Enriching the Catlog

Dynamic Catalogue Enrichment with SeeAlso Link Servers by Jakob Voss appears in Proceedings European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (ECDL), Aarhus, Denmark.

The poster presents architecture and usage of SeeAlso, a simple protocol for link servers that is used to dynamically enrich catalouges of libraries in the German Common library network GBV.

Currently the tool is at version 0.50, so it may take some tech savvy to get it up and running.

Work Records for Music

The Music Library Association's Bibliographic Control Committee (BCC) has announced the availability of the Final Report of The BCC Working Group on Work Records for Music.

The recommendations in the final report cannot be applied in a current, "real world" environment. Instead, the working group provided a conceptual document based on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD) conceptual models that addresses what a work record for music should encompass.

Cataloging Playaway Devices

The Playaways Cataloging Joint Task Force, comprised of members from OLAC and MLA, has announced that the final version of their Guide to Cataloging Playaway Devices Based on AACR2 Chapters 6 and 9 has been approved. The Guide is available in PDF, HTML, or MS Word formats.

NH Classification Schedule for Artistic Photography

Faculty want the artistic photography books with the rest of the art books? Class NH is an alternative to the way LC handles these materials.

The NH schedule is designed for the classification of photography books of an artistic nature. It was initially compiled for the 4th edition of N, which was issued in 1970. When the Library of Congress rejected the proposed subclass for art photography, it was published by ARLIS/NA in 1974. NH has been adopted by a number of libraries with strong collections of artistic photography as an alternative to TR, which emphasizes the technical aspects of photography.

Prototype a Cooperative "Identities Hub"

I've complained off-and-on about how much is lost because small special libraries can't contribute to OCLC. For instance, without OCLC membership we can't be NACO participants. Well, OCLC is taking a step in a better direction with the Identities Hub.

The current LC/NACO contributor model has severe limitations, both in who is enabled to add and edit authority records and the rules that constrain what information can be entered (even if the cataloger knows more information).The intellectual work that librarians who are not NACO contributors do in the course of creating bibliographic records is untapped. The expertise in archival and museum communities is not reflected. Scholars have expertise to contribute to more clearly differentiate creators of works and do so within the Web environment.

Only an announcement at this point, I look forward to seeing what develops.

Comics and Google

The Google Chrome comic is by Scott McCloud. Google was wise to choose him since he is a master of the nonfiction sequencial graphic format. His ground breaking work was using a comic to describe comics, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art

Dublin Core Abstract Model

Karen Coyle provides an introduction to the Dublin Core Abstract Model (DCAM). It is something that deserves to be better uderstood and studied. I've heard that it, along with FRBR, is a basis for RDA. FRBR over the past 10 or so years has become somewhat known and taught in classes. I haven't seen the same dissemination of ideas from DCAM. I have considered giving a presentation on it, I believe it is important, but it is sooooo dry. Maybe Karen can begin to make it more widely known.

Microformats, Rel-Tag

I like microformats, just another metadata format really. Lately I've been looking at the rel-tag. It says what a page is about. Can it handle a phrase "Paul Spudis", for example? Doesn't seem to be able to do that. Pretty worthless otherwise. Examples? I've been using the hCal microformat and that seems to work pretty well. With my Firefox extension I can drop the info right into Outlook. I've got the rel-tag to work but can't seem to get a phrase to work. Saying a page is about the Lunar and Planetary Institute is a lot more useful than saying it is about institute. Any suggestions? Anyone else using microformats?

TechKNOW

The most recent issue of TechKNOW is now available. Issue 14, no. 2 includes:

• OCLC's Enhance Program: The Best-Kept Secret of Quality Control / by Sevim McCutcheon, Catalog Librarian, Kent State University
• What will we do when the 440 Field Becomes Obsolete?
• Book Review: Radical Cataloging: Essays at the Front
• Innovation @ Our Library: Floating Collections at Columbus Metropolitan Library / by Marihelen Hatcher, Public Services Administrator, Columbus Metropolitan Library
• Ohio Library Council Technical Services Retreat: Mohican III-Looking Beyond the Horizon / by Fred Gaieck, Librarian, Ohio Reformatory for Women, Marysville, Ohio
• OLAC/MOUG Conference is Just Around the Corner / by Mary Huismann, Music/Media Cataloging Coordinator, University of Minnesota Libraries
• Coordinator's Corner / by Ian Fairclough, George Mason University
• A Summary of LC's Response to the Report of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control / by Amey L. Park, Database Maintenance Librarian, Kent State University
• Book Review: The Complete RFID Handbook: A Manual and DVD for Assessing, Implementing and Managing Radio Frequency Identification Technologies in Libraries

ORE in Atom Proposal

Comment quickly on this one, Revising the ORE Profile of Atom, the specs are due the end of September.

This document describes a possible revision of the serialization of Resource Maps in Atom. The core characteristics of the revision are:

1. Convey ORE semantics in Atom as add-ons/extensions to regular Atom Feeds by introducing explicit ORE relationships instead of by according ORE-specific meaning to pre-defined Atom relationship values as is the case in the current 0.9 serialization.
2. Express an ORE Aggregation at the level of an Atom Entry not an Atom Feed; there are no ORE-specific semantics at the Feed level.

Off Topic - Gaming

I've never played e-games. When Pac-Man came out tried it once or twice then stopped. Wasn't fun for me. Same with all the many games in the years since. I once or twice visited a MUD, found it dull. Rather watch re-runs of 3s Company. So it was for years, no excitement in the Xbox, PS2, and all the other things folks lined up for the night before to purchase.

The one exception to this was Dance Dance Revolution. I played this about 6 or 7 years ago and then priced the game and PS2. It seemed a bit too much for our budget then for just one game. I still had no interest in the ones where you sit and watch a screen.

Just about a year ago, we gave a home to some kids. For Christmas we got them a Wii and a couple of games. I was impressed by the imagination behind Super Mario Galaxy. Lego Star Wars was another that I found intriguing, so much so that about a week ago I started playing. Now I'm hooked. This is much better than TV, except it is much harder to turn off. It is engaging, it has problems and puzzles to solve, plenty of rewards, interesting and varied settings and an excellent soundtrack. There is more thinking going on in these games than I realized. In some ways it is more like reading a book than watching a movie. It is active rather than passive.

I always supported gaming in libraries. I don't read romance novels but think they have a place there. Same with the games. Now I think they have more reason to be there than the DVDs we all carry. The Shifted Librarian and all the other gaming librarians have another convert.

Guide to Cataloging DVDs

The DVD Guide Update Task Force of the Cataloging Policy Committee (CAPC) has completed the draft of the guide and is interested in your comments and suggestions. Many thanks to Sue Neumeister for placing the draft on the OLAC website in the following areas:

CAPC Publications & Training Materials
CAPC What's New
OLAC What's New

The charge to the Task Force was “to revise the Guide to Cataloging DVDs using AACR2r4 Chapters 7 and 9 and to include additional formats such as audio DVDs (AACR2r4 Chapter 6) and DualDiscs.”

Adapted from the email notice

Koha

There is now a VMWare appliance of Koha 3.0 on Debian. It's not configured, so it can be set up however you want it. This makes it very easy to play with and learn Koha.

Kete 1.1 Released

Kete version 1.1, from the same folks who brought you Koha, has been released.

Kete is software that combines aspects of Digital Libraries/Repositories, Knowledge and Content Management Systems, and collaboration tools such as Wikis to make it easy to add and relate content on a Kete site.

It is also an open source web application written on top of the Ruby on Rails framework.

Some improvements include:

• Privacy Control - ability to designate any item version within a basket as only viewable to its members
• Content Licensing - users can choose from Kete instance's available Licenses for a piece of content they create. Creative Commons licenses are available to be loaded as license options with one command on the server.
• OAI-PMH Repository - an Kete instance can optionally answer OAI-PMH harvester requests for its content.
• Force use of SSL Encryption on Private Items and User Account Information (optional) Kete now can be configured to use HTTPS for all sensitive areas (login, registration, private items, certain administrator functionality).

Open Library Environment (OLE) Project

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has announced that it is participating in the Open Library Environment Project.

With support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Open Library Environment (OLE) Project will convene the academic library community in the design of an Open Library Management System built on Service Oriented Architecture. The project leaders are a multi-national group of libraries dedicated to thinking beyond the current model of an Integrated Library System and to designing a new system that is flexible, customizable and able to meet the changing and complex needs of modern, dynamic academic libraries. The end product will be a design document to inform open source library system development efforts, to guide future library system implementations, and to influence current Integrated Library System vendor products.

Dublin Core in XML

The Dublin Core folks are looking for comments.

"Expressing Dublin Core description sets using XML (DC-DS-XML)" by Pete Johnston and Andy Powell has been published as a DCMI Proposed Recommendation for public comment from 1 to 29 September 2008. A related document, "Notes on the DC-DS-XML XML Format", describes the development of the format and its relationship to the DCMI Recommendation "Guidelines for implementing Dublin Core in XML" of April 2003. The Proposed Recommendation supports the W3C specification Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages (GRDDL) in the form of an XSLT transform for extracting RDF triples from instances of metadata in the DC-DS-XML format. The specification includes 21 examples together with their equivalent representations in the DC-Text and RDF/XML syntaxes. A W3C XML Schema for the DC-DS-XML format is provided. Interested members of the public are invited to post comments to the DC-ARCHITECTURE mailing list, including [Public Comment] in the subject line.

Browse LCSH Database Links to lcsh.info

The Browse LCSH database (6.5m records) now includes the complete file of 266.857 terms that was made available by the lcsh.info project. That means you find links from our database to the record in lcsh.info to view their innovative display. The notes contained in the lcsh.info records have been included too. LC classes are indexed as well and can be browsed, to find LCSH terms.

LC has improved the findability of authority records recently. They have added a keyword search to the database.

Facebook Application

The Earl Gregg Swem Library has announced the release of it's Facebook application, Swem Tools to the open source community.

Released under the Apache 2.0 license, the project, Facebook Athenaeum, allows libraries to quickly develop and customize a Facebook application that provides a searching interface for a library's catalog, website, databases, or any other search target, pull RSS feeds, and provide users with the ability to show friends their location in the library.

Requirements for the application are relatively light. A set of floor plans in image form, a database compatible with the Pear DB package (MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, etc), and PHP 5.

WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry

OCLC is conducting a beta test of the WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry.

The WorldCat Copyright Evidence Registry (CER) is a community of people, libraries, and other organizations working together to discover and share information about the copyright status of books.

The Copyright Evidence Registry is based on WorldCat, which contains more than 100 million bibliographic records describing items held in thousands of libraries worldwide. In addition to the WorldCat metadata, the Copyright Evidence Registry uses data contributed by libraries and other organizations.

You can search the Copyright Evidence Registry to find information about a book, learn what others have said about its copyright status, and share what you know.

If your library or organization is a Copyright Evidence Registry subscriber, you can run automated copyright rules that you create in the Copyright Evidence Registry to conform to your standards for determining copyright status. The rules help you analyze the information available in the Copyright Evidence Registry and form your own conclusions about copyright status.

Also, you can receive an e-mail notification when information about a book changes within the Copyright Evidence Registry.

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

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

The codes should not be used in exchange records until after October 22, 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.

Category Code Source

The following code is for use in subfield $2 in field 072 (Subject Category Code/Code Source) in Authority and Bibliographic records.

Addition:

kkaa

Kokoelmien kuvailun aihealueet (Kokoelmakartta) [PDF: 9 KB; requires a PDF reader to view] [use only after October 22, 2008]

Classification Sources

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:

bar

Barnard, Cyril C. A classification for medical and veterinary libraries. (London: H.K. Lewis) [use only after October 22, 2008]

ekl

Eduskunnan kirjaston luokitus = Library of Parliament Classification [use only after October 22, 2008]

finagri

Finagri-luokitus (Helsinki: Maatalouskirjasto - Agricultural
Library) [use only after October 22, 2008]

kuvacs

Kuvataideakatemian kirjaston luokitusjarjestelma = Finnish Academy of Fine Arts Library Classification (Helsinki: Kuvataideakatemian
kirjasto) [use only after October 22, 2008]

mpkkl

Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulun kirjaston luokitusjarjestelma [use only after October 22, 2008]

siblcs

Sibelius-Akatemian kirjaston luokitusjarjestelma = Sibelius Academy Library classification system [use only after October 22, 2008]
Note: arranged in two sections:

1. Sibelius-Akatemian kirjaston luokitusjarjestelma - kirjojen luokitus = Sibelius Academy Library classification system - book classification scheme
2. Sibelius-Akatemian kirjaston luokitusjarjestelma - nuottien luokitus = Sibelius Academy Library classification system - sheet music classification scheme

suaslc

Seinajoen korkeakoulukirjaston luokitus (Seinajoki: Seinajoen korkeakoulukirjaston luokitus) [use only after October 22, 2008]

taikclas

Taideteollisen korkeakoulun kirjaston luokitus = University of Art and Design Helsinki Library Classification [use only after October 22, 2008]

taykl

Tampereen yliopiston kirjaston luokitus: Systemaattinen osa & Aakkosellinen osa (Tampere: Tampereen yliopisto) [use only after October 22, 2008]

teatkl

Teatterikorkeakoulun kirjaston luokitusopas [use only after October 22, 2008]

tykoma

Turun yliopiston kirjaston vanha luokitus [use only after October 22, 2008]

veera

VEERA-luokitus = VEERA-Klassifikatsiia [use only after October 22, 2008]