OAI-ORE Specifications and Implementation Documents

The production versions of the OAI-ORE specifications and implementation documents are now available to the public, with a table of contents page. This public release is the culmination of several months of testing and review of initial alpha and beta releases. The participation and feedback from the wider OAI-ORE community, especially the OAI-ORE technical committee, was instrumental to the process leading up to this production release.

The documents in the release describe a data model to introduce aggregations as resources with URIs on the web. They also detail the machine-readable descriptions of aggregations expressed in the popular Atom syndication format, in RDF/XML, and RDFa. The documents included in the release are:

• ORE User Guide Documents
  • Primer
  • Resource Map Implementation in Atom
  • Resource Map Implementation in RDF/XML
  • Resource Map Implementation in RDFa
  • HTTP Implementation
  • Resource Map Discovery
• ORE Specification Documents
  • Abstract Data Model
  • Vocabulary

International Authority Data Number

"The IFLA Working Group on Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records (FRANAR) is pleased to announce the availability on IFLANET of a paper titled "A Review of the Feasibility of an International Authority Data Number (ISADN)". Prepared for the Working Group by Dr. Barbara B. Tillett, the paper has now been approved by the IFLA Cataloguing Section Standing Committee and is thus being made available via IFLANET."

RDFa in XHTML

The technical specification RDFa in XHTML Syntax and Processing was formally accepted as a Web Consortium Technical Recommendation by W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee.

The current Web is primarily made up of an enormous number of documents that have been created using HTML. These documents contain significant amounts of structured data, which is largely unavailable to tools and applications. When publishers can express this data more completely, and when tools can read it, a new world of user functionality becomes available, letting users transfer structured data between applications and web sites, and allowing browsing applications to improve the user experience: an event on a web page can be directly imported into a user's desktop calendar; a license on a document can be detected so that users can be informed of their rights automatically; a photo's creator, camera setting information, resolution, location and topic can be published as easily as the original photo itself, enabling structured search and sharing.

RDFa is a specification for attributes to express structured data in any markup language. This document specifies how to use RDFa with XHTML.

eXtensible Catalog Project

The eXtensible Catalog Project has announced that they have launched their new website.

This new website will be the main vehicle for distributing our open-source software once it is released in 2009. In the mean time, the website contains a wealth of information regarding the project, including publications, an overview of the software we are developing and the technologies that software will use, and a blog that has already been in use.

American Libraries

Some news from American Libraries.

1. Our weekly e-newsletter, American Libraries Direct, is now available to anyone who wants to sign up for it, not just ALA members. There is a sign-up form, as well as the FAQ.
2. American Libraries has launched its own blog, AL Inside Scoop. Editor-in-chief Leonard Kniffel offers an insider’s view of goings-on at ALA headquarters and what hot topics ALA staffers are talking about in the hallways. Associate Editor Greg Landgraf offers his perspective from "the lower floors" of what many see as the ALA ivory tower.
3. Login is no longer required to view the current issue of the American Libraries print magazine online (in PDF format), or to view the archives, which date back to the January 2003 issue. First-time viewers will need to install the ebrary reader to view issues. Firefox 3 users installing the reader for the first time will need a workaround, to make the ebrary reader work with their browser.

Topic Maps

Steve Pepper has written an article on Topic Maps for the 3rd edition of the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences. "This article provides a comprehensive treatment of the core concepts, in addition to the background and current status of the standard, its relationship to traditional knowledge organization techniques, and examples of the kinds of applications for which it is being used."

Open Office and BitTorrent

Open Office 3.0 is released today. It is also Open Access Day, nice fit there. But don't bother to try to download it now, the servers are overwelmed. You can grab it using BitTorrent. A nice P2P tool that is for more than stealing movies.

BitTorrent is a P2P method where a central 'tracker' keeps track of who is downloading and sharing specific files.

When using BitTorrent to download OpenOffice.org, your computer automatically uses spare bandwidth to help share the file with others, and this means that you don't have to put up with slower downloads during peak download times (such as just after a release), because the more people downloading, the more people sharing.

Also, your download is automatically checked for integrity to make sure that it is identical to the official version.

To use BitTorrent technology, you must have a BitTorrent "client" installed.

Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records

Renear, Allen H. and Dubin, David (2007) Three of the Four FRBR Group 1 Entity Types are Roles, not Types. In Grove, Andrew, Eds. Proceedings 70th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST) 44, Milwaukee, WI (US).

We examine the conceptual model of the "bibliographic universe" presented in IFLA's Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and argue, applying ontology design recommendations proposed by N. Guarino and C. Welty, that three of the four Group 1 entity types might be more accurately conceptualized as roles.

Off Topic: Timeline Tool

Does anyone know of a free/cheap tool to create a timeline for history? Must be able to handle BCE dates. Thanks

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?