Free Comic Book Day

Wondering which stores are participating in Free Comic Book Day? Access the Free Comic Book Locator. Punch in your zip code, and you’ll get a list of the stores in your area that are giving out free comics on July 3!

ISBN

The LC Plan to Accommodate 13-Digit ISBN is now on-line.

The ISBN is being expanded from 10 digits to 13. The date for fully adopting ISBN 13 is January 1, 2007. The revised International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard is due to be published at the beginning of 2005. Publishers then have two years to implement ISBN 13 fully into all aspects of their businesses.

SCATNews

The June issue of SCATNews Newsletter of the Standing Committee of the IFLA Section on Cataloguing is now on-line. Some of the articles are:

• Finnish Memory Institutions and ontologies by Jyrki Simovaara
• Memory Organizations and Digital Resources by Mikael Vakkari
• Anonymous Classics in vernacular languages by Nadine Boddaert

The last mentions that much has changed sine the work began, and hints that an on-line version may be in consideration. Happy dance.

AACR

Outcomes of the April 2004 meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR have been mounted on the JSC Web site.

Dewey Classification

Graphic Novels in DDC: Discussion Paper is now available for comment.

After preliminary discussions and inquiries, the Dewey editors have reached some tentative conclusions about how to improve treatment of graphic novels in the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). This discussion paper will explain those tentative conclusions and ask for advice.

It also mentions fotonovelas.

IFLA Publications

Some announcements from IFLA:

• Publication of ISBD(G), 2004 edition
  The ISBD Review Group announces that the 2004 edition of ISBD(G) has just been made available.
• Publication of Anonymous Classics for European literatures, 2004 edition
  The Working Group on Anonymous Classics has completed its revision of the 1978 list of uniform headings for European literatures

Anonymous Classics for European literatures is a major work and the committee have my sincere thanks. But I do wonder if a print format (PDF format being equivalent to print) is the best format. It seems to me a database based on the SKOS-Core, available as a Web service might make more sense. It would be easier to update. As a Web service others could build uses for it within their systems. And as XML the contents could be displayed and changed to suit the users.

Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata

Here is a new (to me) XML standard for serial contents.

The Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata (PRISM) specification defines an XML metadata vocabulary for managing, aggregating, post-processing, multi-purposing and aggregating magazine, news, catalog, book, and mainstream journal content. PRISM recommends the use of certain existing standards, such as XML, RDF, the Dublin Core, and various ISO specifications for locations, languages, and date/time formats. In addition PRISM provides a framework for the interchange and preservation of content and metadata, a collection of elements to describe that content, and a set of controlled vocabularies listing the values for those elements.

A question came up on XML4lib about the best scheme to use for marking up journal articles. I thought of TEI, as did several others on the list. However, this looks like a better fit. How will we keep up with and find the best XML schemas?

OAI

Enhancing Infrastructure for OAI: the DLGrid contributed by Kurt Maly and Mohammad Zubair appears in the current issue of D-Lib.

In the DLGrid project supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation we plan to enhance key infrastructure components of the OAI (Open Archives Initiative) framework by building a 'Grid' of digital libraries and a cluster computer to support a high performance OAI-federated search service. The Grid is an emerging technology for infrastructure that enables the integrated, collaborative use of high-end computers, networks, and databases owned by multiple organizations. Recently, there has been interest in using the Grid for managing large data sets by creating and storing descriptive metadata, which is used for discovery.

MARC Code Lists for Relators, Sources, Description Conventions

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

The relator code listed below has recently been approved for use in MARC 21 records. The new code will be added to the online MARC Codes Lists for Relators, Sources, Description Conventions. The code should not be used in exchange records until after August 21, 2004. This 60-day waiting period is required to provide MARC 21 implementers with time to include newly defined codes in any validation tables they may apply to the MARC fields where these codes are used.

• MARC Relator Codes
  Changes:
  mfr - Manufacturer (subfield $e and $4 in name access fields)

Library Service

Often I hear the mantra that libraries should be more like businesses. While it is true that we can learn things from the public sector, they have much to learn from us. I wish my local Blockbuster worked as well as my local library. I wanted a DVD that was out. At the library I'd just place it on hold. I could have checked the status from home and have placed the hold from there. I had to go to the store to find it was out and then discover they have no method of placing me on a waiting list for the item. It is simply up to luck. I asked about another video and found it was only available for sale, not rent. There was no alternative. My local library can get any item via ILL. Blockbuster should be looking at how libraries operate for some ideas.

Library Systems

Avanti MicroLCS version 1.0 beta 3 is now released.

Avanti is an effort, begun in 1998 by Peter Schlumpf, to develop a simple, flexible, and open source solution to automating small and medium-sized libraries of various types that requires a minimum of technical expertise to install and use. .... Avanti MicroLCS version 1.0 is a next-generation library system for the Java platform.

Contributor Biographical Information

856 links will now lead to contributor biographical information in LC bib records. This is the latest project in the ONIX family of projects. The ONIX standard calls this information 'contributor information' rather than author or editor information because the ONIX record contains one instance of the field and it may cover all authors and editors or anyone else so labelled as a contributor. If you'd like to see some examples, please see the Web site and then select a folder and pick a file. If you sort the display by size, you can see some of the lengthier ones, which can provide a lot of information about the authors and, I hope, may one day be useful for authorities. From a posting on AUTOCAT.