Radical Cataloging

Soon to be available Radical cataloging : essays at the front by K R Roberto with an introduction by Sandy Berman. (Amazon WorldCat)

Interactive Course Assignment Pages

I saw the Interactive Course Assignment Pages (ICAP) mentioned on the Library Web Chic's weblog. not cataloging related, but still looks useful. For colleges and universities, of course, but how about for the homework help area at the public library? School libraries? So many places this could be useful.

Librarians have enough to do and maintaining static HTML pages is tedious and time-consuming. The ICAP tool enables librarians with minimal technical expertise to create dynamic web pages that integrate Web 2.0 features, such as chat and RSS feeds, with traditional library content, such as catalogs and article databases.

The ICAPs use a module layout to display content written and produced by librarians, as well as library resources and interactive widgets.

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.