Belated Anniversary

I started this back on March 5, 2002, so about a month ago was the 7th anniversary. Over that time more than 3,400 things caught my attention enough to create a post. I'm posting less now than in 2002-03. One reason is that now there are many other excellent weblogs covering the topic. Another reason is that there was an excitement in the medium back then, now it is just another avenue for information. Thanks to all those how have read, commented on, and suggested stories over the years.

Digital Library Tool

News from the National Science Digital Library.

NSDL EduPak 1.0: An Open Source Digital Library Services Platform for Education

National educational organizations and institutions focused on establishing specialized digital collections, conducting educational research, or providing students, teachers and instructors with discipline-oriented pedagogical products and tools require basic technology to build educational digital repositories that support their work. To help meet a national priority expressed by the National Science Board (NSB) in January 11, 2009 recommendations to the Obama Administration in which they stated, "Our national economic prosperity and security require that we remain a world leader in science and technology," the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is pleased to announce the premiere release of NSDL EduPak 1.0. Specifically designed for education, EduPak packages technology for digital storage, access and workflow into a convenient bundle designed to to jump start the essential "behind-the-scenes" framework that enables innovation in teaching and learning. NSDL EduPak may be downloaded through NSDL at NCore and through Fedora Commons.

NSDL EduPak is a publicly available, lightweight version of NCore, established in 2008 as an open-source digital library platform of technology and standards that create a dynamic information layer on top of library resources. Based on Fedora open source repository software, NCore provides users, developers, information managers and decision-makers with systems for description, organization, interrelation and annotation of resources. Built using NCore components, EduPak is an all-in-one, open source, education digital repository solution bundle that provides a general platform for building digital libraries united by a common data model and interoperable applications.

Date and Time Format

Work being done at LC.

The Library of Congress, in conjunction with several partners, has initiated an effort to develop a simple XML date/time format that can be referenced by XML schemas. In the MODS schema, for example, date formats are restricted to 'w3cdtf' (defined as the W3C Date Time Format Note which is a profile of ISO 8601), 'iso8601' (defined as the alternative in ISO 8601 "basic" that specifies the form YYYYMMDD, etc. rather than the form with hyphens), and 'marc' (defined as the conventions used in the MARC 008/07-14 character positions). None of these really meets the requirements of a date time format for these schemas.

Please see http://www.loc.gov/standards/datetime/ which provides a rationale for this work and the requirements that it addresses. We would be pleased to hear of additional requirements or any other comments or suggestions.

CONSER Coding

News from LC about the PCC.

Implementation of Authentication Code "PCC" and Change in Coding Practice of 008/39 Cataloging Source Code in CONSER Records

042 code "pcc"

Beginning May 1, 2009 all CONSER institutions will use the authentication code "pcc" in place of codes "lcd" and "lc" in records newly authenticated and distributed as part of the CONSER Program. The code will be used in records for both serials and integrating resources.

Codes "lcd" and "lc" will remain valid in pre-existing records and will not be systematically changed to "pcc" at this time. Other authentication codes will remain valid and some may be used in combination with code "pcc," when appropriate.

008/39 code "c"

Beginning May 1, 2009 CONSER practice for coding the 008/39 cataloging source will also change. CONSER institutions, other than CONSER national libraries, will use code "c" (defined as "cooperative cataloging program") in all records - original or copy - authenticated and distributed as part of the CONSER Program, unless the record began as a record from a national library, in which case the source code will remain "blank". Previously, authenticated records based on existing OCLC member copy were coded "d" (defined as "other") by default.

Code "d" on existing authenticated records remains valid and will not be systematically changed to code "c" in the near future.

The coding practices of national bibliographic agencies participating in CONSER, (e.g. the Library of Congress, Library and Archives Canada, National Library of Medicine, and National Agricultural Library) will not change. These agencies will continue to use code blank in the 008/39 for original and previously unauthenticated OCLC records.