RDA Cataloging on Google+

There is a Google+ Community for RDA Cataloging, a place to share ideas. For example, currently there is a template for a corporate body name.

RDA Cataloging is an online community/group/forum for library and information science students, professionals and cataloging & metadata librarians. It is a place where people can get together to share ideas, trade tips and tricks, share resources, get the latest news, and learn about Resource Description and Access (RDA), a new cataloging standard to replace AACR2

SCATNews

The December issue of SCATNews (38) has been published. In this issue:

• Letter from the Chair - Hanne Hørl Hansen
• Bulgarian Cataloguing Practices - Milena Milanov
• MulDiCat - Multilingual Dictionary of Cataloguing Terms - Anders Cato
• An introduction to the ALA-LC Romanization Tables - Bruce Chr. Johnson
• Hacking the OPAC with Excel - Niklas Willén
• Linked Open Data Seminar - Gordon Dunsire
• News from the Library of Congress - Susan R. Morris
• The German Translation of RDA is Online - Susanne Oehlschläger
• Cataloguing Apparantly "A Never Ending Story". The Experience of the Vatican Library In Retrospective Conversion - Luigina Orlandi
• Norwegian National Authorities Included in VIAF (Virtual International Authority File) - Frank B. Haugen
• Open Access to Cataloguing Rules - Marian Violeta Bertolini
• Results from the SCATNews Survey - Agnese Galeffi and Unni Knutsen
• Call for papers - WLIC 2013- Audiovisual and Multimedia Section and Cataloguing Section: Macro and Micro : Ways through the Maze
• LIS´2013- Workshop on Classification and Subject Indexing in Library and Information Science, Luxemburg

MARBI Papers and Agenda Available for Review

Proposal 2013-01: Identifying Titles Related to the Entity Represented by the Authority Record in the MARC 21 Authority Format

Proposal 2013-02: New Fields to Accommodate Authority Records for Medium of Performance Vocabulary for Music in the MARC 21 Authority Format

Proposal 2013-03: Making Field 250 Repeatable in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format

Proposal 2013-04: Defining New Code for Score in Field 008/20 (Format of music) in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format

Proposal 2013-05: Defining New Field 385 for Audience Characteristics in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats

Proposal 2013-06: Defining New Field 386 for Creator/Contributor Group Categorizations in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats

Proposal 2013-07: Defining Encoding Elements to Record Chronological Categories and Dates of Works and Expressions in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats

Discussion Paper 2013-DP01: Identifying Records from National Bibliographies in MARC 21 Bibliographic Format

Discussion Paper 2013-DP02: Defining Subfields for Qualifiers to Standard Identifiers in the MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings formats

Discussion Paper 2013-DP03: Defining a Control Subfield $7 in the Series Added Entry Fields, for the Type and the Bibliographic Level of the Related Bibliographic Record

Discussion Paper 2013-DP04: Separating the Type of Related Entity from the RDA Relationship Designator in MARC 21 Bibliographic Format Linking Entry Fields

The MARBI ALA Midwinter Conference 2013 agenda is available at: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/mw2013_age.html

Christmas Metadata

What is metadata? A Christmas themed exploration by Bonnie Swoger appears as a recent Scientific American weblog post. Cute.

I think we can agree that Santa would use sound data management practices, including the creation and use of proper metadata, to keep track of his gift giving and logistical data. He would want the rest of us to use good metadata so we can always locate that 30 year old picture of him, too.

Be like Santa and make sure your data is findable and re-useable: use good metadata!

Gary Price of InfoDocket brought this to my attention.

GPO to Switch to RDA in April

Another major cataloging institution, the GPO, plans to switch to the RDA standard in April.

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has created a Resource Description and Access (RDA) implementation team to ensure a smooth transition from AACR2 to RDA. GPO cataloging staff are continuing their training efforts, and are now working on sample record creation, the identification of local practices and formal PCC (Program for Cooperative Cataloging) review. Full implementation is expected in April, 2013.

I was made aware of this by Gary Price of InfoDocket.

NISO Teleconference - NCIP

The next NISO teleconference; will be on the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP).

NISO will hold its next open teleconference in our monthly series this coming Monday, December 10th at 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

The topic for the November call will be NCIP (NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol, also known as Z39.83), which is a North American standard with implementations in the US, Canada, and many other countries around the world. NCIP services facilitate the automation of tasks, the exchange of data, the ability to provide information to library staff, and the empowerment of patrons. Each service is comprised of a request from an initiating application and a reply from a responding application. It is possible for a single software application to play both the initiation and responding roles, but typically there are at least two applications involved.

The Standard itself consists of two parts; Part 1: Protocol defines a protocol that is limited to the exchange of messages between and among computer-based applications to enable them to perform the functions necessary to lend and borrow items, to provide controlled access to electronic resources, and to facilitate co-operative management of these functions. Part 2: Implementation Profile defines a practical implementation structure for NCIP. Version 2.02 of these documents was published in 2012 and is available via http://www.niso.org/workrooms/ncip. The Standing Committee maintains further informational pages at http://www.ncip.info/

Mike Dicus, Product Manager at Ex Libris and chair of the NCIP Standing Committee, will participate on the teleconference to discuss the group's work and answer any questions.

The call is free and anyone is welcome to participate. To join, simply dial 877-375-2160 and enter the code: 17800743#. All calls are held from 3-4 p.m. Eastern time.

searchRetrieve Version 1.0

There was Z39.50, then SRU/SRW, then A9. now comes searchRetrieve V1.0.

searchRetrieve Version 1.0 is a multi-part specification that defines a generic protocol for the interaction required between a client and server for performing searches.

Part 1, the Abstract Protocol Definition (APD) defines a model and a generic protocol for the interaction between a client and server for performing searches. It facilitates interoperability between different search protocols by providing a common framework and terminology for describing these search protocols. The intention is that all search protocols can be regarded as concrete implementations of this definition.

The 60-day public review has started and ends 14 January 2013.

OLAC 2014

OLAC is looking for a host for the 2014 conference.

The Board of OLAC is now accepting proposals to host the 2014 OLAC Conference. If you are interested, please read the summary of guidelines below and at: http://www.olacinc.org/drupal/?q=node/58#committeeformation.

According to our practice of varying the geographical region of the host city, the 2014 conference should be held somewhere in the Midwest.

Hosting an OLAC conference is:

• Detail-oriented: perfect for catalogers
  
• A great way to meet very interesting people
  
• If you’re going to organize a conference, this is a great one to organize, because OLAC is relatively small and very friendly
  
• The OLAC board offers LOTS of support (some call it hand-holding)
  
• You get to spend money that isn’t yours—but you do have to spend it on the conference
  
• You get to tour hotels and make menu choices
  
• If you are shy, you get to adopt the more comfortable role of host
  
• You will be popular—people will gravitate towards you to ask questions—but you do have to solve problems, too
  
• You will make new friends and meet possible collaborators
  
• It looks great on your resume!

We look forward to hearing from interested parties, and to receiving proposals no later than January 18, 2013.

Japanese Romanization Table Revision Approved

News ffrom LC.

The ALA-LC Romanization tables are developed jointly by the Library of Congress (LC) and the American Library Association (ALA). Romanization schemes enable the cataloging of foreign language materials. Romanized cataloging in turn supports circulation, acquisitions, serials check-in, shelflisting, shelving, and reference, particularly in library catalogs that are unable to display non-roman alphabet information.

The ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Materials (CC:AAM) recently received and reviewed a proposal to revise the Japanese romanization table. The table has subsequently been approved. The revised Japanese romanization table is now available for downloading from the ALA-LC Romanization Tables webpage http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Interesting take on libraries, "the books, and the dust and the sadness."

PCC Relationship Designator Guidelines Task Group Report

The PCC Relationship Designator Guidelines Task Group Report was recently published.

It has always been one of the main functions of the library catalogue to relate resources to other entities. Main and added entries express relationships between persons or organizations and the resources for which they are responsible, and other devices such as analytical added entries, uniform titles, linking entries, and series headings are all ways of expressing defined sets of relationships among resources themselves.

The relationship designators in RDA should be seen as an evolution of these devices. But where MARC captures a relatively limited set of relationships, largely those applicable to traditional library collections, the RDA relationship designators establish a framework to express a potentially much richer set of relationships. In addition, the linked data environment in which RDA relationship designators are intended to be implemented may eventually offer more powerful ways of handling relationships.

Off Topic - Allegiance Construction Group

I'm going off topic to warn everyone of Allegiance Construction Group of Houston Texas. This is a new name for them. They used to be AF Construction. Under that name they received a F rating from the Better Business Bureau. Under that name they were also dropped by Service Magic. They changed names and placed ownership of the new company in the name of the wife of the former owner of AF Construction. They very well may have used other names before AF Construction. Reynaldo Hernandez (Ray Hernandez) has a office on 10030 Blackhawk Blvd Houston, TX 77089. If you find any of this matches someone you are considering hiring find someone else.

Malay Romanization Tables

LC is looking for comments on the new Malay Romanization tables.

The Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress has received a revision proposal for the Malay (in Jawi-Arabic script) ALA-LC romanization table from LC's Jakarta Office. Based on feedback from current users, a couple of additional changes to the table have been made, and the table has been renamed "Jawi / Pegon romanization table". The table's name change acknowledges that it covers more than simply the Malay language.

The revision proposal http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman_malay_proposal.pdf (PDF, 129 KB) highlights all additions and changes. A separate document
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman_malay_explanation.doc (DOC, 48 KB) enumerates changes in the revision proposal.

QR Code Books

Just curious has anyone cataloged any of these books converted to QR Codes?

Metadata Object Description Schema Conversions Tools

News from the Network Development and MARC Standards Office, Library of Congress.

A new set of MODS 3.4 XSLT 2.0 stylesheets has been added to our MODS Conversions page http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/mods-conversions.html for community testing and review. These new XSLT 2.0 stylesheets are based on the mappings made available by the Library of Congress on the same page.

The conversions include:

• DC to MODS 3.4
  
• MARCXML to MODS 3.4
  
• MODS 3.4 to DC
  
• MODS 3.4 to HTML
  
• MODS 3.4 to MARCXML

Bibliographic Framework

LC has released Bibliographic Framework as a Web of Data: Linked Data Model and Supporting Services.

The Library of Congress officially launched its Bibliographic Framework Initiative in May 2011. The Initiative aims to re-envision and, in the long run, implement a new bibliographic environment for libraries that makes "the network" central and makes interconnectedness commonplace. Prompted in no small part by the desire to embrace new cataloging norms, it is essential that the library community redevelop its bibliographic data models as part of this Initiative. Toward that objective, this document presents a high-level model for the library community for evaluation and discussion, but it is also important to consider this document within a much broader context, and one that looks well beyond the library community....

The new, proposed model is simply called BIBFRAME, short for Bibliographic Framework.
The new model is more than a mere replacement for the library community's current model/format, MARC. It is the foundation for the future of bibliographic description that happens on, in, and as part of the web and the networked world we live in. It is designed to integrate with and engage in the wider information community while also serving the very specific needs of its maintenance community - libraries and similar memory organizations.

Semantic Web in Libraries Livestream

Towards an international LOD library ecosystem, this year's Semantic Web in Libraries conference will be live streamed.

For this years SWIB (Semantic Web in Libraries) conference in Cologne, we strive to provide a video livestream:

At 27./28. November, from 8 to 16.30 (GMT) on the conference homepage,

http://swib.org/swib12/

There you also find information about the schedule and the conference in general (which is organized by hbz and ZBW again). The conference language is English. #swib12 on Twitter.

Digital Public Library of America

Digital Public Library of America meeting and hackfest in Northern Virginia.

On December 6, 2012, the Digital Public Library of America will have two concurrent and interwoven events at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. The Audience and Participation workstream will be holding a meeting that will be livestreamed, and next door those interested in fleshing out what might be done with the DPLA will hold a hackfest, which follows on a similar, successful event last month in Chattanooga, TN. (Here are some of the apps that were built.)

Anyone who is interested in experimenting with the DPLA—from creating apps that use the library’s metadata to thinking about novel designs to bringing the collection into classrooms—is welcome to attend or participate from afar. The hackfest is not limited to those with programming skills, and we welcome all those with ideas, notions, or the energy to collaborate in envisioning novel uses for the DPLA.

The Center for History and New Media will provide spaces for a group as large as 30 in the main hacking space, with couches, tables, whiteboards, and unlimited coffee. There will also be breakout areas for smaller groups of designers and developers to brainstorm and work. We ask that anyone who would like to attend the hackfest please register in advance via this registration form.

COinS at Wikipedia

Wikipedia has recently stopped using COinS.

There have been many complaints (e.g. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19262) that articles take too long to render. For articles with many citations, the obvious low-hanging fruit is COINS metadata. For example, Muammar Gaddafi takes 28.3 seconds to parse, but with COINS removed, it takes 22.2 seconds.
Nobody ever held a straw poll asking the community "can we please make article parsing 27% slower in order to support a rarely-used metadata feature?" I'm sure that data can be provided in some other way. So I would like to remove it. -- Tim Starling (talk) 06:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Users of Zotero and LibX have raised objections. COinS may be brought back when Wikipedia does some system improvements. If you have any feelings on the matter (COinS are necessary, should be replaced by a better schema, etc.) join the discussion.

NISO's ResourceSync Initiative Teleconference

NISO teleconference.

NISO will hold its next open teleconference in our monthly series this coming Monday, November 19th at 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

The topic for the November call will be the ResourceSync initiative, which is a joint NISO and Open Archives Initiative (OAI) project to research, develop, prototype, test, and deploy mechanisms for the large-scale synchronization of web resources. More information on this Working Group can be found at http://www.niso.org/workrooms/resourcesync/.

ResourceSync builds on the OAI-PMH strategies for synchronizing metadata; this project will enhance that specification using modern web technologies, and will allow for the synchronization of the objects themselves, not just their metadata. The Web is highly dynamic, with resources continuously being created, updated, deleted, and moved. Web applications that leverage third party resources face the challenge of keeping in step with this rate of change. Many such applications are not concerned with accurate coverage of a server's resources or consider delays in reflecting changes acceptable. In these cases, alignment with the dynamics of a remote server is commonly achieved by optimizing web crawling and resource discovery mechanisms, for example through scheduling crawls based on change frequency prediction. However, there are significant use cases that require more real-time and accurate synchronization.

Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA)

The Getty Institute is compiling the Cultural Objects Name Authority (CONA).

CONA is a structured vocabulary containing authority records for cultural works, including architecture and movable works such as paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, manuscripts, photographs, textiles, ceramics, furniture, other visual media such as frescoes and architectural sculpture, performance art, archaeological artifacts, and various functional objects that are from the realm of material culture and of the type collected by museums. The focus of CONA is works cataloged in scholarly literature, museum collections, visual resources collections, archives, libraries, and indexing projects with a primary emphasis on art, architecture, or archaeology.

The focus of each CONA record is a work of art or architecture. In the database, each work's record (also called a subject in the database, not to be confused with iconographical depicted subjects of art works) is identified by a unique numeric ID. Linked to each work's record are titles/names, current location, dates, other fields, related works, a parent (that is, a position in the hierarchy), sources for the data, and notes. The coverage of CONA is global, from prehistory through the present. Names or titles may be current, historical, and in various languages.

CONA grows through contributions, if your institution has such works consider contributing to the database.

Arabic Romanization Table Revision Approved

News from LC.

The ALA-LC Romanization tables are developed jointly by the Library of Congress (LC) and the American Library Association (ALA). Romanization schemes enable the cataloging of foreign language materials. Romanized cataloging in turn supports circulation, acquisitions, serials check-in, shelflisting, shelving, and reference, particularly in library catalogs that are unable to display non-roman alphabet information.

The ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Materials (CC:AAM) recently received and reviewed a proposal to revise the Arabic romanization table. The table has subsequently been approved.

The revised Arabic romanization table is now available for downloading from the ALA-LC Romanization Tables webpage.

Reflections on Life as a Cataloger

Thinking inside the box: Reflections on my life as a cataloger by Ted Taylor, Senior Cataloger, Pepperdine University School of Law offers reflections on his career and the profession.

Using technology and helping people along the way have been constant throughout my career. It will be interesting to see how new standards such as RDA and FRBR will play out. Ultimately, we are all working to make it better for individuals to more easily search and find what they want and need. People will continue to become more accustomed to finding and retrieving the actual documents. Through all aspects of our interactions, it is becoming the expectation that there will be something tangible at the end of the line with each cast for information. I see this even with my two granddaughters. They are growing up to expect that a telephone call is a visual one. Anything else is unacceptable. This is an exciting time for librarians—ripe with opportunities and challenges to meet these very high expectations.

RDA: Are We There Yet?

The Webinar, RDA: Are We There Yet? presented by Emily Dust Nimsakont, November 14, 2012 is now available on the archive site, if you happened to miss it.

It's been a long time coming, but Resource Description and Access (RDA), the new cataloging code, will be implemented by the Library of Congress next year. Are you ready? In this session, Emily Dust Nimsakont provides an update on the latest RDA-related developments and offer tips for RDA implementation. Emily Dust Nimsakont is the Government and Information Services Librarian at the Nebraska Library Commission. She previously held the position of Cataloging Librarian at the NLC. She holds a Master's degree in Library Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia, as well as a Master's degree in Museum Studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

New WebDewey Tool

A nice looking beta number building / user contribution tool in WebDewey was recently made available.

Earlier today, the beta version of the number building / user contribution tool was installed in WebDewey. This new WebDewey feature assists users in building numbers, assigning index terms to the resulting numbers, keeping the numbers as personal or sharing the numbers plus index terms with others at the same institution, and contributing the numbers plus index terms back to the Dewey user community.

You’ll notice a new box, Create built number, associated with the record for any valid schedule or table entry.

Library of Congress Systems Offline

News from LC.

All Library of Congress systems will be taken offline beginning Friday evening. This includes LCCN Permalink, Z39.50 and SRU services, ID.LOC.GOV, all listservs, and, of course, the catalog. All Library systems. Service will be restored by Tuesday.

The Library of Congress has planned extensive electrical work and power maintenance for this coming weekend. As a protective measure, all Library systems will be powered down. The maintenance period is scheduled for completion by Tuesday morning, when it is expected all Library systems will have been restored to normal operation. Though it is anticipated work will not be fully completed until late Monday (or very early Tuesday morning), services will be start coming back online many hours before then.

NISO and the Future of Bib Exchange

The latest NISO Newsletter leads off with the article, NISO and the Future of Bib Exchange.

Our bibliographic exchange ecosystem is incredibly complex. The contributors to this process are numerous and occasionally have competing interests. Beyond this, the metadata that we need to discover content travels a circuitous route through our information community involving a variety of organizations and providers. Much of this exchange, at least within the library community, is centered around antiquated formats that need to be transformed to interoperate with modern information exchange systems. Designing and achieving this transformation will require a great deal of collaboration and consensus among all the affected stakeholders.

Belarusian Romanization Table Revision Approved

The Belarusian romanization table is now available.

The ALA-LC Romanization tables are developed jointly by the Library of Congress (LC) and the American Library Association (ALA). Romanization schemes enable the cataloging of foreign language materials. Romanized cataloging in turn supports circulation, acquisitions, serials check-in, shelflisting, shelving, and reference, particularly in library catalogs that are unable to display non-roman alphabet information.

The ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) recently received and reviewed a proposal to revise the Belarusian romanization table. The table has subsequently been approved.

CIP Records Enhanced

News for OCLC users, CIP records can now be enhanced.

OCLC is pleased to announce to our cataloging members that additional functionality has been added to the Expert Community to enable upgrading of Cataloging in Publication (CIP) records by member libraries, even when they are coded “pcc” in the 042 field.

OCLC has previously excluded all records that were coded as being Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC BIBCO records) from Expert Community replaces. Library of Congress CIP records (DLC Encoding Level 8 records) were not being coded as “pcc” at the time the Expert Community began, but are currently routinely coded in this manner. Not being able to permanently upgrade master records in WorldCat for LC CIP has long been a source of frustration for catalogers. OCLC has heard this frustration and is responding by adding new functionality to enable upgrading of CIP. Records coded as “pcc” with other encoding levels continue to be excluded from Expert Community replaces.

Beginning today, November 5, 2012, catalogers using full level (or higher) OCLC cataloging authorizations will be able to edit/upgrade all fields in LC CIP records that may be edited in other non-pcc master records with one exception. That exception is that the encoding level coding may not be changed. It will remain “8” until an official CIP upgrade is loaded to WorldCat from LC, from a CIP upgrade partner, or is changed by an institution with National Level Enhance authorization. The entire record may be upgraded as needed, including description and subject cataloging; only the encoding level may not be changed. When upgrading a CIP record, never remove correct and accurate information from a master record simply because your institution does not find it useful. This includes LC or Dewey Decimal classification numbers, LC or other subject headings, or other useful fields such as summaries or table of contents information.

Using a full level authorization, catalogers may lock, edit, and then replace the LC CIP records when using Connexion Browser or Client. When using the Client, catalogers may just edit and replace without the first step of “lock” if desired, to upgrade LC CIP.

The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

The BASE search engine has an interesting tool package.

The search engine BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) It is a tool for searching Open Access contents and automatic classification is active since 2004 and includes 37,4 million documents from 2900 mostly academic repositories. Special features are a truncation function, a search history, sorting, a drilldown function and the cooperation of linguistic tools. Interoperability is guaranteed through the possibility to bind BASE to different interfaces.

They also provide help on "Integration of BASE into local infrastructures" and a "Validate OAI Interface." You can also suggest a repository of them to harvest. Is your institution's OAI-PMH metadata being harvested?

Movers & Shakers

A request from Library Journal.

“Hi there folks, a simple request from your friendly neighborhood LJ editor here: help us get the word out about nominations for 2013 class of Movers & Shakers. If you have any outstanding peers and colleagues in mind, go ahead and submit early and often here: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/lj-movers-shakers/

Likewise, if you have any opportunity to spread the word about nominations to your colleagues via Twitter, Facebook, email lists, in-person nudges, etc., that would also be a tremendous help to us in getting a stellar batch of Movers set for the March 15 issue. Nominations are due November 7.

I'm not sure how many nominations LJ gets for these awards. I know that when I was on the Texas Library Association's Award Committee we got very few. The odds of winning if a deserving person was nominated were very good.

Another reason to nominate someone is it is good PR for the library. If you're a manager having a Movers & Shaker on our staff can generate plenty of good press. Just the fact that you think enough of someones performance to make the nomination is good for staff moral. Even if they don't win their (and your library's) exceptional work has been read and reviewed by a committee. That alone is good PR. Maybe it will lead to an invitation to speak or write and a win next year.

What I'm saying is do take the time to send in nominations. There is little to lose and plenty to gain.

MarcEdit RDA Helper

The latest update to Terry Reese's MarcEdit tool includes RDA Helper. "The RDA Helper is an in development tool that provides the ability to RDA’ize AACR2 records. The function allows users to select from a broad range of RDA field options. RDA Helper includes automatic GMD generation." Terry has a video on the Helper.

Recommendations on Exchange Formats

Good practices and strategic recommendations on exchange formats applicable to the Registry Service for Libraries and Related Organizations (SERBER) in a context of open and linked data : Report by Miquel Térmens Graells, Velilla Centelles, Arroyo Miquel, Domingo Fernández, and Elisa García-Morales.

The Office of Library Co-ordination of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport (MECD) commissioned the company Infor@rea to draw up a study of the current situation and best practices regarding exchange formats for data to be published in the Registry Service for Libraries and Related Organizations (hereinafter SERBER). This study falls within the framework of the design and implementation of a strategic model for SERBER based on the ISO 2146:2010 standard..... The last two sections outline the recommendations for publishing open data of the SERBER project, expressed in two successive stages: Stage 1 (Section 5), in which the data will be published in two structured formats, CSV and XML; and the Stage 2 (Section 6), marked by the strategic transition to linked data in the context of the Semantic Web. Section 6 presents the specific steps to be carried out and the immediate benefits that would be obtained by the MECD.

NSF Data Curation Workshop Report

Curating for Quality: Ensuring Data Quality to Enable New Science Final Report: Invitational Workshop Sponsored by the National Science Foundation September 10-­11, 2012 Arlington, VA USA.

The National Science Foundation sponsored a workshop on September 10 and 11, 2012, in Arlington, Virginia on “Curating for Quality: Ensuring Data Quality to Enable New Science.” Individuals from government, academic and industry settings gathered to discuss issues, strategies and priorities for ensuring quality in collections of data. This workshop aimed to define data quality research issues and potential solutions. The workshop objectives were organized into four clusters: (1) data quality criteria and contexts, (2) human and institutional factors, (3) tools for effective and painless curation, and (4) metrics for data quality.

OLAC Conference Handouts

The OLAC Conference organizers came up with a terrific idea, using Dropbox to store and make available the conference handouts.

Find below a link to the dropbox for conference handouts. So far, we have the handouts for the FRBR workshop, the CONSER serials workshop, Digital Images, RDA (plus exercises), Video, and Sound Recording. All of the speakers have asked me to remind you that these slides and handouts may be updated as the conference approaches.

We'll be uploading more as we receive them!

We encourage you to download these slides and handouts to your mobile devices and laptops.

Your workshop assignments will be available in the conference packets when you register. If you registered for the full conference (as opposed to one day) you will received your first choice workshop, if you indicated a single first choice. Most conference goers will receive their top 4, and if not, very likely 4 of the top five. Everyone has access to all the handouts!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fbzr895ghu8yxa9/2GV4LctXum

Cartographic Resources Cataloging Interest Meeting Summary

The latest issue of Baseline contains a summary of the ALCTS CaMMS/MAGIRT Cartographic Resources Cataloging Interest Group ALA Midwinter Meeting, Anaheim, CA Sunday, June 24, 2012. Topics discussed were cataloging maps in RDA and cartographic genre/form headings.

Tod-Oirat-Old Kalmyk Romanization Table Approved

News from LC.

The ALA-LC Romanization tables are developed jointly by the Library of Congress (LC) and the American Library Association (ALA). Romanization schemes enable the cataloging of foreign language materials. Romanized cataloging in turn supports circulation, acquisitions, serials check-in, shelflisting, shelving, and reference, particularly in library catalogs that are unable to display non-roman alphabet information.

The ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Materials (CC:AAM) recently received and reviewed a proposal for new Tod-Oirat-Old Kalmyk romanization table. The table has subsequently been approved.

The Tod-Oirat-Old Kalmyk romanization table is now available for downloading from the ALA-LC Romanization Tables webpage.

Autosuggesting FAST Subjects

OCLC has announced a new Web service that Autosuggests FAST Subjects.

OCLC Research announces the availability of assignFAST, a new Web service that automates the manual selection of FAST Subjects (the Authorized and Use For headings) based on autosuggest technology.

Subject assignment is a two-phase task. The first phase is intellectual: reviewing the material and selecting the correct heading. The second phase is more mechanical: finding the correct form of the heading, along with any diacritics; cutting and pasting it into the cataloging interface; and potentially correcting formatting and subfield coding. If authority control is available in the interface, some of these tasks may be automated.

assignFAST consolidates the entire second phase of the manual process of subject assignment into a single step based on autosuggest technology. The service can easily be added to an existing browser based interface, providing both subject selection and authority control in a single step.

OCLC COinS Generator

For many years OCLC NJ hosted a COinS generator. Just plug in a Pub Med ID or DOI and out came a COinS. I found it handy. Sadly it has been taken down.

Anyone know of a substitute for this service?

Kazakh, Lepcha, and Manchu Romanization Tables

News from LC.

The ALA-LC Romanization tables are developed jointly by the Library of Congress (LC) and the American Library Association (ALA). Romanization schemes enable the cataloging of foreign language materials. Romanized cataloging in turn supports circulation, acquisitions, serials check-in, shelflisting, shelving, and reference, particularly in library catalogs that are unable to display non-roman alphabet information.

The ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Asian and African Materials (CC:AAM) recently received and reviewed proposals for new Kazakh (in Arabic script) and Manchu romanization tables, as well as a revision proposal for the Lepcha romanization table. All three tables were approved.

The Kazakh (in Arabic script), Lepcha, and Manchu romanization tables are now available for downloading from the ALA-LC Romanization Tables webpage http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html

RDA: Are We There Yet?

The Georgia Library Association has announced the November 2012 session of the Carterette Series Webinars, "RDA: Are We There Yet?".

The Carterette Series is a bi-monthly educational webinar series highlighting trends, innovation, and best practices in libraries. The free sessions are open to interested parties from all geographic (and astral) locations. Topics are chosen to be of interest to students and employees from all library types, and each session is approved for one Georgia Continuing Education (CE) contact hour.

Can't make it to the live show? That's okay. The sessions will be recorded and available on the CSW site for later viewing.

RDA: Are We There Yet?
Presented by Emily Nimsakont
November 14, 2012
2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EASTERN Time (What time is that for me?)
REGISTER

It's been a long time coming, but Resource Description and Access (RDA), the new cataloging code, will be implemented by the Library of Congress next year - are you ready? In this session, Emily Dust Nimsakont will provide an update on the latest RDA-related developments and offer tips for RDA implementation. Emily is the Government and Information Services Librarian at the Nebraska Library Commission.

Iconify

Iconify might be useful to GLAM institutions when they have displays or exhibits. The Scout Report has this to say:

Creative types will love Iconify. The basic premise of this web-based application is that it allows creative professionals to turn their work, drawings, photographs, and sketches into both a streamlined website and a downloadable app. Visitors can upload their images and graphics and tinker with them to get things just as they want them. After that, they can share their portfolios via a wide range of social networking sites. This version is compatible with all operating systems.

Currently it is in beta and open only by invitation. No mention of metadata, so it won't replace your current repository but it just might be a nice supplement for special events.

Monograph Demand-Driven Acquisitions

An announcement from NISO.

NISO will hold its next open teleconference in our monthly series this coming Monday, October 15th at 3:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

The topic for the September call will be the new work toward a Recommended Practice for Monograph Demand-Driven Acquisitions. More information on this Working Group can be found at http://www.niso.org/workrooms/dda/.

Launched just last month, this work group will develop a flexible model for DDA that works for publishers, vendors, aggregators, and libraries. This model will allow libraries to develop DDA plans that meet differing local collecting and budgetary needs while also allowing consortial participation and cross-aggregator implementation....

The call is free and anyone is welcome to participate. To join, simply dial 877-375-2160 and enter the code: 17800743#. All calls are held from 3-4 p.m. Eastern time.

The Open Teleconferences are an quick way to get an update on the status of a NISO initiative. The calls are informal and questions and discussion is welcome. Following the featured discussion, there is also an opportunity for the NISO community to bring up any issue or topic of interest. This is an excellent time for you to raise any concerns, project ideas, or suggestions of focus for NISO in the coming year.

If you are unable to join us, this call will be recorded and made freely available on the NISO website following the event—as are all of the Open Teleconferences. For more information or to listen to the previous call discussions, please visit: http://www.niso.org/news/events/2012/telecon/.

Global Subject Codes Standard: Thema

The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has started to look at a standard for subject codes, Thema.

Book industry representatives from 15 countries announced today the formation of a new, global standard to categorize and classify book content by subject. The project, initially known as Thema, was first announced during the Tools of Change Supply Chain Conference taking place during the Frankfurt International Book Fair....

The new standard is meant, initially, to work alongside existing standards such as BIC, BISAC, CLIL, etc. The long range goal is to move all markets to the global standard, helping to eliminate confusion among both upstream and downstream trading partners. BISG, working through the auspices of its Subjects Code Committee, will have responsibility for the application of the standard in the US.

Gary Price at InfoDocket alerted me to this. Thanks Gary.

ETD Tool

The University of Northern British Columbia has developed a Drupal module, Jarrow, to handle the process from when the student begins work to the dissemination of the final thesis.

Collecting and disseminating theses and dissertations electronically is not a new concept. Tools and platforms have emerged to handle various components of the submission and distribution process. However, there is not a tool that handles the entirety of the process from the moment the student begins work on their thesis to the dissemination of the final thesis. The authors have created such a tool which they have called Jarrow. After reviewing available open-source software for theses submission and open-source institutional repository software this paper discusses why and how Jarrow was created and how it works.

Additions to Value Lists for Codes and Controlled Vocabularies

The code listed below has been recently approved. The code will be added to the applicable Value Lists for Codes and Controlled Vocabularies lists. See the specific source code lists for current usage in MARC fields and MODS/MADS elements.

The code should not be used in exchange records until 60 days after the date of this notice to provide implementers time to include newly-defined codes in any validation tables.

MARC Authentication Action Code List

The following code has been added to the MARC Authentication Action Code List list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Addition:

norbibl

National Library of Norway (Nasjonalbiblioteket)

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

The source codes listed below have been recently approved. The codes will be added to the applicable Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes lists. See the specific source code lists for current usage in MARC fields and MODS/MADS elements.

The codes should not be used in exchange records until 60 days after the date of this notice to provide implementers time to include newly-defined codes in any validation tables.

Description Convention Source Codes
The following source code has been added to the Description Convention Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Addition:

pn

Provider-Neutral E-Resource MARC Record Guidelines (Library of Congress, Program for Cooperative Cataloging)

Name and Title Authority Source Codes
The following source code has been added to the Name and Title Authority Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Addition:

banqa

Fichier d'autorit local de Bibliothque et Archives nationales du Qubec (Bibliothque et Archives nationales du Qubec)

Houston Area for Tweens Librarians

Not my area, but for public staff serving tweens the Tweens Read Book Festival looks great.

20 Authors! Free and open to the public! The goal of the Tweens Read Book Festival is to celebrate and promote reading by connecting tweens with authors. The target audience for the event is students in grades 5-8. For more information, visit www.tweensread.com

Announcing the 2012 Graphic Novelist Luncheon!

....

Plan to attend Tweens Read 2012 on October 20, 2012 Bobby Shaw Middle School 1201 Houston Avenue, Pasadena, TX 77502

MARC Update

News from LC about MARC.

Update No. 15 (September 2012) is now available on the MARC website (www.loc.gov/marc/). It is integrated into the documentation for each of the Online Full and Concise formats that are maintained on that site -- the Bibliographic format, Authority format, Holdings format, Classification format, and Community Information format. The documentation includes changes made to the MARC 21 formats resulting from proposals which were considered by the ALA ALCTS/LITA/RUSA Machine-Readable Bibliographic Information Committee (MARBI), the Canadian Committee on MARC (CCM) and the BIC Bibliographic Standards Group in June 2012.

The changes are indicated in red. Each format also has an appendix,"Format Changes for Update No. 15 (September 2012)" that lists the changes that comprise the update. The Web version of the formats is the official version and is considered the start for implementation planning for MARC 21. Users are not expected to begin using the new features in the format until 60 days from the date of this announcement: September 19, 2012. For more information about format documentation
see: http://www.loc.gov/marc/status.html

Users who want a print version of changed fields will be able to print them from the Format web pages (CDS will not be selling a print version of the update). Changes to the MARC 21 Formats that resulted from Update No. 15 (September 2012) are displayed in red print. The "Format Changes" appendixes described above also incorporate a print guide following the list of changes, to facilitate easy printing.

If you want to update your print copies read that last paragraph again. The update in not one document you can print out like all the others listed in the update section at the MARC website.

Future of the Academic Library Symposium

I'm looking forward to the Future of the Academic Library Symposium: E-Texts, Big Data, and Access at Rice University this Thursday. Anyone else going to be there?

Open Monograph Press

The Public Knowledge Project has announced the 1.0 (Beta) release of Open Monograph Press.

The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is very pleased to announce the 1.0 (Beta) release of Open Monograph Press (OMP). OMP is an open source software platform for managing the editorial workflow required to see monographs, edited volumes, and scholarly editions through internal and external review, editing, cataloguing, production, and publication. OMP will operate, as well, as a press website with catalog, distribution, and sales capacities.

It includes support for ONIX metadata. "As with all PKP software, OMP can be downloaded for free and installed on a local webserver or it can be hosted by PKP Publishing Services."

Editor for MARC Records

Eclipse Editor for MARC Records by Bojana Dimić Surla appears in the latest issue of Information Technology and Libraries.

Editing bibliographic data is an important part of library information systems. In this paper we discuss existing approaches in developing of user interface for editing MARC records. There are two basic approaches, screen forms that support entering bibliographic data without knowledge of the MARC structure and direct editing of MARC records that is shown on the screen. The main result presented in the paper is Eclipse editor for MARC records that fully supports editing of MARC records. It is written in Java as Eclipse plug-in so it is platform-independent. It can be extended for using with any data store. At the end, the paper presents Rich Client Platform application made of MARC editor plug-in which can be used outside of Eclipse. The practical application of the results is integration of created Rich Client Platform application in BISIS library information system.

EOS ILS Users

Are there any planetary science libraries or libraries in the Houston/Galveston area using EOS? If so, would you like to participate in Cross Library Search with the Lunar and Planetary Institute? Just let me know. Thanks.

Proposal for Revision of the Malay Romanization Table

LC seeks comments.

The Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress has received a revision proposal for the Malay (in Jawi-Arabic script) ALA-LC romanization table from LC's Jakarta Office. The proposal recommends the addition of two characters as well as a new note to reflect changes in current Malay printed materials.

The revision proposal http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman_malay_proposal.pdf (PDF, 129 KB) highlights all additions and changes. A separate document http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman_malay_explanation.doc (DOC, 43 KB) enumerates changes in the revision proposal.

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

From LC.

The source codes listed below have been recently approved. The codes will be added to the applicable Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes lists. See the specific source code lists for current usage in MARC fields and MODS/MADS elements.

The codes should not be used in exchange records until 60 days after the date of this notice to provide implementers time to include newly-defined codes in any validation tables.

Classification Scheme Source Codes
The following source code has been added to the Classification Scheme Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Addition:

ics

International Classification for Standards (International Organization for Standardization)

Description Convention Source Codes
The following source code has been added to the Description Convention Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Addition:

isbd

ISBD: International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD Review Group/Standing Committee of the IFLA Cataloguing Section)

Addition to Value Lists for Codes and Controlled Vocabularies

From LC.

The code listed below has been recently approved. The code will be added to the applicable Value Lists for Codes and Controlled Vocabularies lists. See the specific source code lists for current usage in MARC fields and MODS/MADS elements.

The code should not be used in exchange records until 60 days after the date of this notice to provide implementers time to include newly-defined codes in any validation tables. MARC Authentication Action Code List

The following code has been added to the MARC Authentication Action Code List list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Addition:

nznb

New Zealand national bibliography (Wellington: National Library of New Zealand)

Umlaut Webinar Recording Now Available

New webinar available from OCLC, OCLC Research TAI CHI Webinar Recording: Umlaut.

In this webinar, Jonathan Rochkind, Senior Programmer/Analyst at the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University, demonstrated how Umlaut allows you to de-couple your "link resolver" (or "known item service") user-facing UI from your underlying knowledge base products—theoretically making it possible to switch out one vendor's knowledge base product for another with no interruption to your users (or to your local applications using Umlaut's API rather than a specific vendor's proprietary API).

Open Discovery Initiative Survey

NISO is looking for input on Open Discovery.

The Open Discovery Initiative (ODI), a working group of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), has been formed to develop a Recommended Practice related to the index-based discovery services for libraries. ODI aims to investigate and improve the ecosystem surrounding these discovery services, with a goal of broader participation of content providers and increased transparency to libraries.

An important component of our work involves gathering information from the key stakeholders: libraries, content providers, and developers of discovery products.

If you are involved in discovery services we request that you respond to our survey. The survey results will provide essential information to the workgroup as it develops recommended practices related to discovery services. A full report on the findings of this survey will be made available publically on the NISO website later this year.

We are especially interested in input from:

• libraries that have implemented or plan to implement a discovery service and
  
• organizations that potentially contribute content to one or more of these services:
  • primary publishers,
    
  • producers of aggregated databases of citation or full-text content for libraries, and
    
  • creators of abstracting and indexing services.

We anticipate that the survey will take about 20 minutes to complete. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QBXZXSB

OCLC Control Number Expansion

News from OCLC about their control numbers.

WorldCat continues to grow! As indicated earlier this year, the OCLC Control Number is anticipated to reach one billion after July 1, 2013. At that point, OCLC will increase the length of the OCLC number to accommodate a variable length number string. If you use and/or store OCLC MARC bibliographic records and the OCLC Control Number, you will notice a change after July 1, 2013. You will need to check the systems at your institution that use OCLC MARC bibliographic records and the OCLC number. You may need to implement changes to ensure those systems will be able to successfully handle the longer OCLC number effective July 1, 2013.

Linked Data in Libraries, Archives, and Museums

The latest issue of Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) from NISO is a special issue on Linked Data in Libraries, Archives, and Museums Contents include:

• Linked Data Vocabulary Management: Infrastructure Support, Data Integration, and Interoperability by Gordon Dunsire, Corey Harper, Diane Hillmann, and Jon Phipps
  
• Linking Lives: Creating An End-User Interface Using Linked Data by Jane Stevenson
  
• Joining the Linked Data Cloud in a Cost-Effective Manner by Seth van Hooland, Ruben Verborgh, and Rik Van de Walle
  
• OCLC's Linked Data Initiative: Using Schema.org to Make Library Data Relevant on the Web by Ted Fons, Jeff Penka, and Richard Wallis
  
• Europeana: Moving to Linked Open Data by Antoine Isaac, Robina Clayphan, and Bernhard Haslhofer
  
• LODLAM State of Affairs by Jon Voss
  
• Report on the Linked Ancient World Data Institute by Thomas Elliott, Sebastian Heath, and John Muccigrosso
  
• LC's Bibliographic Framework Initiative and the Attractiveness of Linked Data by Kevin Ford

RDA Webcast

The Nebraska Library Commission's NCompass live will have a free webcast, RDA: Are We There Yet?

It’s been a long time coming, but Resource Description and Access (RDA), the new cataloging code, will be implemented by the Library of Congress next year – are you ready? In this session, Emily Nimsakont, the NLC’s Cataloging Librarian, will provide an update on the latest RDA-related developments and offer tips for RDA implementation.

OLAC Newsletter

The September 2012 issue of the OLAC Newsletter is now available.

Some highlights include:

• The OLAC Conference preview (there’s still time to register!)
  
• OLAC meeting minutes and conference reports from ALA Annual in Anaheim
  
• A call for candidates for the OLAC Executive Board and CAPC
  
• OLAC Cataloger’s Judgment
  
• News and Announcements

The biannual conference is also approaching. Start planning.

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

The source codes listed below have been recently approved. The codes will be added to the applicable Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes lists. See the specific source code lists for current usage in MARC fields and MODS/MADS elements.

The codes should not be used in exchange records until 60 days after the date of this notice to provide implementers time to include newly-defined codes in any validation tables.

Cartographic Data Source Codes
The following source codes have been added to the Cartographic Data Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Additions:

cwg

Cambridge world gazetteer: a geographical dictionary (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press)

edm

Enciclopedia de Mexico (Ciudad de Mexico: Enciclopedia de Mexico)

fnib

Foreign names information bulletin (Washington, D.C.: Defense Mapping Agency)

Subject Heading and Term Source Codes
The following source codes have been added to the Subject Heading and Term Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Additions:

ddcut

Dewey Decimal Classification user terms (Dublin, Ohio: OCLC Online Computer Center)

noram

Noram: emneord for Norsk-amerikansk samling (Oslo: Nasjonalbiblioteket)

Bibliography in the Digital Age

News from IFLA.

The videos and presentations from the satellite meeting Bibliography in the digital age arranged by IFLA Bibliography Section and IFLA Cataloguing Section are made available online by our kind host Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw, Poland at: http://www.bn.org.pl/ifla-2012/presentations-and-videos/

The presentations are:

• Aniko Dudás: Who are the users and what are their expectations?
  
• Tuula Haapamäki and Sinikka Luukkanen: Cataloguing Policy in the National Library of Finland - strategies and practices for the metadata of digital resources
  
• Hanne Hørl Hansen: Online materials in The Danish National Bibliography
  
• Karin Kleiber: Online materials published in Austria - collecting, archiving and metadata
  
• Anke Meyer: The management of a digital national bibliography at the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
  
• Pat Riva: National Bibliography in Canada: Two national bibliographic agencies, two approaches
  
• Marcin Roszkowski: Integration of Polish National Bibliography within repository platform for science and humanities
  
• Neil Wilson: Guidelines for the future: sharing best practice for national bibliographies in the digital era

JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite

NISO has published the JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite standard.

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the publication of a new American National Standard, JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite, ANSI/NISO Z39.96-2012. JATS provides a common XML format in which publishers and archives can exchange journal content by preserving the intellectual content of journals independent of the form in which that content was originally delivered. In addition to the element and attribute descriptions, three journal article tag sets (the Archiving and Interchange Tag Set, the Journal Publishing Tag Set, and the Article Authoring Tag Set) are part of the standard. While designed to describe the textual and graphical content of journal articles, it can also be used for some other materials, such as letters, editorials, and book and product reviews....

The JATS standard is available as both an online XML document and a freely downloadable PDF from the NISO website (www.niso.org/workrooms/journalmarkup). Supporting documentation and schemas in DTD, RELAX NG, and W3C Schema formats are available at: jats.nlm.nih.gov/.

Minimum Digitization Capture Recommendations

If your institution is involved in digitization the Minimum Digitization Capture Recommendations provides some guidelines for long term preservation. It is up for review, so please comment.

In 2011, the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services Preservation and Reformatting Section charged a task force to develop guidelines for libraries digitizing content with the objective of producing digital products that will endure. The intent of this document was to build off past works. The authors reviewed previous research, practices at over 50 organizations, and samples of digitized works to determine a recommendation of minimum specifications for sustainable digitized content. The recommendations are not intended to dictate specific technical specifications at any given institution, but rather a floor that should not be dropped below. This draft was the result of the task force’s work. It is now up for general comment before it is published in its final version.

Music Discovery Requirements

If you deal with scores or recorded music, this may be of interest.

The Music Discovery Requirements document is now available on the Music Library Association's web site. http://committees.musiclibraryassoc.org/ETSC/MDR

The Music Discovery Requirements document addresses the unique needs posed by music materials which must be considered for successful discovery. This document discusses the issues and when possible gives concrete recommendations for discovery interfaces. Three appendixes compile technical details of the specific indexing recommendations in spreadsheets. The document was created under the auspices of Music Library Association's Emerging Technologies and Services Committee and officially approved by the Music Library Association's Board of Directors.

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

The standard for describing describing archives, personal papers, and manuscript collections (DACS) are being revised.

The Technical Subcommittee on Describing Archives: A Content Standard (TS-DACS) has completed a draft revision of the standard. This revision is available at http://www2.archivists.org/groups/technical-subcommittee-on-describing-archives-a-content-standard-dacs/describing-archives-a-c. We hope that you will take the time to review the draft revision and submit comments to the committee.

WorldCat Linked Data

OCLC has made linked data for the most popular holdings in their catalog available as RDF-n triples.

So I am really pleased to announce that you can now download a significant chunk of that data as RDF triples. Especially in experimental form, providing the whole lot as a download would have bit of a challenge, even just in disk space and bandwidth terms. So which chunk to choose was a question. We could have chosen a random selection, but decided instead to pick the most popular, in terms of holdings, resources in WorldCat – an interesting selection in it’s own right.

To make the cut, a resource had to be held by more than 250 libraries. It turns out that almost 1.2 million fall in to this category, so a sizeable chunk indeed. To get your hands on this data, download the 1Gb gzipped file. It is in RDF n-triples form, so you can take a look at the raw data in the file itself. Better still, download and install a triplestore [such as 4Store], load up the approximately 80 million triples and practice some SPARQL on them.

Library Advocate Tool

A tool for library advocacy from the ALA Washington Office.

How your phone can help you turn into a super library advocate

text library to 877877

Last week, we sent out our first action alert using our new advocacy tool, Mobile Commons. This was an exciting first step because it was our first time using mobile technology with our network of strong library advocates.

Mobile Commons allows us to send text message alerts to our mobile list. From there, our advocates can connect directly to their legislators simply by responding to the text. Mobile Commons also enables us to post click-to-call alerts on our webpages. The alert connects advocates, whether they're on our mobile list or not, to their legislator's office simply by entering their phone number on our page and clicking "call."

During the week of July 30, we used a text-to-call alert and a click-to-call alert to voice concerns over the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. Thanks to groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others linking to our page, we were able to generate over 300 calls into the U.S. Senate in support of amendments that protect privacy online. That type of support helped lead to debate on the bill being halted, most likely for the rest of the session.

As we move forward in this legislative year, I highly encourage you to sign up for text alerts. It's as simple as texting "library" to 877877 or signing up online. It's a great way to stay up to date on library issues and to engage in hassle free advocacy.

Check out the short video on Mobile Commons.

Digital Curation Resource Guide.

Digital Scholarship has released the Digital Curation Resource Guide. Lots of information and links to metadata standards and vocabularies.

This resource guide presents over 200 selected English-language websites and documents that are useful in understanding and conducting digital curation. It covers academic programs, discussion lists and groups, glossaries, file formats and guidelines, metadata standards and vocabularies, models, organizations, policies, research data management, serials and blogs, services and vendor software, software and tools, and training. It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

The Digital Curation Resource Guide complements the Digital Curation Bibliography: Preservation and Stewardship of Scholarly Works, which was released in June.

http://digital-scholarship.org/dcpb/dcb.htm

It is also available as an EPUB file (see How to Read EPUB Files).

http://digital-scholarship.org/dcrg/dcrg.epub

http://digital-scholarship.org/dcrg/epub.htm

Linked Data for Libraries

OCLC has a video on YouTube, Linked Data for Libraries. "A short introduction to the concepts and technology behind linked data, how it works, and some benefits it brings to libraries." A nice fifteen minute introduction.

Rights Metadata

Not sure how I missed this earlier, but I did see it in the latest American Libraries Direct. The Choose a License from Creative Commons enables building a license in four easy steps. It provides an offline (text) version, a XMP version for embedding in images, and a version in HTML/RDFa for use on Web pages.

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.

Our free, easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice. CC licenses let you easily change your copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.”

Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable you to modify your copyright terms to best suit your needs.

DBpedia 3.8 Released

News from the DBpedia folks.

The most important improvements of the new release compared to DBpedia 3.7 are:

1. the new release is based on updated Wikipedia dumps dating from late May / early June 2012.
   
2. the DBpedia ontology is enlarged and the number of infobox to ontology mappings has risen.
   
3. the DBpedia internationalization has progressed and we now provide localized versions of DBpedia in even more languages.

The English version of the DBpedia knowledge base currently describes 3.77 million things, out of which 2.35 million are classified in a consistent Ontology, including 764,000 persons, 573,000 places (including 387,000 populated places), 333,000 creative works (including 112,000 music albums, 72,000 films and 18,000 video games), 192,000 organizations (including 45,000 companies and 42,000 educational institutions), 202,000 species and 5,500 diseases.

We provide localized versions of DBpedia in 111 languages. All these versions together describe 20.8 million things, out of which 10.5 mio overlap (are interlinked) with concepts from the English DBpedia. The full DBpedia data set features labels and abstracts for 10.3 million unique things in 111 different languages; 8.0 million links to images and 24.4 million HTML links to external web pages; 27.2 million data links into external RDF data sets, 55.8 million links to Wikipedia categories, and 8.2 million YAGO categories. The dataset consists of 1.89 billion pieces of information (RDF triples) out of which 400 million were extracted from the English edition of Wikipedia, 1.46 billion were extracted from other language editions, and about 27 million are data links into external RDF data sets.

California Digital Library Announces Release of XTF Version 3.1

The California Digital Library (CDL) is pleased to announce the release of version 3.1 of XTF (http://xtf.cdlib.org/), an open source, highly flexible software application that supports the search, browse and display of heterogeneous digital content. XTF provides efficient and practical methods for creating customized end-user interfaces for distinct digital content collections and is used by institutions worldwide.

Major features in the 3.1 release include:

• Improved schema handling for EAD finding aids. In addition to EAD 2002 DTD, XTF now provides support for search and display of:
  • EAD 2002 schema and EAD 2002 RelaxNG finding aids
    
  • Output from Archivists' Toolkit and Archon
• Better OAI 2.0 conformance
  
• Dynamic site maps to support optimal search engine indexing

See the 3.1 change log (http://xtf.cdlib.org/documentation/changelog/#3.1) for further details.

Documentation Changes of Note

OCLC has made these changes.

Fixed Field coding of GPub Government Publication
http://www.oclc.org/bibformats/en/fixedfield/gpub.shtm changed significantly. Now it is important to consider the “*Status of the governmental entity.* Choose a code based on the status of the jurisdiction at the time of publication, e.g., for Texas government publications, use code /f/ for the period 1836-1845 and code /s/ for the period 1845-“

Field 040 Cataloging Source
http://www.oclc.org/bibformats/en/0xx/040.shtm Definition now includes this statement: “Historically in WorldCat the absence of subfield ‡b has indicated that English is the language of cataloging. OCLC now recommends always coding this element.”

Authority File Changes

News from LC.

The Policy and Standards Division has posted a document: Summary of Programmatic Changes to the LC/NACO Authority File at: http://www.loc.gov/aba/rda/pdf/lcnaf_rdaphase.pdf This process of programmatic changes signals the initial phase of RDA implementation in the authority file that was agreed upon with the Program for Cooperative Cataloging. The recoding of the LC/NAF will take place in two phases:

Phase One will consist only of adding a 667 note to the name authority record (started on July 30, 2012)

Phase Two will consist of the actual progammatic changes to the 1XX heading that are not acceptable under RDA (e.g., changes to Bible headings, spelling out Dept. and months, etc., in the subfield $d for personal names). This Phase is scheduled to take place before March 31, 2013.

The summary provides guidance to RDA catalogers to help determine what to do when encountering a name authority record with the 667 note added in this Phase One.

Middle East Cataloging Resource

The Middle East Librarians' Association (MELA) has a new website devoted to cataloging.

The MELA Committee on Cataloging (ConC) is pleased to announce the launch of its new website, which incorporates the Arabic Cataloging Manual (ACM). The site provides information and useful resources for catalogers and librarians of Arabic, Persian and other languages of the Middle East, and serves as a forum for communication with colleagues nationally and internationally. With its new site, ConC aims to stimulate an exchange of ideas about current standards, emerging trends and best practices.

Please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/melacataloging/home

Video Search

Here is an information need I have that, finding where movies and TV shows are available. For instance, if I want to watch the old BBC show This Life, where can i find it? Netflix, Hulu+, Amazon, Vudu, or ...? It is even worse if I'm looking to stream a movie. There is Plix, Flixter, Crackle, epix, Acorn, fandor, Movie Vault, Pub-D-Hub, Snag Films, etc. The list seems endless.

I need a place to search for TV shows and movies across all of these services and let me know where I can find it. Does it exist and I just don't know about it or does it not yet exist?

31 July, 2012 Update. Gary Price of InfoDocket graciously steered me towards a few tools. The best seems to be Clicker. When I searched for This Life it found nothing, but did give an overview of the show. I then searched for the motion comic Torchwood: Web of Deceit . It found it on iTunes and Vudu but missed the one on Amazon downloads. I couldn't spot a list of the services it indexes, so it is hard to tell just what is missing.

Some other tools that might be useful in some cases are the app i.TV, LocateTV, and The Internet Movie Database (IMDB).

Dewey Online Training Modules

News about Dewey Classification training.

We have completed development of an online set of training modules (available at no charge) for the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). The modules are based on DDC 23, and each consists of a slide presentation and a set of exercises. Several of the modules treat general principles governing the operation of the DDC; others treat the structure and use of specific tables and main classes. The presentations and exercises assume the availability of the latest version of the DDC database (i.e., WebDewey), and a professor, trainer, and/or experienced Dewey user for offering explanations and fielding questions.

The availability of many of the modules has been announced previously. What’s new now is that (1) the set of modules covers all of the DDC schedules and tables (modules for the 500s and 600s are newly provided), and (2) all modules have been updated to match DDC 23.

ALA Council

A message from ALA. If you are a member consider running. Organizations always need new blood if they are to remain healthy. Catalogers need to be represented in our professional societies.

We are actively seeking people to run for ALA Council. If you are interested, please go to http://www.ala.org/aboutala/governance/council for more information. You must fill out the form no later than August 17th. It is available at https://www.alavote.org/nomination/2013users.html. If you do fill it out, please select the "Nominated" option (rather than petition). Please thoughtfully consider becoming part of the governance of ALA!

TLA District 8 Fall Meeting

Who: Texas Library Association’s District 8
What: Fall Conference
Where: LoneStar College – CyFair
When: Saturday, September 29, 2012
Why: Networking, continuing education, career development and a good time with great colleagues.

Please submit a program proposal. Online submissions can be made via this Google Form.

Subject Heading Change

Looking at the Library of Congress Subject Headings Approved List 06, 2012 it seems that the heading:

Folklore--[Place]

is changing to:

Legends--[Place]

This means lots of headings are changing since this is a broader term for many more specific headings.

Cherokee Romanization Table Approved

News from LC.

The ALA-LC Romanization tables are developed jointly by the Library of Congress (LC) and the American Library Association (ALA). Romanization schemes enable the cataloging of foreign language materials. Romanized cataloging in turn supports circulation, acquisitions, serials check-in, shelflisting, shelving, and reference, particularly in library catalogs that are unable to display non-roman alphabet information.

The ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) recently reviewed and approved a proposal from LC for a new Cherokee romanization table. It has been subsequently approved by the Cherokee Tri-Council meeting in Cherokee, North Carolina. (Press coverage of the meeting is available online.) This is the first ALA-LC romanization table for a Native American syllabary.

The Cherokee romanization table is now available for downloading from the ALA-LC Romanization Tables webpage.

Phase 1 of the PCCAHITG Phased Implentation of RDA

News about name authority records.

The PCC Acceptable Headings Implementation Task Group (PCCAHITG) has successfully tested the programming code for Phase 1 in preparation for the LC/PCC Phased Implementation of RDA as described in the document entitled The phased conversion of the LC/NACO Authority File to RDA found at the Task Group's page.

Changes to name authority records (NARs) that are not susceptible to a mechanical change under Phase 2 will have a 667 note aded to them with the statement:

THIS 1XX FIELD CANNOT BE USED UNDER RDA UNTIL THIS RECORD HAS BEEN REVIEWED AND/OR UPDATED

Some other enhancements will be made, when applicable, if the record is being updated to add the note (e.g., 046 fields are added to records for persons when the information is available).

If a record is a candidate for a mechanical change in Phase 2, no note will be added to the record during Phase 1.

The records will be changed in the LC/NACO master file at the Library of Congress and the daily distribution to the other NACO nodes will begin no earlier than July 30, 2012 with an initial distribution of no more than 30,000 records per day. Please note that this increase is in addition to the normal daily exchange with the LC/NACO partners that as a consequence will result in larger weekly distribution loads for subscribers to the MARC Distribution Service Name Authorities database. The daily updates will continue until approximately 420,000 records have been distributed. Lessons learned regarding distibution of changed records during this phase will inform the PCCAHITG as they plan for the handling of Phase 2.

Archival Resource Keys Google Discussion Group

The University of California Curation Center (UC3) at the California Digital Library (CDL) has announced the formation of the first discussion group for ARKs (Archival Resource Keys).

The group is intended as a public forum for people interested in sharing with and learning from others about how ARKs have been or could be used in identifier applications.

The forum is also intended as a mechanism for the CDL/UC3, in its role as the ARK scheme maintenance agency, to seek community feedback on a number of longer term issues and activities, including

• publishing the ARK specification as an Internet RFC,
  
• clarifying local and global resolution options, and
  
• understanding metadata retrieval in a linked data environment.

The number of institutions that have registered interest in assigning ARKs, currently over 100, has grown steadily in ten years. The ARK scheme specification was recently renewed as an Internet-Draft and has been stable since 2008. A few small changes are expected before proposing it as an Internet RFC. We hope you will consider joining in the discussion about these topics and others.

SCATNews

The latest issue of SCATNews : Newsletter of the Standing Committee of the IFLA Cataloguing Section is now available.

Among the many topics reported are:

• A Canadian Linked Open Data project : out of the trenches : Linked Open Data of the First World War by Pat Riva
  
• Europe pondering adoption of RDA: the European RDA Interest Group (EURIG) by Françoise Leresche
  
• Update on cataloguing namespaces by Gordon Dunsire

LC Authority File

It seems the LC Authority File is not working. I can't get in. Tried different browsers but still can't search.

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

The source codes listed below have been recently approved. The codes will be added to the applicable Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes lists. See the specific source code lists for current usage in MARC fields and MODS/MADS elements.

The codes should not be used in exchange records until 60 days after the date of this notice to provide implementers time to include newly-defined codes in any validation tables.

Subject Heading and Term Source Codes

The following source codes have been added to the Subject Heading and Term Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Additions:

bib1814

1814-bibliografi: emneord for 1814-bibliografi (Oslo: Nasjonalbiblioteket)

lcmpt

Library of Congress medium of performance thesaurus for music (LCMPT)

Proposal for Tod-Oirat-Old Kalmyk Romanization Table

A proposal for a Tod-Oirat-Old Kalmyk romanization table was developed in 1998 by Wayne Richter of Western Washington University and circulated in CSB 83. No further action was taken at that time. The Policy and Standards Division is interested in completing work on this table and it is available for review at Tod-Oirat-Old Kalmyk Romanization [PDF, 159 KB].

TLA District 8 Fall Meeting

District 8 of the Texas Library Association (TLA) has issued a Call for Proposals for the District Conference. The conference is a little early this year, so please submit by July 31. "Your experience and expertise will make an enriching and diverse conference for all types of librarians and library staff."

Online submissions can be made via the Google Form.

This Conference will be held on September 29 at Cy-Fair Lonestar College.

Jessamyn West Podcasts

Jessamyn West, always articulate and worth a listen has been on a couple of podcasts recently. I've been meaning to post this but she made it easy for me.

I was interviewed by Steve Thomas for his Circulating ideas podcast a few weeks ago and interviewed by Kayhan B., Erin Anderson and Doug Mirams for their Bibliotech podcast a week earlier. I don’t listen to many professional-type podcasts but both of these conversations were a really good chance to talk over some of the issues facing the profession today in addition to just me going “bla bla…” about myself. Both shows have had a host of other guests and I’ve been digging around in the archives finding other stuff to listen to. If you’re podcast-oriented, these are two shows to put in regular rotation.

I do listen to podcasts, as I drive to work, and both of these are both on my podcatcher.

Code4Lib Journal Articles

The latest issue of Code4Lib Journal has a couple of interesting articles.

Using Semantic Web Technologies to Collaboratively Collect and Share User-Generated Content in Order to Enrich the Presentation of Bibliographic Records–Development of a Prototype Based on RDF, D2RQ, Jena, SPARQL and WorldCat’s FRBRization Web Service
Ragnhild Holgersen, Michael Preminger, David Massey

In this article we present a prototype of a semantic web-based framework for collecting and sharing user-generated content (reviews, ratings, tags, etc.) across different libraries in order to enrich the presentation of bibliographic records. The user-generated data is remodeled into RDF, utilizing established linked data ontologies. This is done in a semi-automatic manner utilizing the Jena and the D2RQ-toolkits. For the remodeling, a SPARQL-construct statement is tailored for each data source.

In the data source used in our prototype, user-generated content is linked to the relevant books via their ISBN. By remodeling the data according to the FRBR model, and expanding the RDF graph with data returned by WorldCat’s FRBRization web service, we are able to greatly increase the number of entry points to each book. We make the social content available through a RESTful web service with ISBN as a parameter. The web service returns a graph of all user-generated data registered to any edition of the book in question in the RDF/XML format. Libraries using our framework would thus be able to present relevant social content in association with bibliographic records, even if they hold a different version of a book than the one that was originally accessed by users. Finally, we connect our RDF graph to the linked open data cloud through the use of Talis’ openlibrary.org SPARQL endpoint.

GLIMIR: Manifestation and Content Clustering within WorldCat
Janifer Gatenby, Richard O. Greene, W. Michael Oskins, Gail Thornburg

The GLIMIR project at OCLC clusters and assigns an identifier to WorldCat records representing the same manifestation. These include parallel records in different languages (e.g., a record with English descriptive notes and subject headings and one for the same book with French equivalents). It also clusters records that probably represent the same manifestation, but which could not be safely merged by OCLC’s Duplicate Detection and Resolution (DDR) program for various reasons. As the project progressed, it became clear that it would also be useful to create content-based clusters for groups of manifestations that are generally equivalent from the end user perspective (e.g., the original print text with its microform, ebook and reprint versions, but not new editions). Lessons from the GLIMIR project have improved OCLC’s duplicate detection program through the introduction of new matching techniques. GLIMIR has also had unexpected benefits for OCLC’s FRBR algorithm by providing new methods for identifying outliers thus enabling more records to be included in the correct work cluster.