Additions 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 MARC Code Lists for Relators, Sources, Description Conventions.

The code should not be used in exchange records until after December 10, 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/Index Terms) in Bibliographic and Community Information records;

subfield 662 (Subject Added Entry) in Bibliographic records;

subfield $2 in fields 700-754 (Index Terms) in Classification records;

subfield $2 in fields 700-788 (Heading Linking Entries) in Authority records;

subfield $f in field 040 (Cataloging Source) in Authority records.

Addition:

msh

Trimboli, T., and Martyn S. Marianist subject headings

DataRSS

The latest issue of Nodalities has an interesting article, Anatomy Of A SearchMonkey by Peter Mika. It is a run-down of Yahoo's new Semantic Web search platform. The part that interested me was a flavor of ATOM, DataRSS.

These considerations led to the development of DataRSS, an extension of Atom for carrying structure data as part of feeds. A standard based on Atom immediately opens up the option of submitting metadata as a feed. Atom is an XML-based format which can be both input and output of XML transformation. The extension provides the data itself as well as metadata such as which application generated the data and when was it last updated.

Cataloger’s Desktop Enhancement

LC has announced "The Cataloging Distribution Service (CDS) is pleased to announce that its flagship online cataloging documentation resource, Cataloger’s Desktop, has been enhanced to include OCLC’s Bibliographic Formats and Standards." About time.

MoinMoin Wiki Syntax for Description Set Profiles

The Dublin Core folks have a draft, A MoinMoin Wiki Syntax for Description Set Profiles

This document describes a MoinMoin wiki syntax for a Description Set Profile as defined in the DCMI Working Draft "Description Set Profiles: A constraint language for Dublin Core Application Profiles" of March 2008 [DC-DSP], which in turn is based on the DCMI Abstract Model [ABSTRACT-MODEL]. It is recommended to have some understanding of the concepts of Description Set Profile (abbreviated DSP in the rest of this document) before reading this document.

A DSP is a way of describing structural constraints on a description set and is not directly intended for human consumption. However, with the wiki syntax for DSPs described here, it is possible to mix normal wiki syntax with DSP-specific wiki syntax in order to document an Application Profile. This means that from the same source it is possible to create:

• A Dublin Core Application Profile that contains wiki syntax for a Description Set Profile, but is rendered as an HTML page for human consumption
• A formal serialization in XML for the same Description Set Profile, used for machine (computer) consumption.

Once again the DCMI Abstract Model is a basis for the document (like RDA), have to get to know it better.

Draft Version of Jangle Spec

Email from Ross Singer, widely distributed.

Jangle, an open specification to apply the Atom Publishing Protocol to library services and resources, has just released a draft version of a 1.0 release spec.

The goal of Jangle is to provide a very simple and easily understandable RESTful interface to library data that can be accessed with common commodity Atom clients.

The draft spec has been released to get feedback on the usefulness and clarity of the specification and to solicit ideas for how to improve Jangle for use in actual production environments. If you have any opinions, positive or negative; criticisms, constructive or otherwise, feel free to leave comments.

Grammar and sentence structure could definitely use attention.

For a more in-depth introduction to Jangle, there is an article in the latest issue of the Code4Lib Journal, Unveiling Jangle: Untangling Library Resources and Exposing them through the Atom Publishing Protocol (although the API responses have changed since this article was written, the basic architecture remains the same).

To join the Jangle development process, feel free to join our Google Group or contribute to the development.

OLAC Handouts

Handouts from the OLAC Conference are available. Handouts, not just cryptic PowerPoints.

MARC Records for the DOE Information Bridge

The DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) is now providing MARC records for the full-text reports available through the DOE Information Bridge. Like all OSTI products, the OSTI MARC records are available free of charge. The records are available through the MARC Records page of the OSTI website. Options for downloading include subject category, year, and OSTI ID number. The OSTI MARC Records are derived from existing Information Bridge records.

Information Bridge provides free public access to full-text documents and bibliographic citations of DOE research report literature. Documents are primarily from 1991 forward and were produced by DOE, the DOE contractor community, and/or DOE grantees. Legacy documents - including U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) documents dating back to the 1940s - and their MARC Records, are added as they become available. Visit OSTI's Library Tools & Special Services Web page.

LC Email Address Changed

With the administrative reorganization of the Library of Congress/Library Services/Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate on Oct. 1, 2008, the Cataloging Policy and Support Office has become the Policy and Standards Division and its email account has been changed to policy@loc.gov Anything addressed to cpso@loc.gov will be forwarded to the new address but only for the next 30 days, at which point any mail so addressed will be bounced back to the sender as address unknown. The email addresses of individuals remain unchanged.

St Jerome

Today is the feast day of St Jerome, patron saint of libraries and librarians.

Zotero News

Some bad Zotero news today. They are being sued.

Thomson Reuters demands $10 million and an injunction to stop George Mason University from distributing its new Web browser application, Zotero software, an open-source format that allows users to convert Reuters' EndNote Software. Reuters claims George Mason is violating its license agreement and destroying the EndNote customer base.

I like Endnote even less now. Just the threat of this could be enough to make a small school back off.

Information Delivery

I thought this was an interesting way to deliver information, in real time.

The dirty coal industry is planning to launch a major advertising blitz during the presidential debates. The Sierra Club will be keeping them accountable by monitoring the ads and coverage for ‘bogus coal moments’ where they attempt to spread misinformation.

Sign up for text updates via the form below or you can text the keyword DIRTY to 69866 from your mobile phone.

Sign up to receive a mobile alert when a ‘bogus coal moment’ occurs during the debates. The Sierra Club will text you updates throughout the debates and in the future on other major initiatives. You may opt out of these alerts by texting STOP to 69866 at any time.

An immediate response to broadcast media. As a profession how do we find, identify, select, obtain and navigate this information landscape? What about preservation?

SOPAC Now Available

The social OPAC, SOPAC is now available.

Thesocialopac.net is the official website of the Social OPAC application suite--an open source social discovery platform for bibliographic data. The purpose of this site is to build a cohesive community of users and developers around the SOPAC project suite.

Library Weblogs

Public Library Blogs: 252 Examples and Academic Library Blogs: 231 Examples by Walt Crawford are both soon to go out of print. Get your copies while you still can.

Introduction to Metadata

Now available, Version 3.0 of Introduction to Metadata by Tony Gill, Anne J. Gilliland, Maureen Whalen, and Mary S. Woodley ; edited by Murtha Baca.

Metadata Tools for Institutional Repositories

Nichols, David M. and Paynter, Gordon W. and Chan, Chu-Hsiang and Bainbridge, David and McKay, Dana and Twidale, Michael B. and Blandford, Ann (2008) Metadata tools for institutional repositories.

Current institutional repository software provides few tools to help metadata librarians understand and analyse their collections. In this paper we compare and contrast metadata analysis tools that were developed simultaneously, but independently, at two New Zealand institutions during a period of national investment in research repositories: the Metadata Analysis Tool (MAT) at The University of Waikato, and the Kiwi Research Information Service (KRIS) at the National Library of New Zealand. The tools have many similarities: they are convenient, online, on-demand services that harvest metadata using OAI-PMH, they were developed in response to feedback from repository administrators, and they both help pinpoint specific metadata errors as well as generating summary statistics. They also have significant differences: one is a dedicated tool while the other is part of a wider access tool; one gives a holistic view of the metadata while the other looks for specific problems; one seeks patterns in the data values while the other checks that those values conform to metadata standards. Both tools work in a complementary manner to existing web-based administration tools. We have observed that discovery and correction of metadata errors can be quickly achieved by switching web browser views from the analysis tool to the repository interface, and back. We summarise the findings from both tools’ deployment into a checklist of requirements for metadata analysis tools.

WorldCat Tagging

Tagging is now available in WorldCat. It will be interesting to see how extensive, and so useful, tagging becomes here.

You and your users can now keep track of your favorite items in WorldCat through tags—keywords that help you classify or describe an item. Tags are displayed in search results lists and may help you find similar items or organize items in a way that makes sense to you. You can add as many tags as you would like to an unlimited set of items. You can view and maintain all of your personalized tags from your WorldCat profile page. Plus, you can also browse items using the tags other people have contributed.

Latest Code4Lib Journal

The fourth issue of Code4Lib Journal is now available. Articles include:

• Auto-Populating an ILL form with the Serial Solutions Link Resolver API by Daniel Talsky
• Mining Data from ISI Web of Science Reports by Alfred Kraemer
• Unveiling Jangle: Untangling Library Resources and Exposing them through the Atom Publishing Protocol by Ross Singer and James Farrugia
• LibraryH3lp: A New Flexible Chat Reference System by Pam Sessoms and Eric Sessoms
• OpenBook WordPress Plugin: Open Source Access to Bibliographic Data by John Miedema
• The Library Search Engine: A Smart Solution for Integrating Resources Beyond Library Holdings b y Karin Herm and Sibylle Volz
• BOOK REVIEW: Two Books about FRBR, Compared by Christine Schwartz

OAI Tool

Nichols, David M. and Chan, Chu-Hsiang and Bainbridge, David and McKay, Dana and Twidale, Michael B. (2008) A lightweight metadata quality tool. In Proceedings The 8th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, pp. 385-388, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (US).

We describe a Web-based metadata quality tool that provides statistical descriptions and visualisations of Dublin Core metadata harvested via the OAI protocol. The lightweight nature of development allows it to be used to gather contextualized requirements and some initial user feedback is discussed.

Video Metadata

Lostify is a free tool for Apple users wishing to add metadata to their videos.

Lostify is a metadata tagger for MP4 videos. It runs on Mac OS X, and the tags it produces aim to be compatible with iTunes, the iPod, iPhone, Front Row and Apple TV. This means that after you tag a video using Lostify, it will show up in iTunes, iPod etc. appropriately as a TV Show, Music Video, etc., with all the episode information, season information, etc. intact.

Movers & Shakers

Know an innovative librarian? The 2009 Movers & Shakers nominations are open. Let's get some catalogers in the mix.