New Book

Added to my must read list, Responsible Librarianship: Library Policies for Unreliable Systems by David Bade and Thomas Mann (WorldCat, Amazon)

Working Group on Aggregates Report

The report of the Durban meeting of the Working Group on Aggregates has been posted on IFLANET.

VuFind, New Release

The latest release of VuFind, the open source library resource discovery platform, is now available. Version 0.8 Beta is now available for download, it can be accessed from VuFind or from Sourceforge.

The major enhancement in version 0.8 is the new MARC import tool developed by Wayne Graham. This should help improve any issues dealing with importing records as well as a speed enhancement.

If you are interested in trying VuFind, have a look at the live demo.

CC:DA Discusion List

Distributed to several email lists.

CC:DA announces a public read-only email discussion list to allow non-CC:DA members to "view" committee discussions and work that takes place between outside of the ALA Annual Conference and Midwinter Meeting.

In order for the committee to do its work efficiently, non-CC:DA members will be able read CC:DA email, but will not be able to post messages. However, ideas and comments on discussions are welcome, and can be funneled to the list through your CC:DA representative or liaison. The committee roster is located at http://www.libraries.psu.edu/tas/jca/ccda/roster.html

To subscribe to the list, send an email to sympa@ala.org with the phrase "subscribe rules" in the subject line and the body of the message blank. Your email address will be captured automatically.

FRBR Object-Oriented Definition and Mapping to FRBRER

Comments are welcomed on FRBR Object-Oriented Definition and Mapping to FRBRER. This is a 140 page document. Message distributed to email lists.

The FRBR Review Group and the Working Group on FRBR and CIDOC CRM Harmonisation welcomes comments on FRBRoo (object-oriented definition and mapping to FRBRer) version 0.9 (January 2008) and also at: http://cidoc.ics.forth.gr/frbr_drafts.html

This document includes a substantive introduction to the purposes and methodology of the work, a graphical overview of the resulting model, complete FRBRoo class and property definitions, a mapping between FRBRer and FRBRoo, all CIDOC CRM class and property definitions referenced, and an appendix on the modelling of identifier creation.

The goal of the FRBRoo project is to express the conceptualisation behind FRBR using the object-oriented methodology as used in the CIDOC CRM. FRBRoo is defined as an extension to the CIDOC CRM, however, the FRBRoo document is self-contained in that all definitions referenced are included. This has provided the opportunity to verify FRBR's internal consistency, extend the scope of both FRBR and CIDOC CRM, enable interoperability and extend mutual understanding between the museum and library documentation communities by working towards a common ontology.

Comments on this work are appreciated on an ongoing basis, however, comments received prior to April 21, 2008 will be considered at the next meeting of the Working Group in May 2008.

Please send all comments to:

Pat Riva
(Chair, FRBR Review Group)
patricia.riva@banq.qc.ca

Google Books API and the OPAC

Google has an API for Google Books that can add informaiton to the OPAC.

The Google Book Search Book Viewability API enables developers to:

• Link to Books in Google Book Search using ISBNs, LCCNs, and OCLC numbers
• Know whether Google Book Search has a specific title and what the viewability of that title is
• Generate links to a thumbnail of the cover of a book
• Generate links to an informational page about a book
• Generate links to a preview of a book

Dublin Core Geospatial Application Profile

The draft of the Geospatial Application Profile for Dublin Core is now available.

This document describes a DC Application Profile for describing geospatial resources. Resources of many types have geospatial properties. This profile provides guidance on the use of DC elements that are relevant to geospatial aspects of resource description, with the expectation that these shall be used together with the elements from other profiles.

RDA/MARC Working Group Established

Sent to the MARC email list.

Under the auspices of the British Library, the Library and Archives Canada, and the Library of Congress, an RDA/MARC Working Group has been established to collaborate on the development of proposals for changes to the MARC 21 formats to accommodate the encoding of RDA data. With the implementation of RDA anticipated for late 2009, the Working Group will be drafting proposals for review and discussion by the MARC community in June 2008.

Although the MARC 21 formats support the encoding of descriptions created according to a wide range of content standards, the close relationship between AACR and MARC 21 has contributed to the efficient exchange of information among libraries for decades. The RDA/MARC Working Group will identify what changes are required to MARC 21 to support compatibility with RDA and ensure effective data exchange into the future.

Members of the RDA/MARC Working Group are:

• Everett Allgood (New York University and CC:DA Liaison to MARBI)
• Corine Deliot (British Library)
• Rebecca Guenther (Library of Congress)
• Bill Leonard (Library and Archives Canada)
• Sally McCallum (Library of Congress)
• Marg Stewart (JSC Liaison to the RDA/MARC Working Group)
• Martha Yee (UCLA Film and Television Archive)