Metadata Authority Description Schema

A new preliminary draft of MADS is available.

A type library, a schema of data definitions common to MADS and MODS (and perhaps additional related future schemas) is now started. The working name for this type library is "mstl" (metadata schema type library).

Preprint Servers

Demographic and Citation Trends in Astrophysical Journal papers and Preprints by Greg J. Schwarz, Robert C. Kennicutt Jr accepted to the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society shows that making a paper available on a preprint server doubles the number of citations. Could there be developing a tendency to ignore research not on a preprint server somewhat like there is now a tendency to ignore work not indexed in online databases?

We have used data from ADS, AAS, and astro-ph, to study the publishing, preprint posting, and citation patterns for papers published in the ApJ in 1999 and 2002. This allowed us to track statistical trends in author demographics, preprint posting habits, and citation rates for ApJ papers as a whole and across various subgroups and types of ApJ papers. The most interesting results are the frequencies of use of the astro-ph server across various subdisciplines of astronomy, and the impact that such posting has on the citation history of the subsequent ApJ papers. By 2002 72% of ApJ papers were posted as astro-ph preprints, but this fraction varies from 22-95% among the subfields studied. A majority of these preprints (61%) were posted after the papers were accepted at ApJ, and 88% were posted or updated after acceptance. On average, ApJ papers posted on astro-ph are cited more than twice as often as those that are not posted on astro-ph. This difference can account for a number of other, secondary citation trends, including some of the differences in citation rates between journals and different subdisciplines. Preprints clearly have supplanted the journals as the primary means for initially becoming aware of papers, at least for a large fraction of the ApJ author community. Publication in a widely-recognized peer-reviewed journal remains as the primary determinant of the impact of a paper, however. For example, conference proceedings papers posted on astro-ph are also cited twice as frequently as those that are not posted, but overall such papers are still cited 20 times less often than the average ApJ paper. These results provide insights into how astronomical research is currently disseminated by authors and ingested by readers.

Subject Access

Several years back we went through the discussion on just how to distinguish between what an item was and what is was about. We ended up with field 655 for form/genre, which LC has yet to create authority records for. It was a useful distinction.

Now the visual folks have noticed that the depiction of something is not what something is about either. So MARC discussion paper 2005-01 Subject Access to Images. Something new to think about.

Open Source Workshop

I've just registered to hear Eric Lease Morgan present the workshop Open Source Software in Libraries. Looking forward to this.

This workshop will provide structured opportunities for participants to experience how open source software can be used to implement many library-specific processes using open source software. Processes such as reading and writing MARC records, creating and maintaining databases, providing user-friendly interfaces to indexed content, hosting a World Wide Web server, and most importantly, bringing all of these processes together to providing meaningful library collections and services.

RSS & the OPAC

The author of 43 Folders asks if it is possible to get an RSS feed of the library books he has checked out. The ensuing comments are enlightening. All library systems should have a clean, easy, well documented Web services AIP. Seen on librarian.net

The Shifted Librarian has comments about ILS offering RSS feeds. It seems the new system from Dynix has that ability.

Rights Metadata

WP-CC is a plugin for the WordPress publishing system that enables easy usage of Creative Commons licenses.

It can output a text or image link to your license in all pages. It also adds machine-readable metadata in the document head. No template editing is required.

The plugin's functions can be called from templates for fine-tuned control of the license declaration.

MarcEdit

There is an update to MarcEdit (4.6). It can just install right over your previous version. Its basically an update with a few new features to the script maker, delimited text translator and the global editing tools. However, the biggest updates were to the many XSLT stylesheets. Included are all the XSLT sheets currently available from LC to download and registered them with MarcEdit. An updated EAD and EADlite=>MARC translations and EAD=>MARC templates. Included are an FGDC=>MARC stylesheet and a tokenize template to the MARCUtilities stylesheet.

Well, I’ve decided to post the development notes on MarcEdit 5.0 (which is in heavy development) – partly because I’m looking for volunteers to do a little bit of language translation. I’m looking to port MarcEdit into approximately 15-20 different languages, and that’s only going to happen if I can get folks to volunteer to help with the process.

NASIG Conference

NASIG's 20th Annual Conference will be returning to the Upper Midwest this spring as we visit the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The conference will be held May 19-22, 2005 at the Minneapolis (downtown) Hilton. Both the Conference Planning and Program Planning Committees have been hard at work since last June preparing a 20th anniversary conference that will be of great interest to all members of the serials information chain.

Details will be added to the Conference's website as they become available. If you want to qualify for the NASIG member registration rate (100.00 lower than the non-member rate), your membership renewal must be processed by Jan. 31, 2005. A great bargin, for only 25.00 you get membership and a 100.00 discount.

Cartographic Materials

The review of ISBD(CM) is seeking comments before March 31, 2005. It has been brought into alignment with FRBR and introduces some new terminology. These ISBD are important because changes in them often result in changes in AARC later on. Commenting and making sure the ISBD meets your needs can prevent trouble in the future.

AACR3

AACR3: Resource Description and Access Part I. Description Background to the December 2004 Draft is available. A four page overview of what's coming.