Image via WikipediaDavid Scott, running for District 6 (Houston) of the Texas State Board of Education, has a Masters of Library Science from the University of North Texas in Denton.
FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology), an enumerative, faceted subject heading schema derived from the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), is now available as an experimental Linked Data service (http://id.worldcat.org/fast/) and is made available under the Open Data Commons Attribution License.
The FAST authority file, which underlies the FAST Linked Data release, has been created through a multi-year collaboration of OCLC Research and the Library of Congress. Specifically, it is designed to make the rich LCSH vocabulary available as a post-coordinate system in a Web environment.
"Linked Data" is an approach to publishing data on the Web which enhances its utility by making references to persons, places, things, etc. more consistent and linkable across domains.
The release of FAST as Linked Data provides FAST headings that support both human and machine access. FAST incorporates links to corresponding LCSH authorities. In addition, many of the geographic headings have links to the GeoNames geographic database (http://www.geonames.org/).
Image via WikipediaA break from cataloging. I enjoy comics and the Digital Comics Museum has given me access to a great collection of out-of-copyright works. I've been enjoying books by Walt Kelly, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Joe Kubert, Bob Powell, and many other outstanding sequential artists. I've also enjoyed reading the original Captain Marvel, Balckhawks, Crime Does Not Pay, early Archie stories in Pep Comics and other important titles. Along the way I've found a couple of eye-opening comic books.
EADitor is a free, open-source cross-platform XForms framework for creating, editing, and publishing Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aids using Orbeon, an enterprise-level XForms Java application, which runs in Apache Tomcat. I have released the latest stable code in downloadable packages on our Google Code site. This release is a major advancement over the June 2011 release, especially in terms of performance and stability. I call EADitor a beta because there is much I have left to improve, but this is the first production-ready release, an example of which is the American Numismatic Society Archives site, Archer
Features in a nutshell:
One of the most important recent advancements in the project is the introduction of our documentation wiki. Documentation is an ongoing process, but the wiki contains enough information to get you started with installation and use.
- Public interface with faceted search results and facet-based OpenLayers mapping
- Linked data and geographic services: OAI-PMH feed, Solr-based Atom feed (embedded with geographic points) and search results in the form of KML
- Geonames, LCSH, VIAF APIs for geographic, subject term, personal, and corporate name controlled vocabulary
- Upload finding aids from the "wild" (if they adhere to EAD 2002).
- Interface for reordering and setting permissions of components
- Flickr API integration, attach flickr images as a daogrp
- Simple template controls for EAD finding aids
- Introduction of simple themes: select facet orientation on search page and from a selection of jQuery UI themes (theme controls will be enhanced over time)
Blog
Google Group
SAA 2010 slideshow
code4lib article (XForms for Libraries, an Introduction)
Image via WikipediaThe Library of Congress to Cancel LCGFT Character- and Franchise-Based Terms for Moving Images.On August 1, 2011 the Policy and Standards Division (PSD) of the Library of Congress issued a discussion paper entitled, “Cancellation of LCGFT Character- and Franchise-Based Terms for Moving Images,” which explained why character- and franchise-based terms are currently included in Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT), and the rationale for PSD’s proposal to cancel them. PSD would like to thank all those who provided comments on this issue.An attachemnt to the documnet lists many terms and suggested LCGFT and LCSH replacement headings.
Specialists in PSD and staff in LC’s Moving Image, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) reviewed all of the comments and found them to be generally in favor of the proposal. PSD will therefore move forward with cancelling the approximately 90 character- and franchise-based terms from LCGFT. Correspondents did raise some valid concerns that are addressed below.
This is one of the coolest things ever - an export/import tool for a custom VRA Core metadata XMP panel. This tool, designed to be used with Adobe Bridge, allows you to export VRA Core metadata from images with existing metadata and even better, to import VRA metadata to a group of files from a .txt file.
The VRA Core metadata scheme has a very rich, robust, and relational set of elements so any tool that automates its application is extremely valuable. This site even has great videos to explain installation and use.
NISO will continue its monthly open teleconference series this coming Monday, November 14th at 3:00 PM. This month, we will be discussing Standards for Digital Bookmarking and Annotation Sharing, a new NISO project. NISO has begun work to create a standard syntax for how bookmarks and notes should be located in a digital text, especially in online environments that might be continually updated or mutable. NISO held two meetings, supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, on this topic last month in conjunction with the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Books in Browsers (San Francisco, CA), where interested parties, including librarians, vendors and developers discussed requirements for functional specifications.
We'll be talking about the initiative overall and the items raised during the meetings. Peter Brantley, Director, BookServer Project at the Internet Archive and Rob Sanderson, Information Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library will participate in the conversation together with Todd Carpenter, Managing Director of NISO.
The call is free and anyone is welcome to participate. To join, simply dial 877-375-2160 and enter the code: 17800743#. All calls are held from 3-4 p.m. Eastern time.
Image via WikipediaThe Policy and Standards Division has received a proposal for a new Syriac romanization table. Comments due by January 16, 2012.
Did you know that buttons like these allow Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and others to track your online browsing activities on every site that includes one of these buttons, even if you never click the buttons and (in some browsers) even if you have third-party cookies disabled?
ShareMeNot is a Firefox add-on designed to prevent third-party buttons (such as the Facebook “Like” button or the Twitter “tweet” button) embedded by sites across the Internet from tracking you until you actually click on them. Unlike traditional solutions, ShareMeNot does this without completely removing the buttons from the web experience.
Image via WikipediaThe Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress has received proposals for the following:
Image via WikipediaThe TEI Consortium's Special Interest Group on Libraries has recently completed a major revision to the “Best Practices for TEI in Libraries” (http://purl.org/TEI/teiinlibraries). The revised Best Practices contain updated versions of the widely adopted encoding levels, which span from fully automated reformatting of print content to deep encoding to support content analysis and scholarly uses. A substantially revised TEI Header section supports greater interoperability between text collections and MARC records. In addition, the Best Practices now include schemas for encoding levels 1-4, providing a mechanism to better ensure conformance and interoperability of digital texts.
