your library's catalog in a rich social environment.

Seen on oss4lib.

Institutional Repositories

Institutional Repositories, Tout de Suite, the latest Digital Scholarship publication, is designed to give the reader a very quick introduction to key aspects of institutional repositories and to foster further exploration of this topic though liberal use of relevant references to online documents and links to pertinent websites. It is under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License, and it can be freely used for any noncommercial purpose in accordance with the license.

From the e-mail announcement.

Genre/Form Headings for Radio Programs

Adapted from the e-mail distributed to many lists.

As the next step in the development of genre/form headings at the Library of Congress, the Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO) would like to announce the beginning of a project to add genre/form headings for radio programs to the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). These headings will join those already being established for moving images.

The genre/form headings will be based chiefly on the concepts represented in the Radio Form/Genre Terms Guide (RADFG). Existing form headings in the area of radio programming from LCSH (currently coded with MARC authority field 150) will also be considered for inclusion.

Catalogers in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, in cooperation with CPSO, have begun to create "proposed" authority records to aid in discussions related to the development of these genre/form headings. Although these records are not yet approved, they may be consulted in the Library of Congress authorities database. As with other proposed subject headings, these sample records may not reflect the final forms, reference structures, et cetera, but are provided to assist in the development process:

• Audience participation radio programs (sh2007025534)
• Christmas radio programs (sh2007025570)
• Horror radio programs (sh2007025535)
• Radio adaptations (sh2007025531)
• Western radio programs (sh2007025532)

A draft instruction sheet detailing the creation and application of these headings is also being written for inclusion in the Subject Cataloging Manual: Subject Headings and will be posted on CPSO's web site for public comment. An alert will be sent to various discussion lists when that occurs.

PB Core Metadata

Nope, PB Core isn't Peanut Butter Core, rather Public Broadcasting Core, metadata for public radio and television.

Yes, you can now download our starter kit including a free, fully functional FileMaker database for cataloging your content, and it’s custom-integrated with PBCore, the standard metadata dictionary worked out for you by public broadcasters!

Not sure how or why to dive into metadata? Your starter kit includes training resources and an online user guide. And if you download NOW, we will throw in a Listserv so you can trade information with media-makers just like you!

All of the scary but tedious work has been done for you! Over nearly six years, with CPB funding, a committee of your colleagues with an above-average geek quotient has ventured into this shadowy world and come back, bruised but living, with a metadata standard designed by and for both public TV and radio!

Catalogablog

This makes post number 3,074 since 5 March 2002. Just an EOY summary. Happy New Year.

Flock

Version 1.0 for Flock, the social Web browser has been released. They also had the smarts to release an API, so others can continue the development.

Metadata

Adding COinS and DOIs to our Contribution pages. Don't look for them yet, not yet live. I've also updated the RSS feed for the pages. This is not cataloging, or is it? The metadata fits some of the activities in FRBR. Find, identify, and acquire are all aided by these bits of info. In any event, anything that makes our work easier to find, use and cite is all good for the Institute. For me it makes a nice change of pace from ISBD/MARC/AACR2.

Clustering Tags

Simpson, Edwin has published HP technical report HPL-2007-190 Clustering Tags in Enterprise and Web Folksonomies

Recently there has been massive growth in the use of tags as a simple, flexible way to categorize resources. Tags are often used collaboratively to help share information using website; such as del.icio.us. However, the number of tags used in such a service is extremely large, so the unstructured nature of tags limits their value when navigating these websites, and prevents users from fully exploiting tags added by others. Clustering similar tags can improve this by adding structure. In this paper we discuss techniques for deriving tag similarity and explain two tag clustering algorithms. We applied the algorithms to two datasets containing tags provided by users with common interests. The first dataset is from a tagging service used by a small group of colleagues and the second is a public, web-based service. The paper examines the effectiveness of both clustering algorithms and their robustness to the different types of data, giving suggestions of possible ways to improve the algorithms.

Titles in Retail and Publisher Data

There has been much talk about using metadata from other communities to enrich our catalogs and/or lower the costs of cataloging. Recently there has been quite a flap on AUTOCAT when distributors have dumped minimun level records into OCLC. Now Karen Coyle has looked at Titles in Retail and Publisher Data. Real data.

Meeting Tool

Here is a free tool that might be useful for meeting facilitators or workshop presenters, Qipit.

Copy documents, whiteboards and handwritten notes with your camera phone or digital camera to store, fax, email or publish!

• Turn documents, notes and whiteboards into digital copies (PDFs)
• Email or fax qipit digital copies via email, your online Qipit account, or right from your phone
• Store all of your paper documents and notes as digital documents for easy archiving and sharing
• Tag your qipit documents for easy searching and sorting
• Publish and share your documents on the web

Save those flip-chart notes from the brainstorming meeting, capture the white-board result at the end of the meeting. Sounds useful.

Library Funding

In the latest Thinking Out Loud with George and Joan George Needham revealed a startling finding from the next OCLC report. That library use does not correlate with library support. We can't assume that our members will support us in a bond issue. Nor can we assume those not using the library won't support funding. Rallying our members for a tax increase or bond issue is not the best way to get funding. We have to mobilize our supporters, whether members or not. The full report is due in the first part of 2008.

For the use of members instead of patrons, users, etc. listen to the podcast.

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

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 February 18, 2008. 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.

Classification
The following codes are for use in subfield $2 in field 084 in Bibliographic and Community Information records (Other Classification Number), in subfield $2 in field 084 in Classification records (Classification Scheme and Edition) and in subfield $2 in field 065 in Authority records (Other Classification Number).

Additions:

asb

Allgemeine Systematik für Öffentliche Bibliotheken (ASB). (Berlin: Deutsches Bibliotheksinstitut) [use only after February 18, 2008]

ghbs

GHB-Aufstellungssystematik: HBZ Köln [use only after February 18, 2008]

ifzs

Systematik der IfZ-Bibliothek. [use only after February 18, 2008]

kab

Klassifikation für Allgemeinbibliotheken (Bad Honnef : Bock und Herchen Verlag) [use only after February 18, 2008]

rvk

Regensburger Verbundklassifikation (RVK) [use only after February 18, 2008]

sbb

Systematik der Bayerischen Bibliographie [use only after February 18, 2008]

sfb

SfB: Systematik für Bibliotheken (München: K.G. Saur) [use only after February 18, 2008]

sdnb

Systematik der Deutschen Nationalbibliographie [use only after February 18, 2008]

ssd

Systematik: Stadtbücherei Duisburg: Buchaufstellung und Ordnung des systematischen Kataloges (Reutlingen: Verlag Buch und Bibliothek) [use only after February 18, 2008]

stub

Systematik der TUB München [use only after February 18, 2008]

zdbs

ZDB-Systematik = ZDB-Classification [use only after February 18, 2008]

Description Conventions
The following codes are for use in subfield $e in field 040 in Bibliographic and Authority records (Description Conventions).

Additions:

pi

Instruktionen für die alphabetischen Kataloge der preussischen Bibliotheken (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrasowitz [use only after February 18, 2008]

rna

Regeln zur Erschließung von Nachlässen und Autographen (RNA) [use only after February 18, 2008]

Language codes
The following code is for use in subfield $2 in field 041 in Bibliographic and Commmunity Information records (Language code).

Addition:

din2335

Sprachenzeichen: DIN 2335 (Berlin: Beuth) [use only after February 18, 2008]

Abbreviated Title
The following code is for use in subfield $2 in field 210 in Bibliographic records (Abbreviated Title).

Addition:

din1502

Regeln für das Kürzen von Wörtern in Titeln und für das Kürzen der Titel von Veröffentlichungen: DIN 1502 (Berlin; Köln: Beuth) [use only after February 18, 2008]

Other Standard Identifier
The following code is for use in subfield $2 in field 024 in Bibliographic and Community Information records (Other Standard Identifier).

Addition:

urn

Uniform Resource Name [use only after February 18, 2008]

MARC Code List for Languages

The 2007 edition of the "MARC Code List for Languages" is now available from the Library of Congress. This new publication contains a list of languages and their associated three-character alphabetic codes that allow for the designation of the language or languages in MARC records. References from variant forms and specific language names assigned to group codes are included.

The list includes all valid codes and code assignments as of September 2007 and supersedes the 2003 edition of the "MARC Code List for Languages." There are 27 code additions and 12 changed code captions in this edition.

An XML version of the 2007 edition of the "MARC Code List for Languages" is available for use in applications.

HTML and PDF versions of the 2007 edition of the "MARC Code List for Languages" are available online.

MARBI Proposals

The following papers are available for review by the MARC community:

• Proposal No. 2008-02: Definition of field 542 for facts related to copyright status in the MARC 21 bibliographic format
• Discussion Paper No. 2008-DP01: Identifying headings that are appropriate as added entries, but are not used as bibliographic main entries

The draft agenda for the 2008 ALA Midwinter MARBI meetings is available.

Joint Steering Committee Documents

The following documents were posted on the JSC website on 2007/12/17:

• 5JSC/RDA/Sections 2-4, 9 (This is a large PDF file and may take a few seconds to open)
• 5JSC/RDA/Prospectus/Rev/5
• 5JSC/Chair/9/Chair follow-up/5 [Appendices WG]
• 5JSC/RDA/Objectives and Principles/Rev
• 5JSC/RDA/Element analysis/Rev
• 5JSC/RDA/RDA to FRAD mapping
• 5JSC/RDA/RDA to FRBR mapping/Rev
• 5JSC/RDA/Scope/Rev/2
• 5JSC/Chair/9/Chair follow-up/4 [Appendices WG]

Code4Lib Journal

The Code4Lib Journal has released the first issue. Lots of good stuff there.

• Beyond OPAC 2.0: Library Catalog as Versatile Discovery Platform by Tito Sierra, Joseph Ryan, and Markus Wust
• Facet-based search and navigation with LCSH: Problems and opportunities by Kelley McGrath
• Communicat: The Next Generation Catalog That Almost Was… by Ross Singer

Are just some of the papers.

Christmas Music

I went to a wonderful preformance of Messiah this week. It is always one of the best parts of the season. However, it really is an Easter piece. There is a Christmas section, but then it goes on to the death and aftermath. Not very Christmas. What I'd like to see is to just have the 1st part and the Hallelujah Chorus (folks would complain if that was missing) and then the Amen Chorus. Then after intermission another work could be presented. Hodie by Vaughan Williams does not get played often enough for my taste. There a plenty of works that could fill a second half. If one was a bit short a nice sing-along could fill the end of the concert.

I hope some music director in the Houston area is reading this and takes the suggestion (Ha!). Has anyone heard Hodie live?

PCC Series Policies and Practices

The PCC Ad Hoc Series Review Task Force seeks your comments on its "Discussion Paper on PCC Series Policies and Practices"

The paper is intended to generate comments useful in making recommendations for the future direction of PCC series practices and policies. Any individuals or organizations interested in series control policies, practices, and services are welcome to comment.

The task force membership and charges are available.

Encoding RDA, Resource Description and Access data in MARC 21

The following discussion paper is available for review by the MARC
community:

Discussion Paper No. 2008-DP04: Encoding RDA, Resource Description and Access data in MARC 21.

VuFind, New Release

Version 0.7 of VuFind is now available.

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
• Locally Cached Journals
• 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 the 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.

It is Solr powered, which seems to be a trend these days.

Study of the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records

During spring and early summer of 2007, the School of Library and Information Science at Kent State University conducted a Delphi study on critical FRBR issues as part of an IMLS-funded project concerning the research and development of FRBR-based retrieval systems.

The greatest concern was "Need to develop cataloging rules in line with FRBR." A bit further down the list was "Need to verify and validate the FRBR model against real data and in different communities to make sure the model is valid and applicable."

Rights Metadta

Creative Commons has announced that their rights metadata will now be semantically richer.

First, the RDF/XML we serve for each license is now considerably more informative. It includes:

• an explicit pointer to the license legalcode
• information on when the license was deprecated (for example, the Developing Nations 2.0 metadata)
• information about what license replaces this one (for example, the Attribution 1.0 Generic metadata)
• an explicit assertion about the license’s jurisdiction; this was previously encoded only by convention

In addition to the RDF/XML, we’re starting to encode license information as RDFa on the license deeds. Try using the GetN3 bookmarklet on the Attribution 3.0 Unported deed for an example.

We’re also starting to use this metadata to power our own applications. The OpenOffice.org Addin ships with a copy of the RDF and uses SPARQL to determine the license you’ve selected. As we continue to build out the tools around CC licenses we’ll be moving in a similar direction, looking for ways we can leverage this resource we already have.

You can build on it, too; everything we do goes into source control. You can find the RDF files in the license.rdf module. A description of the namespace is also available.

Object Reuse and Exchange Specs

Now available, the Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange specification.

Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE) defines standards for the description and exchange of aggregations of Web resources. This document provides an introduction and lists the specifications and user guide documents that make up the OAI-ORE standards.

Response to the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control Report

A wiki has been put together to respond to the lack of any mention of open date in the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control's report. If you agree with the statement, sign it, it is a wiki after all.

The draft report of the Library of Congress's Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control features many interesting suggestions. In particular we wholeheartedly endorse the vision of a bibliographic ecosystem which is "collaborative, decentralized, international in scope and web-based". However, we are concerned that the report lacks any discussion of a key component for any future of bibliographic data: open licensing and access.

UMich OAI Toolkit

The University of Michigan have released their open-source OAI toolkit on SourceForge. This toolkit contains both harvester and data provider, both written in Perl.

FRBR Book

While I might not want to find this under the tree, it is on my must read list. Understanding FRBR : what it is and how it will affect our retrieval tools

What is FRBR, and why is everyone talking about it? Is it really going to revolutionize cataloguing? And if so, what form will it take? Taylor and her compadres won't even try to teach you how to construct a hierarchical catalog record. Instead, their efforts are directed towards showcasing what's possible when digital technology and traditional cataloging practice meet. Serials, art, music, moving images, maps, and archival materials are just a few of the formats covered. Not for catalogers only.

Video Genre Terms

Good news from LoC.

After hearing from catalogers and deliberating further, CPSO has decided to reinstate "Video recordings for the hearing impaired" and "Video recordings for people with visual disabilities."

Happy dance.

MARC Code List for Languages

News from LoC

The 2007 edition of the MARC Code List for Languages is now available from the Library of Congress. This new publication contains a list of languages and their associated three-character alphabetic codes that allow for the designation of the language or languages in MARC records. References from variant forms and specific language names assigned to group codes are included. This edition contains 484 discrete codes, of which 55 are used for groups of languages.

The list includes all valid codes and code assignments as of September 2007 and supersedes the 2003 edition of the MARC Code List for Languages. There are 27 code additions and 12 changed code captions in this edition.

An XML version of the 2007 edition of the MARC Code List for Languages is available for use in applications.

MARBI Proposals

The following papers are available for review by the MARC community:

• Proposal No. 2008-01: Representation of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) System in the MARC 21 formats
• Proposal No. 2008-03: Definition of first indicator value in field 041 (Language code) of the MARC 21 bibliographic format

Additional proposals and discussion papers will be posted shortly.

The draft agenda for the 2008 ALA Midwinter MARBI meetings is available.

Unicode and MARC

News from LC.

The revised Character set specifications are now posted on the MARC site. They take into account the use of the full Unicode repertoire, as opposed to only the MARC-8 subset of Unicode, and also include the loss-less and lossy techniques for converting full Unicode to MARC-8 repertoire that were approved this year.

The MARC-8 specifications are still part of the document and the MARC-8 character code tables and mappings have some improved formatting, but no changes have been made to the MARC-8 to Unicode character set mappings.The XML (all MARC-8 repertoire) and comma-delimited (East Asian MARC-8 only) files are still downloadable, but we plan to improve the XML file in the near future. We are interested to know whether the comma-delimited file is used, as we may only need to offer the XML for download.

FRBR at IFLA

A new home page has been created on IFLANET for the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR).

It includes links to the recently-approved amendment to the expression entity, to the 1998 text in PDF and HTML, to errata that were identified during the review process, and to a new list of basic readings about FRBR.

Dublin Core News

An updated specification for DC-TEXT, a syntax for serializing, or representing, a Dublin Core metadata description set in plain text, has been published as a DCMI Recommended Resource.

The "Description Set Model" of the DCMI Abstract Model [DCAM] describes the constructs that make up a DC metadata description set. This document specifies a syntax for serialising, or representing, a DC metadata description set in plain text. The format is referred to as "DC-Text". A plain text format for serialisation of such description sets is useful as a means of presenting examples in a human-readable form which highlights the constructs of the DCMI Abstract Model, and also as a means of comparing the information represented in other machine-processable formats.

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

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.

These codes should not be used in exchange records until after January 30, 2008. 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.

Term, Name, Title Sources

The following codes are 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.

Additions:

asrcrfcd

Australian Standard Research Classification: Research Fields, Courses and Disciplines (RFCD) classification (Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics) [use only after January 30, 2008]

asrcseo

Australian Standard Research Classification: Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) classification (Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics) [use only after January 30, 2008]

asrctoa

Australian Standard Research Classification: Type of Activity(TOA) classification (Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics) [use only after January 30, 2008]

muzvukci

MuzeVideo UK Contributor Index (London: Muze Europe Ltd) [use only after January 30, 2008]

Texas Library Association Annual Conference

I'm signed up for TLA. Did it too late to get a decent rate on a conference hotel so I'll be staying behind the convention center. From the map it looks close, not a bad walk. I'm on the ballot for councilor for the Digital Library group. So, I'll be going there and to the TRGCC events.

Last Spring I suggested they have Cali Lewis on the program. She lives in Dallas and has a video podcast, Geekbrief. Her story is great, two years ago she was working at a u-rent-space place and heard about podcasting. Without any experience she and her husband started one . Now, that is their job. She has been on TV and rubs shoulders with Web 2.0 luminaries. Since I was the one to suggest her, I hope she gets a good turnout. I should be there unless it conflicts with the DL or TRGCC events, or its part of a preconference workshop. Hope not.

FRBR and RDA

This note from Martha Yee was posted to the FRBR discussion e-mail list.

I have written elsewhere about the fact that our rules and our cataloging data are already considerably FRBR-ized and that what is lacking for the creation of true FRBR-ized catalogs is adequate software support. ("FRBRization: a Method for Turning Online Public Finding Lists into Online Public Catalogs." Information Technology and Libraries 2005; 24:3:77-95. [also at the California Digital Library eScholarship Repository, http://repositories.cdlib.org/postprints/715].) We already collocate all of the expressions of a work using work identifiers (formerly known as main entries). However, it is still up to the user to look through all of the various expressions and manifestations of the work and make decisions about which one is the most useful.

With the proliferation of methods of reproduction in the 20th century, this set of all of the various manifestations and expressions of a particular work has become more and more chaotic, however. At the International Conference on the Principles & Future Development of AACR in Toronto in 1997, I thought I heard a desire to revise AACR to further FRBR-ize the rules so that catalogers went beneath work collocation and performed expression and manifestation collocation to aid users in navigating this chaos. Instead, RDA seems to be headed toward an increase in chaos by atomizing the bibliographic description into lists of data elements that are all tied to the FRBR entity manifestation. As Hal Cain so eloquently put it in his September 6, 2007, post to Autocat, "Compiled bibliographic information has greater value than just the value of the separate data."

I have been a vocal critic during this process, but it occurred to me that people might not really understand what I was talking about without a demonstration code, an alternative RDA, so to speak. Thus, with the help of many generous and intelligent friends, whom I acknowledge in the introduction, I have created such a code, which you can view at http://myee.bol.ucla.edu. Since it is clear that we need to move toward more standard ways of coding our data within the sphere of the internet, I have made a stab at creating an RDF model of my cataloging code, as well. I'm certain that it is currently a very amateurish effort, as it is my first data model of any kind, but it might encourage more expert data modelers to help improve it as a group effort. (I should say that I have already received considerable help from the most generous topic map expert Alexander Johannesen). The data modelling process has already been valuable to me in that it has raised a number of issues that I suspect would arise in any effort to model the bibliographic universe (a discussion of these, including Alexander's comments and some from Sara Shatford Layne, can be found at: http://myee.bol.ucla.edu/rdfmodel.html).

It may well be that catalogers do not have enough information to collocate items at the expression and manifestation levels, and that the designers of our current Anglo-American cataloging practices were wiser than we seem to give them credit for these days in limiting collocation to the work level except in the case of prolific works, which get some expression collocation.It may also be that our illustrious leaders have so thoroughly deprofessionalized cataloging that there is no longer any personnel available to carry out this user service. If either or both of those propositions are the case, I would suggest that we abandon the current RDA development process and work instead on designing an effective RDF (or topic map?) model of our current cataloging rules and our millions of existing cataloging records.

The Yee rules also contain some suggestions for reforming our practices in other ways to bring our entity definitions into closer alignment both with those of our users and with those of our colleagues outside the Anglo-American world, in order to facilitate better international cooperation in creating a virtual international authority file.

So, with some trepidation, I put this forth for you all to tear apart (smile). Please send comments to the RDA, FRBR, and NGC4LIB lists, to my email address (myee@ucla.edu) and/or post them to my blog at: http://yeecatrule.wordpress.com/

Thanks for your consideration!

Martha

I have added some active links.

LC Classification Schedule Q: Science

News from LC. "Due to our printing company's error, Library of Congress Classification schedule Q: Science, 2007 edition was delivered to CDS with pages 10 and 11 missing." They have mounted the missing pages on their website.

RLG Programs Descriptive Metadata Practices Survey

The results of the RLG Programs Descriptive Metadata Practices Survey are now available.

• RLG Programs' interpretation of the results and the issues they identified to pursue in future projects. (13 pages, 99K)
• The data supplement with the charts and graphs generated from the 89 survey responses the survey instrument. (46 pages, 258K)

The Virtual Museum of Cataloging and Acquisitions Artifacts

The Virtual Museum of Cataloging and Acquisitions Artifacts is looking for additions to their collection. Although they love getting anything they are hoping to find:

• a hand-written catalog card in "library hand"
• artifacts of homemade or local early computer systems for cards and
  orders, e.g. keypunched cards, etc.
• the ever-elusive Polaroid camera with attachment for taking pictures from the NUC
• local manuals for typing cards, filing, etc.

Topic Maps in Libraries

Some of these people interested in applying Topic Maps in libraries created a mailing list to discuss and inform about new applications and advances in this issues.

Controlled Vocabulary Add-on for DSpace

The Odisseia Research Group at the University of Minho has just released a new version of the Controlled Vocabulary add-on for DSpace.

This patch adds a few improvements to the controlled vocabulary add- on currently present in DSpace:

1. The Node Schema (see [dspace]/docs/controlledvocabulary.xsd) has been updated to support other types of relationships and/or properties that are part of a true thesaurus, and now all elements in this structure are properly processed and displayed by the add-on.
2. The add-on recognizes thesaurus/controlled vocabularies described in SKOS standard schema. This vocabulary can be created according to the W3C recommendations and must be saved with the extension ".skos".
3. In the DC metadata fields you wish to control, it is now possible to configure distinct vocabularies associated to specific communities. You may also define one or more generic vocabularies to be used by default on the rest of the communities. To use this functionality you have to edit the file [dspace]/config/input- forms.xml and place a new "controlled-vocabularies" element under the that you want to control.

Rights Metadata

The Creative Commons Add-in for OpenOffice allows license information to be embedded in OpenOffice Writer, Impress and Calc documents.

New Character Sets in MDS-Maps, MDS-Music, MDS-Visual Materials, MDS-Computer Files

In order to expand the use of non-Latin scripts already used in bibliographic records, the MDS-Maps, MDS-Music, MDS-Visual Materials, and MDS-Computer Files records may now include records containing Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Hebrew, Yiddish, Greek, or Cyrillic script characters. These elements will become valid for distribution no earlier than January 2008.

Any questions regarding the data content of these records can be directed to:

Cataloging Policy & Support Office
email: cpso@loc.gov

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

Network Development and MARC Standards Office, Library of Congress 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 January 16, 2008. 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. Term, Name,

Title Sources

The following codes are 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.

Additions:

afset

American Folklore Society Ethnographic Thesaurus [use only after January 9, 2008]

aiatsisl

AIATSIS Language Thesaurus (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies [use only after January 16, 2008]

aiatsisp

AIATSIS Place Thesaurus (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies [use only after January 16, 2008]

aiatsiss

AIATSIS Subject Thesaurus (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies [use only after January 16, 2008]

Other Standard Identifier

The following code is for use in subfield $2 in field 024 in Bibliographic and Coommunity Information records (Other Standard Identifier).

Addition:

gtin-14

Global Trade Identification Number 14 (EAN/UCC-128 or ITF-14) [use only after January 16, 2008]

Virtual International Authority File

News from OCLC.

OCLC, the Bibliothéque nationale de France, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and the Library of Congress have signed a memorandum of understanding to extend and enhance the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), a project which virtually combines multiple name authority files into a single name authority service.

Genius

This does not reflect very well on my writing, but any readers can feel proud that they have such a level of understanding.

I edited the provided script and took out all their advertising. What are the ethics of that?

Future of Bibliographic Control

The live feed had so many viewers it overloaded the servers. Now it is available to view at your leisure. Draft Final Report: Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control.

In November 2006, Deanna Marcum, associate librarian for Library Services at the Library of Congress, convened a Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control to examine the future of bibliographic description in the 21st century in light of advances in search engine technology, the popularity of the Internet and the influx of electronic information resources.

After a year of careful and comprehensive study, the group presented its draft report to Library of Congress managers and staff in the Coolidge Auditorium. The draft report will be made available on or about Nov. 30, and a comment period on the draft report will last until Dec. 15, 2007.

Due to unprecedented demand for the live webcast, the Library has made this unedited version of the presentation available immediately. An enhanced version of this webcast, featuring the accompanying slide presentation, will be available shortly.

History of Writing

Added to my MP3 player, A Brief History of Innovation in Publishing.

Where would the people of the world be without published material? Hardly any information about anything would be exchanged even in today's modern society. Published material is so ubiquitous that you couldn't avoid it if you tried. The newspapers and websites you read, the billboards you see on the way to work, and even reports on your desk at work would all make this a futile attempt. As Sarah Milstein and Tim O'Reilly explain in this presentation, the published material we see today was not just invented recently, and in fact has been being constantly updated since the days of writing on clay tablets.

I think Tim O'Reilly would be a great keynote speaker at library conferences.

21 Nov. 2007. Had a chance to listen, and it is short with not much content. It is well presented and the recording is good, so it is worth a listen, but it is not the content-filled talk I was hoping for.

Cataloging Training Survey

This survey request was posted to several e-mail lists.

This survey is for librarians who have supervised a library science intern or practicum student in cataloging. A great deal of discussion about cataloging education has been raised in the library community as of late, and we feel an important component of cataloging education is the practicum/internship experience.

Our intent is to include the survey results in a journal article that examines cataloging practicum/internship experiences and offers guidelines to both students and supervisors on how to create a successful cataloging practicum/internship experience. If you supervised a library science graduate student internship or practicum, we invite you to participate in this survey.

The survey is eleven questions long and should take approximately fifteen minutes. All results will remain completely anonymous. The survey is completely voluntary, and your completion of the survey implies your consent to participate in this study. You must be 18 years of age or older to participate in this survey. You are not required to answer every question and can choose to skip to the next question. The study has fulfilled the requirements for conducting human-subject research. Please provide as much detail about your experiences as possible.

The survey will be available through December 8, 2007. If you have any questions, please contact Melanie McGurr at the Ohio State University , mcgurr.2@osu.edu or Ione Damasco at the University of Dayton, ione.damasco@notes.udayton.edu.

21 Nov. 2007. This survey is closed.

Resource Description and Access

News about RDA.

Outcomes of the October 2007 meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA have been mounted on the JSC Web site.

The Outcomes outline a new organization for RDA which has been agreed to by the Joint Steering Committee and the Committee of Principals. Further information on the organization has also been posted on the JSC Web site. New sections of RDA will be issued for review in December 2007.

MARC Record Service Survey

Help inform our decisions buy taking this survey on MARC Record Services.

Does your library use a MARC Record Service such as SFX's MARCit! or Serials Solutions' 360 MARC Updates? If so, I invite you to participate in a brief, anonymous survey that is designed to provide information about how libraries are using different MARC record services. The goals of the survey are to identify the benefits of using these services and areas in which the services could be improved, as well as to solicit general feedback about them.

Your participation in this study will provide valuable information about a major aspect of serials cataloging: outsourcing MARC records to vendors. Your responses will inform a formally published article, which I will share with the listserves once it is finished.

Movers and Shakers

If you nominated someone better do it again.

Nominations for Library Journal's Movers and Shakers that were made before November 5 were not captured and stored on LJ's server. We need you to go back and Renominate those people. We are assured that the electronic nomination form is working, but if you prefer, you can supply all the information requested on the form and either fax it to 646-746-6734, or send it in an e-mail to Francine Fialkoff, fialkoff@reedbusiness.com. The deadline has been extended to November 28.

Online Social Spaces

All the discussion of on-line social spaces seems to miss an important way folks are connecting, through their game consoles. I'm not sure of the numbers but I'm guessing the number of people connecting using X-Box Live is not insignificant. Where are the libraries in Halo 3?

MODS Tool

Great news for MODS users

The University of Tennessee Digital Library Center is proud to announce the release of the DLC-MODS Workbook, version 1.2 under the GNU General Public License version 3.

The DLC-MODS Workbook provides a series of web pages that enable users to easily generate complex, valid MODS metadata records that meet the 1-4 levels of specification outlined in the Digital Library Federation Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records, (DLF Aquifer Guidelines November 2006).

Developed by programmer Christine Haygood Deane under the direction of metadata librarian Melanie Feltner-Reichert, this open source client-side software provides control of date formats and other problematic fields at the point of creation, while shielding creators from the need to work in XML. Metadata records created can be partially created, saved to the desktop, reloaded and completed at a later date. Final versions can be downloaded or cut-and-pasted into text editors for use elsewhere.

Developed in support for our state-wide digitization project, Volunteer Voices, we hope this system will assist others in their efforts to create valuable digital libraries also. The software can be viewed here and downloaded here.

Drill Clouds

Lorcan Dempsey mentions Drill Clouds in his discussion of some interesting work being done at CISTI. They are Tag Clouds 2.0, ones that enhance the searching and presentation of results. Might be something worth considering.

Ungava extends tag clouds to make them a useful tool for search refinement. That is, to use a tag cloud to refine an existing query by adding new elements to the query through interactions with the cloud. As this results in a kind of drill-down search behaviour, these new clouds have been named drill clouds.

OAI-ORE Meeting

Seen on several e-mail lists.

A meeting will be held on March 3, 2008 at Johns Hopkins University to roll-out the first beta release of the OAI-ORE specifications. These specifications describe a data model to identify and describe aggregations of web resources, and the encoding of the data model in the XML-based Atom syndication format.

Additional details are available at:

• The full press release for this event
• The registration site for the meeting

Note that registration is required and space is limited.

3000 Entries

Recently, this weblog passed the 3000 postings mark. Since Tuesday, March 5, 2002, when the first item was posted there have been at least 3000 news items I thought would be of interest to catalogers. Maybe a few less, there were some of general library interest and a couple of personal entries. Cataloging is changing. Catalogablog has tried to keep everyone, myself included, aware of what is happening. What a long strange trip its been and promises to be.

xISSN Web Service

OCLC has announced a companion to the xISBN service, the xISSN Web Service.

The xISSN Web service supplies ISSNs and other information associated with serial publications represented in WorldCat. Submit an ISSN to this service, and it returns a list of related ISSNs and selected metadata. The service is based on WorldCat, the world's largest network of library content and services. The current xISSN database covers 575,573 ISSNs.

Ideal for Web-enabled search applications, such as library catalogs and OpenURL Resolvers, and based on associations made in the WorldCat database, xISSN enables an end user to link to information about alternate versions of serial publications.

This is an API, requests are accepted using REST (or OpenURL or unAPI), this is not a place you can type an ISSN in a box and get back a list.

WorldCat and the Future of Bibliographic Control

Karen Calhoun spoke on WorldCat and the future of bibliographic control at the recent OCLC Members Council.

One bit I found interesting was that Baker and Taylor Cataloging Plus libraries are now OCLC members. These were described as small school libraries, ones that would never have joined otherwise. I wonder if this is a route the Lunar and Planetary Institute (MPOW) could use to join. We can not afford the set-up and training fees for OCLC, but just might be able to pay the yearly dues. (Maybe.) We have a lot of unique or rare records to contribute and I'd love to become a NACO library, since we have access to the planetary science community. But we can just not afford OCLC as the fees are currently structured.

MARC Jack-o-lantern

Now this is scary, a MARC Jack-o-lantern. A year old, but still fun.

Electronic Integrating Resources

News from OLAC.

I am pleased to announce that an updated version of OLAC's Introduction to Cataloging Electronic Integrating Resources: An Online Training Presentation is now available.

I would like to thank Steve Miller for his work in updating this presentation to reflect current rules and practices (primarily the transition to biblevel "i" by OCLC and the removal of the prohibition against physical description of remote electronic resources).

I would also like to acknowledge the Subcommittee on Maintenance for CAPC Resources (David Prochazka, Paige Andrew, Richard N. Leigh, and Susan Leister) for their work in organizing a review of the resources on the CAPC web site and arranging for those that have become out-of-date to be updated or archived.