Catalogablog

LCGFT for Moving Images: Best Practices

2012-02-06T12:05:00.000-06:00

The OLAC Cataloging Policy Committee (CAPC) has approved the document Library of Congress Genre-Form Thesaurus (LCGFT) for Moving Images: Best Practices. It provides guidelines, with examples, for the usage of LCGFT for moving image materials, and complement existing official guidelines.

The purpose of this document is to provide guidelines, with examples, for the usage of Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT) for moving image materials. These guidelines are intended to complement existing official guidelines. As genre/form practice in general is currently being reviewed by several other committees, these guidelines will need to be revisited in the future; however, these best practices fulfill the need for short-term guidance.

In controversial areas, where existing rules have been questioned as to their usefulness, suggestions are offered for a consistent local practice that libraries might adopt for their own catalogs while still staying compliant with rules for record creation and editing in shared bibliographic databases.

Code{4}lib Journal

2012-02-03T10:18:00.000-06:00

The latest issue of the Code{4}lib Journal has some articles of interest.

HTML5 Microdata and Schema.org
Jason Ronallo

On June 2, 2011, Bing, Google, and Yahoo! announced the joint effort Schema.org. When the big search engines talk, Web site authors listen. This article is an introduction to Microdata and Schema.org. The first section describes what HTML5, Microdata and Schema.org are, and the problems they have been designed to solve. With this foundation in place section 2 provides a practical tutorial of how to use Microdata and Schema.org using a real life example from the cultural heritage sector. Along the way some tools for implementers will also be introduced. Issues with applying these technologies to cultural heritage materials will crop up along with opportunities to improve the situation.

Using VuFind, XAMPP, and Flash Drives to Build an Offline Library Catalog for Use in a Liberal Arts in Prison Program
Julia Bauder

When Grinnell College expanded its Liberal Arts in Prison Program to include the First Year of College Program in the Newton Correctional Facility, the Grinnell College Libraries needed to find a way to support the research needs of inmates who had no access to the Internet. The library used VuFind running on XAMPP installed on flash drives to provide access to the Libraries’ catalog. Once the student identified a book, it would be delivered from the Libraries to students on request. This article describes the process of getting VuFind operating in an environment with no Internet access and limited control of the computing environment.

Improving the presentation of library data using FRBR and Linked data
Anne-Lena Westrum, Asgeir Rekkavik, Kim Tallerås

When a library end-user searches the online catalogue for works by a particular author, he will typically get a long list that contains different translations and editions of all the books by that author, sorted by title or date of issue. As an attempt to make some order in this chaos, the Pode project has applied a method of automated FRBRizing based on the information contained in MARC records. The project has also experimented with RDF representation to demonstrate how an author’s complete production can be presented as a short and lucid list of unique works, which can easily be browsed by their different expressions and manifestations. Furthermore, by linking instances in the dataset to matching or corresponding instances in external sets, the presentation has been enriched with additional information about authors and works.

Presenting results as dynamically generated co-authorship subgraphs in semantic digital library collections
James Powell, Tamara M. McMahon, Ketan Mane, Laniece Miller, Linn Collins

Semantic web representations of data are by definition graphs, and these graphs can be explored using concepts from graph theory. This paper demonstrates how semantically mapped bibliographic metadata, combined with a lightweight software architecture and Web-based graph visualization tools, can be used to generate dynamic authorship graphs in response to typical user queries, as an alternative to more common text-based results presentations. It also shows how centrality measures and path analysis techniques from social network analysis can be used to enhance the visualization of query results. The resulting graphs require modestly more cognitive engagement from the user but offer insights not available from text.

On Dentographs, A New Method of Visualizing Library Collections
William Denton

A dentograph is a visualization of a library’s collection built on the idea that a classification scheme is a mathematical function mapping one set of things (books or the universe of knowledge) onto another (a set of numbers and letters). Dentographs can visualize aspects of just one collection or can be used to compare two or more collections. This article describes how to build them, with examples and code using Ruby and R, and discusses some problems and future directions.

Metadata Harvested

2012-01-31T10:09:00.000-06:00

Jason Ronallo at Preliminary Inventory of Digital Collections writes about Common Crawl, Web Data Commons, and Microdata.

The other day I discovered the Web Data Commons, which is building on top of the Common Crawl to extract Microformat, Microdata, and RDFa data and make it available for free download. This means that there is starting to be free structured data from a big portion of the Web available for for anyone to play with at very low cost. Common Crawl takes care of the crawling and then Web Data Commons will do data extraction. This opens up new possibilities for services, specialized search, and aggregations of content. Big web data is being opened up for small startups and individuals.

Is your library being crawled? Does it have metadata able to be harvested? Should it? Just asking.

MARCXML to MODS 3.4 XSLT (Revision 1.75)

2012-01-31T08:52:00.000-06:00

Image via WikipediaThe revised version of MARCXML to MODS 3.4 XSLT has been announced.

The Library of Congress' MARCXML to MODS 3.4 XSLT stylesheet (Revision 1.75) http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/MARC21slim2MODS3-4.xsl is now available--it incorporates edits made in response to comments received since the release of Revision 1.74.

The MODS 3.4 XSLT is based on the MARC to MODS 3.4 mapping made available by the Library of Congress in July of 2010 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/mods-mapping.html. The mapping and the XSLT are also available via the Library of Congress' MODS Web site. They They will be revised periodically as users' comments are received and as subsequent MODS Editorial Committee analysis and decisions evolve.

VuFind 1.3 Released

2012-01-30T14:19:00.000-06:00

Image by nengard via FlickrVuFind, the library portal software, has a new version.

The latest version of the VuFind Open Source discovery software has just been released.

The new release includes several significant enhancements:
A new "book bag" feature has been added for shopping-cart-style bulk actions (save, email, export multiple records).
VuFind is now driven by Apache Solr 3.5, the latest version of the powerful index engine.
New optional search plug-ins have been added for visual timelines, Google Maps integration and Europeana searches.
Enhanced RSS feeds allow VuFind results to be easily shared with external services such as Elsevier's SciVerse platform.
Syndetics integration has been improved.
VuFind's default theme now uses jQuery and Blueprint for a more dynamic, polished interface.
Additionally, several bug fixes and minor improvements have been incorporated.

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

2012-01-27T09:28:00.000-06:00

The source code listed below has been recently approved. The code will be added to the applicable Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes list. See the specific source code list 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 the newly-defined code in any validation tables. Subject Heading and Term Source Codes

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

Addition:

collett: Collett-bibliografi: litteratur av og om Camilla Collett (Oslo: Nasjonalbiblioteket)

Publication of RDA terms for Content, Carrier, Media type Vocabularies

2012-01-27T09:23:00.000-06:00

Image by American Library Association Publishing via FlickrNews about RDA vocabularies.

The Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC), the DCMI Bibliographic Metadata Task Group (formerly DCMI/RDA Task Group), and ALA Publishing (on behalf of the co-publishers of RDA) are pleased to announce the publication of a second set of vocabulary terms as linked open data. The RDA Carrier Type, Content Type and Media Type vocabularies have been reviewed, approved, and their status in the Open Metadata Registry (OMR) changed to ‘published.’ The finished vocabularies can be viewed following the links from the terms above. (The links lead to the description of the vocabulary itself, the specific terms can be viewed under the tab for ‘concepts’).

Terms in the Content Type vocabulary refer to the intellectual or artistic content of a resource, such as text or notated music; terms in the Carrier Type vocabulary refer to the means and methods by which content is conveyed including volume, sheet, computer disk; terms in the Media Type vocabulary specify the general type of intermediation device (if any) required to view, play or run the content of a resource. These vocabularies are derived from the RDA/ONIX framework for resource categorization which established an extensible methodology for categorization of resources according to content and carrier.

Cute Catalog

2012-01-25T10:23:00.000-06:00

The 1st operational eXtensible catalog is Cute.Catalog at Kyushu University Library.

Cute.Catalog completely covers the bibliographic information of academic resources in Kyushu University which contain not only library holdings but also research output produced by Kyushu University researchers.

Cute.Catalog http://catalog.lib.kyushu-u.ac.jp/en

Cute.Catalog includes:
Research Outputs by Kyushu University Researchers: 250 thousands
Library Holdings of Printed Materials in Kyushu University Bibliographies: 1.6 million, Holdings 4 million
Accessible e-Journals: 51 thousands, e-Books: 53 thousands
Institutional Repository records: 17 thousands
Digital Collection: 10 thousands
Key enhanced features are:
advanced search
online link with 360 Link XML API
put a label of institutional production
social links and exporting features and more...

Metadata Provenance

2012-01-23T10:14:00.000-06:00

There's a lot of talk about doing away with bibliographic records and replacing them with collections of linked data. In this scenario keeping track of the links is of vital importance. The recent paper How To Track Your Data: The Case for Cloud Computing Provenance by Olive Qing Zhang, Markus Kirchberg, Ryan K. L. Ko, and Bu Sung Lee addresses this topic.

Provenance, a meta-data describing the derivation history of data, is crucial for the uptake of cloud computing to enhance reliability, credibility, accountability, transparency, and confidentiality of digital objects in a cloud. In this paper, we survey current mechanisms that support provenance for cloud computing, we classify provenance according to its granularities encapsulating the various sets of provenance data for different use cases, and we summarize the challenges and requirements for collecting provenance in a cloud, based on which we show the gap between current approaches to requirements. Additionally, we propose our approach, DataPROVE, that aims to effectively and efficiently satisfy those challenges and requirements in cloud provenance, and to provide a provenance supplemented cloud for better integrity and safety of customers' data.

Names in RDA

2012-01-19T09:20:00.000-06:00

Help get the NACO/LC Authority File ready for RDA.

The Acceptable Headings Implementation Task Group has been established by the Program for Cooperative Cataloging to develop an implementation plan for preparing the LC/NACO authority file for RDA. The work of this group is largely based on the report of an earlier PCC Task Group; this group recommended a series of mechanical operations designed to make as many of the records in the LC/NACO authority file as useful as possible under RDA without individual review. The present group is exploring each of the changes suggested by the first group in detail, and fitting each into a proposed schedule.

The group has created a Facebook page as one means for communication between the group and the larger community: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/PCC-Acceptable-Headings-Implementation-Task-Group/232585923488557 We invite comments on our work, but ask that comments follow the guidelines found in the “Info" section of this page. THE INFO SECTION describes the Group's activities, including the broad areas in which the group is interested in receiving comments and those areas not in the Group's charge in which the group is not interested in receiving comments.

The group has already drafted several documents. These documents may be found at the Group's download site (and they are also available from the Facebook page): http://files.library.northwestern.edu/public/pccahitg/
a document describing a phased implementation of the suggested changes
a discussion of the issues involved in the handling of subfield $c in personal names
a discussion of the suppression (or otherwise) of 4XX fields for AACR2 forms of name
The Group is in the midst of drafting a series of documents describing the stages in which this work should be performed, and the details involved in the work. These documents will also be posted to the Group's download site, and notices of the postings placed on the Facebook page. The Group is actively soliciting volunteers interested in assisting the Group in its work. These tasks will include the review of long lists of changed headings for correctness.

Open Data Access

2012-01-17T11:04:00.000-06:00

Image via WikipediaMake your open data even more open with CORS (Cross Origin Request Security).

Currently, client-side scripts (e.g., JavaScript) are prevented from accessing much of the Web of Linked Data due to "same origin" restrictions implemented in all major Web browsers.

While enabling such access is important for all data, it is especially important for Linked Open Data and related services; without this, our data simply is not open to all clients.

If you have public data which doesn't use require cookie or session based authentication to see, then please consider opening it up for universal JavaScript/browser access.

.data TLD

2012-01-17T09:13:00.000-06:00

Stephen Woldram, of Wolfram|Alpha and Mathematica, has proposed a top level domain .data.

But what would be the point? For me, it’s about highlighting the exposure of data on the internet—and providing added impetus for organizations to expose data in a way that can efficiently be found and accessed.

In building Wolfram|Alpha, we’ve absorbed an immense amount of data, across a huge number of domains. But—perhaps surprisingly—almost none of it has come in any direct way from the visible internet. Instead, it’s mostly from a complicated patchwork of data files and feeds and database dumps.

But wouldn’t it be nice if there was some standard way to get access to whatever structured data any organization wants to expose?

VAIF Webinars

2012-01-13T10:22:00.000-06:00

OCLC has made available the recordings of the VIAF Show and Tell Webinars.

The Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) now comprises almost 20 million records from 24 different sources. In the last two months VIAF had over 70,000 visits from 147 countries/territories, with two-thirds "returning visitors." In addition, VIAF sees 6 million hits per month from automated systems such as Web harvesters or other programs retrieving VIAF information.

The "show and tell" VIAF demonstrations you'll see in this webinar recording include:
Using VIAF as the primary reference for LC/NACO authority work to differentiate names—Spencer Anspach, Indiana University
Using VIAF to create a record in Fihrist, a multi-institutional Islamic manuscript catalog, incorporating the URI to an author's VIAF page—Alasdair Watson, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
How VIAF helps researchers—Magda El-Sherbini, Ohio State University
Using VIAF to identify provenance of rare books and adding VIAF links to images of bookplates, inscriptions and other marks of ownership in Flickr—Regan Kladstrup, University of Pennsylvania
Using VIAF to identify issues in the VIAF matching process and how to respond and report them—Stephen Hearn, University of Minnesota

AACR2 Rule Interpretations

2012-01-13T10:08:00.000-06:00

The Rule Interpretations for AACR2 have been made available online. This is co-operative work, so join in the fun. Thanks to all involved. And thanks to the site where I saw this at A portal to my Cataloguing Aids website.

New Music Cataloging Book

2012-01-13T09:37:00.000-06:00

A new book for music catalogers, Directions in Music Cataloging.

a new title in the Music Library Association’s (MLA) Technical Reports Series, Directions in Music Cataloging, edited by Peter H. Lisius and Richard Griscom. In Directions in Music Cataloging, ten of the field’s top theoreticians and practitioners address issues affecting the discovery and use of music in libraries today. The roots of today’s issues lie in the past, and the first part of the volume opens with two articles by Richard P. Smiraglia that establish the context of modern music cataloging through research conducted in the early 1980s. The second part explores cataloging theory in its current state of transition, and the concluding part looks to the future by considering the application of emerging standards. The volume closes with a remembrance of A. Ralph Papakhian (1948–2010), the most prominent music cataloger of the past thirty years—a figure who initiated many of the developments covered in the volume and who served as a teacher and mentor for all of the contributors. Sue Ellen Stancu’s remembrance and H. Stephen Wright’s introduction provide a context for the volume in relation to Papakhian’s legacy.

ALA Midwinter

2012-01-11T11:18:00.000-06:00

While at ALA Midwinter in Dallas spin your cares away at the North Texas Traditional Dance (i.e. contra dance). Sat Jan 21, 8-11 pm

The main kind of dance we do is called Contra Dancing. It is a form of American folk dance derived from English Country Dancing. It has no fancy footwork, so is easy (and fun) enough for beginners to enjoy almost immediately, especially with occasional help from our friendly experienced dancers.

By far our most popular activities are the Community Dances we hold almost every week: English Country dances on 4th Saturdays, and Contra dances on most other Saturdays. These are open to the public and feature live music in a smoke- and alcohol-free environment. No experience is needed, because all the dances are taught. You don't need to bring a partner. We encourage everyone to change partners for each dance.

MARBI News

2012-01-10T15:42:00.000-06:00

The 2011 Annual MARBI Meeting minutes are now available.

Discussion Paper 2012-DP01: Identifying Titles Related to the Entity Represented by the Authority Record in the MARC 21 Authority Format

A final discussion paper (2012-DP02) will be posted next week.

The MARBI ALA Midwinter Conference 2012 agenda is available.

MARBI Paper Available for Review

2012-01-06T14:41:00.000-06:00

The following paper was revised by the Music Library Association and resubmitted for review:

Proposal 2012-01: New Data Elements in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats for Medium of Performance

Please use the link at the end of Section 2 to see additional examples.

Cataloging Webinar

2012-01-06T14:09:00.000-06:00

The Incredible Shrinking Cataloging Department: How to Do More with Less

January 11-12, 2012

Hosted by Xiaoli Li and Wade Wyckoff

Please join us for an e-forum discussion. It’s free and open to everyone!
Registration information is at the end of the message.

Each day, sessions begin and end at:

Pacific: 6am – 4pm
Mountain: 7am – 5pm
Central: 8am – 6 pm
Eastern: 9am – 7pm

Description

With the current economic downturn, many cataloging departments have experienced or are facing staff reductions. With fewer catalogers around to process materials, those departments have to come up with ways to deal with the situation. Some have struggled while others have been more successful. Some have even managed to do more with less.

This e-Forum will be an open discussion about options, choices, strategies used in various cataloging departments. Please be prepared to share your own ideas and solutions. We are hoping we all will have a great and productive year ahead with the collective wisdom offered through this forum. The topics to be covered include:

Outsourcing options
Cooperative cataloging exchanges between libraries
Managing foreign language materials
Improving efficiencies in cataloging workflow
Stopping tasks that are less value-added

Xiaoli Li is the Head of Cataloging and Metadata Services Department at the University of California, Davis General Library. Her department has had an approximately 20% reduction in staffing since 2008 when the department was formed as a result of the reorganization of technical services at Davis.

Wade Wyckoff joined McMaster University Library in 2006, where he is currently Associate University Librarian, Collections. Previously, he held appointments as Cataloguing Policy Librarian and Collection Services Librarian with the University Library. Before coming to Mac, Wade was an Archivist with the U.S. Navy’s History and Heritage Command. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in History and an M.L.S., all from Indiana University.

*What is an e-forum?*

An ALCTS e-forum provides an opportunity for librarians to discuss matters of interest, led by a moderator, through the e-forum discussion list. The e-forum discussion list works like an email listserv: register your email address with the list, and then you will receive messages and communicate with other participants through an email discussion. Most e-forums last two to three days. Registration is necessary to participate, but it's free. See a list of upcoming e-forums at: http://bit.ly/upcomingeforum.

*To register:*

Instructions for registration are available at: http://bit.ly/eforuminfo. Once you have registered for one e-forum, you do not need to register again, unless you choose to leave the email list. Participation is free and open to anyone.

Taken from the email announcement.

Linked Data and Libraries: What? Why? How? (NCompass Live)

2012-01-03T09:27:00.002-06:00

On Wednesday, January 11, 2012, 10-11:00 a.m. Central Time NCompass Live presents the webinar Linked Data and Libraries: What? Why? How?

In October of 2011, the Library of Congress released a statement outlining its efforts to move away from the MARC 21 format and toward another carrier for library data. According to the statement, “Linked Data principles and mechanisms” will be the focus of this project. You may be wondering, what is Linked Data? What could it mean for our library catalogs? How do we create Linked Data? In this session, Emily Nimsakont, the NLC’s Cataloging Librarian, will answer those questions and more.

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

2011-12-23T11:41:00.000-06:00

ntids: Norske tidsskrifter 1700-1820: emneord (Oslo: Nasjonalbiblioteket)

MARBI Paper Available for Review

2011-12-22T09:46:00.000-06:00

Image via WikipediaProposal 2012-01: New Data Elements in the MARC 21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats for Medium of Performance.

As noted in Discussion Paper 2011-DP05, medium of performance is a critical piece of information for music retrieval. Following current LCSH practice, catalogers assign subject headings which often combine genre/form and medium information into a single heading. As work continues on developing Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT), it has become clear that medium of performance vocabulary is out of scope for LCGFT and is a separate facet in its own right. The ability to move forward on implementing music terms in LCGFT is dependent on finding a place in the MARC Formats to accommodate medium of performance data in a separate field.

Information Standards Quarterly

2011-12-21T08:46:00.000-06:00

The latest issue of the Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) is now available. Articles include:

Staff Cost Savings from Implementing the NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP) by Mary E. Jackson
Scholarly iQ and SUSHI: A Case Study by Gary Van Overborg, John Milligan, and Michael Lee
Implications for a Medium-Sized Publisher in Using SERU: A Shared Electronic Resource Understanding by Mary E. Marshall
Innovation and Standardization: Friends not Foes by John Sack
NISO Launches Two New Initiative to Develop Standards and Recommended Practices: Digital Bookmarking and Annotation Sharing and Open Discovery Initiative by Nettie Lagace

MARC Tool

2011-12-20T10:55:00.000-06:00

MARCgrep.pl is a PERL tool for analyzing MARC records.

The Library of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross delivers an open source utility for analyzing MARC ISO2709 bibliographic records.

MARCgrep.pl is a Perl script to filter or count bibliographic records based on condition built upon tag name, indicators, subfield, field value (or tag, positions, value for control fields 00x).

Functional Requirements for Sharing Tag Data

2011-12-20T09:44:00.000-06:00

TagCommons has the Functional Requirements for Sharing Tag Data.

The TagCommons effort is operating something like a software project. The process is very lightweight, but has an important step that is often forgotten in discussions about ontologies and formats: for what purposes are we designing this? These days, a good way to look at functional requirements for software is to identify use cases and then derive engineering requirements. This was the first outcome of the working group, and the results are summarized here. We will describe the use cases first and then the requirements.

SCATNews

2011-12-19T09:26:00.001-06:00

Image via WikipediaThe latest issue of SCATNews is now available. It is the newsletter of the Standing Committee of the IFLA Cataloguing Section. News from the US, China, Japan, etc. Articles like "FRBR and Linked Data at the French National Library" and "The Principles on Open Bibliographic Data."

Librarian Running for Texas State Board of Education

2011-12-16T17:27:00.000-06:00

Image via WikipediaDavid Scott, running for District 6 (Houston) of the Texas State Board of Education, has a Masters of Library Science from the University of North Texas in Denton.

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

2011-12-15T09:31:00.000-06:00

The source code listed below has been recently approved. The code will be added to the applicable Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes list. See the specific source code list 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 the newly-defined code in any validation tables.

Subject Heading and Term Source Codes

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

Addition:

thesoz: Thesaurus for the Social Sciences

OCLC Releases FAST as Linked Data

2011-12-15T09:26:00.000-06:00

OCLC has released FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology) as Linked Data.

FAST (Faceted Application of Subject Terminology), an enumerative, faceted subject heading schema derived from the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), is now available as an experimental Linked Data service (http://id.worldcat.org/fast/) and is made available under the Open Data Commons Attribution License.

The FAST authority file, which underlies the FAST Linked Data release, has been created through a multi-year collaboration of OCLC Research and the Library of Congress. Specifically, it is designed to make the rich LCSH vocabulary available as a post-coordinate system in a Web environment.

"Linked Data" is an approach to publishing data on the Web which enhances its utility by making references to persons, places, things, etc. more consistent and linkable across domains.

The release of FAST as Linked Data provides FAST headings that support both human and machine access. FAST incorporates links to corresponding LCSH authorities. In addition, many of the geographic headings have links to the GeoNames geographic database (http://www.geonames.org/).

Accident

2011-12-13T22:26:00.000-06:00

Eight years ago today I was in an auto accident. I was able to stand for the first time on Christmas day. I got out of the hospital sometime after New Years. At that point I was counting how far I walked each day in feet. I was in a wheelchair for the better part of the day for a couple months. Then I was using a walker. After three months I was able to go back to work half time. Six months after the accident I was able to work full time and was using a cane. I could put on my own socks without using a device. About eight months after I was working on advanced mobility in physical therapy, things like using a ladder and stepping up over the curb. I graduated physical therapy in September.

Now I still take more medicine than I thought possible and live with pain. But life is pretty much back to normal. I can walk without a limp. I can still dance, but no dawn dances for me anymore; a couple of hours is all I can stand. I can swim, but I'm a lot slower and swim about 1/2 the distance I could before. Most people would not what I know I had been through.

Part of my recovery is due to having some excellent medical support. The physical therapy people in the hospital worked with me every day including Christmas and New Years. The physical therapist I had after the hospital, Hope Rehab, was also excellent. Thanks Gretchen and all your staff. I had a recovery doctor, there aren't many around who worked on controlling pain and building my strength back. The pulmonary doctor who did the initial work on the blood clots was excellent. So many nurses and doctors and technicians and ... Thanks to all.

An auto accident is a life changing event. You can smoke or have high cholesterol, or any number of things that will, over time, affect your quality of life. An accident changes things in an instant. Take care this holiday season.

Amazing Comics

2011-12-09T09:53:00.000-06:00

Image via WikipediaA break from cataloging. I enjoy comics and the Digital Comics Museum has given me access to a great collection of out-of-copyright works. I've been enjoying books by Walt Kelly, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, Joe Kubert, Bob Powell, and many other outstanding sequential artists. I've also enjoyed reading the original Captain Marvel, Balckhawks, Crime Does Not Pay, early Archie stories in Pep Comics and other important titles. Along the way I've found a couple of eye-opening comic books.

The Challenger Comic from 1946 deals with race, pro-union, pro co-op, and still has a message for today sadly. The caracters in the stories are integrated, different colors work and play together. Something main stream media wouldn't depict for quite some time.

Another amazing old comic (1949) Young Romance # 60, deals with housing discrimination against Jews. This one is drawn by Jack Kirby, who was Jewish and so had personal experience with the attitudes in the story. Powerful stuff.

Additions to the MARC Country and Geographic Area Code Lists

2011-12-07T09:23:00.000-06:00

On October 10, 2010, the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved, resulting in two new constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands: Curaao and Sint Maarten (Aruba seceded from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986 to become a separate country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands). The remaining islands of the Netherlands Antilles.Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba (or the "BES islands") joined the Kingdom of the Netherlands as three special municipalities collectively administered by the National Office for the Caribbean Netherlands. As the result of the Netherlands Antilles being dissolved, new country and geographic area codes are being defined for use in MARC records.

The coding for Netherlands Antilles, country code na and GAC nwna, will remain valid only for items prior to December 2011.

1. MARC country code changes

The new country codes are:

co: Curaao
sn: Sint Maarten
ca: Caribbean Netherlands

Both Curaao and Sint Maarten (previously called Saint Martin, Southern, on the country code list) were previously coded na for Netherlands Antilles before December 2011. Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba were previously coded na for Netherlands Antilles before December 2011 and will now collectively be coded ca for Caribbean Netherlands.

2. MARC geographic area code changes

The new geographic area code is:

nwsn: Sint Maarten

Sint Maarten was previously coded nwst for Saint Martin (West Indies) before December 2011. Code nwst will now apply only to the French collectivity of Saint-Martin. Current geographic area codes assigned to the islands of the former Netherlands Antilles remain unchanged: nwaw for Aruba, nwco for Curaao, nwbn for Bonaire, nwsd for Saba, and nweu for Sint Eustatius.

On July 15, 2007, the French island communes of Saint-Barthlemy and Saint-Martin separated from the French overseas region of Guadeloupe to become two separate overseas territorial collectivities of France. As the result of this separation, new country and geographic area codes are being defined for use in MARC records.

1. MARC country code changes

The new country codes are:

sc: Saint-Barthlemy
st: Saint-Martin

Both Saint-Barthlemy and Saint-Martin (previously called Saint Martin, Northern, on the country code list) were previously coded gp for Guadeloupe before December 2011.

2. MARC geographic area code changes

The new geographic area code is:

nwsc: Saint-Barthlemy

Saint-Barthlemy was previously coded nwgp for Guadeloupe before December 2011. Saint-Martin will retain the code nwst, but the geographic area code name on the list will change from Saint Martin (West Indies) to Saint-Martin. Code nwst will now apply only to the French collectivity of Saint-Martin. Sint Maarten, a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, will be coded nwsn (see above).

Subscribers can anticipate receiving MARC records reflecting these changes in all distribution services not earlier than February 6, 2012.

EAD Tool

2011-12-07T09:00:00.000-06:00

EADitor is a new tool for working with EADs.

EADitor is a free, open-source cross-platform XForms framework for creating, editing, and publishing Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aids using Orbeon, an enterprise-level XForms Java application, which runs in Apache Tomcat. I have released the latest stable code in downloadable packages on our Google Code site. This release is a major advancement over the June 2011 release, especially in terms of performance and stability. I call EADitor a beta because there is much I have left to improve, but this is the first production-ready release, an example of which is the American Numismatic Society Archives site, Archer

Features in a nutshell:
Public interface with faceted search results and facet-based OpenLayers mapping
Linked data and geographic services: OAI-PMH feed, Solr-based Atom feed (embedded with geographic points) and search results in the form of KML
Geonames, LCSH, VIAF APIs for geographic, subject term, personal, and corporate name controlled vocabulary
Upload finding aids from the "wild" (if they adhere to EAD 2002).
Interface for reordering and setting permissions of components
Flickr API integration, attach flickr images as a daogrp
Simple template controls for EAD finding aids
Introduction of simple themes: select facet orientation on search page and from a selection of jQuery UI themes (theme controls will be enhanced over time)
One of the most important recent advancements in the project is the introduction of our documentation wiki. Documentation is an ongoing process, but the wiki contains enough information to get you started with installation and use.

Blog
Google Group
SAA 2010 slideshow
code4lib article (XForms for Libraries, an Introduction)

A couple of Items of Possible Interest

2011-12-06T11:42:00.000-06:00

Gary Price from INFOdocket has brought a couple of items to my attention. First, Interviews With Five Metadata Experts. The interviews where held in connection with the DCMI 2011 Conference. The five interviewees are:

Emmanuelle Bermès, Modern Art Museum Centre Pompidou
Makx Dekkers, CEO, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (2001-2011)
Stuart Sutton, CEO, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (2011- )
Tom Baker, Chief Information Officer (Communications, Research and Development)
Diane Hillmann Vocabulary Maintenance Officer

Second, Gary points to A New 24 Page Report From OCLC: “WorldCat Quality” "This paper describes OCLC's steps to make it easier to find items in WorldCat and get them from OCLC member libraries."

Gary will be presenting at the Texas Library Conference, I hope to see him there.

No More Star Wars Films

2011-11-29T12:37:00.001-06:00

Image via WikipediaThe Library of Congress to Cancel LCGFT Character- and Franchise-Based Terms for Moving Images.

On August 1, 2011 the Policy and Standards Division (PSD) of the Library of Congress issued a discussion paper entitled, “Cancellation of LCGFT Character- and Franchise-Based Terms for Moving Images,” which explained why character- and franchise-based terms are currently included in Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT), and the rationale for PSD’s proposal to cancel them. PSD would like to thank all those who provided comments on this issue.

Specialists in PSD and staff in LC’s Moving Image, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division (MBRS) reviewed all of the comments and found them to be generally in favor of the proposal. PSD will therefore move forward with cancelling the approximately 90 character- and franchise-based terms from LCGFT. Correspondents did raise some valid concerns that are addressed below.

An attachemnt to the documnet lists many terms and suggested LCGFT and LCSH replacement headings.

VRA Core Metadata Tool

2011-11-29T10:27:00.000-06:00

Seen on the Mod librarian.

This is one of the coolest things ever - an export/import tool for a custom VRA Core metadata XMP panel. This tool, designed to be used with Adobe Bridge, allows you to export VRA Core metadata from images with existing metadata and even better, to import VRA metadata to a group of files from a .txt file.

The VRA Core metadata scheme has a very rich, robust, and relational set of elements so any tool that automates its application is extremely valuable. This site even has great videos to explain installation and use.

NISO Teleconference

2011-11-11T11:21:00.000-06:00

News from NISO.

NISO will continue its monthly open teleconference series this coming Monday, November 14th at 3:00 PM. This month, we will be discussing Standards for Digital Bookmarking and Annotation Sharing, a new NISO project. NISO has begun work to create a standard syntax for how bookmarks and notes should be located in a digital text, especially in online environments that might be continually updated or mutable. NISO held two meetings, supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation, on this topic last month in conjunction with the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Books in Browsers (San Francisco, CA), where interested parties, including librarians, vendors and developers discussed requirements for functional specifications.

We'll be talking about the initiative overall and the items raised during the meetings. Peter Brantley, Director, BookServer Project at the Internet Archive and Rob Sanderson, Information Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory Research Library will participate in the conversation together with Todd Carpenter, Managing Director of NISO.

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.

Another OS ILS

2011-11-11T10:42:00.000-06:00

Project Next-L, the librarian community in Japan has announced the release of the open-source integrated library system, Next-L Enju Leaf 1.0.0.

Next-L Enju Leaf is a full-featured ILS built on Ruby on Rails 3.1, Apache Solr and their RESTful architecture. A live demo site is available.

Next-L Enju has been adopted by some libraries in Japan, for example, National Diet Library and National Institute for Materials Science.

Syriac Romanization Table

2011-11-07T14:20:00.000-06:00

Image via WikipediaThe Policy and Standards Division has received a proposal for a new Syriac romanization table. Comments due by January 16, 2012.

Privacy

2011-11-01T09:26:00.000-05:00

ShareMenot might be a good add-on for the patron machines in the library, or even your personal machine.

Did you know that buttons like these allow Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and others to track your online browsing activities on every site that includes one of these buttons, even if you never click the buttons and (in some browsers) even if you have third-party cookies disabled?

ShareMeNot is a Firefox add-on designed to prevent third-party buttons (such as the Facebook “Like” button or the Twitter “tweet” button) embedded by sites across the Internet from tracking you until you actually click on them. Unlike traditional solutions, ShareMeNot does this without completely removing the buttons from the web experience.

Khmer and Tamazight Romanization Tables Available for Review

2011-10-25T09:09:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaThe Policy and Standards Division of the Library of Congress has received proposals for the following:

A new Tamazight romanization table,
A revision to the Khmer romanization table.

Copies of these proposals are available online. A scan of the current Khmer romanization table is available on the ALA-LC Romanization Tables webpage. A summary of revisions incorporated into the proposed Khmer table is found in a separate, summary document.

Comments on these proposed romanization tables are due by January 16, 2012.

OWL Ontology for the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata

2011-10-14T10:08:00.000-05:00

On behalf of the PREMIS Editorial Committee we are happy to announce the publication of an OWL ontology for the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata version 2.1, a digital preservation standard based on the OAIS reference model. This PREMIS OWL ontology tries to stick as closely as possible to the PREMIS Data Dictionary, which was developed by experts in the domain of long-term preservation and already had clearly defined semantics for its metadata elements. Until now the PREMIS Data Dictionary was only implemented as an XML schema, which remains ideal for creating, validating and storing the preservation metadata of a particular digital asset.

This OWL ontology allows one to express the same information in RDF. With this alternative serialization, information can be more easily interconnected, especially between different repository databases. Information in RDF can be also easily and flexibly queried, which can be an interesting option for the data management function of a repository. The PREMIS OWL ontology also reaches out to preservation-specific vocabularies already published by the Library of Congress on id.loc.gov.

For all these reasons, the OWL design of PREMIS should NOT be considered as a replacement for the XML Schema: the two of them should rather be considered complementary.

The ontology is public and open for review. There are still some designs decisions open, formulated as questions to the ontology reviewers and available on the PREMIS OWL Public Wiki. Interested people can leave their valuable feedback on the PREMIS OWL Wiki under Questions for Reviewers. Feedback is very much welcome and will be taken into account for the next release of the PREMIS OWL ontology.

For now, the ontology is available on the following namespace, but after it is finalized it will move to a Library of Congress namespace:
http://multimedialab.elis.ugent.be/users/samcoppe/Ontologies/premis/premis.owl

Please send comments no later than Nov. 10, 2011 to be considered in a revised version.--From the e-mail announcement.

TEI in Libraries

2011-10-14T09:03:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaThe TEI Consortium's Special Interest Group on Libraries has recently completed a major revision to the “Best Practices for TEI in Libraries” (http://purl.org/TEI/teiinlibraries). The revised Best Practices contain updated versions of the widely adopted encoding levels, which span from fully automated reformatting of print content to deep encoding to support content analysis and scholarly uses. A substantially revised TEI Header section supports greater interoperability between text collections and MARC records. In addition, the Best Practices now include schemas for encoding levels 1-4, providing a mechanism to better ensure conformance and interoperability of digital texts.

The “Best Practices for TEI in Libraries” formerly known as the "TEI Text Encoding in Libraries: Guidelines for Best Encoding Practices" will be officially unveiled at the 2011 TEI Members' Meeting and Conference currently underway at the University of Würzburg in Germany and at the end of this month at the Digital Library Federation Fall 2011 Forum to be held in Baltimore, 10/31-11/2.--From the e-mail announcement.

OLAC Newsletter

2011-10-11T10:38:00.000-05:00

The September 2011 issue of the OLAC Newsletter is online

Contents:

From the President
Treasurer's Report
Conference Corner
OLAC Meeting Minutes (Executive Board, CAPC, Membership)
Reports (MARBI, CC:DA, RDA Testing, Moving Image Grant, MOUG)
News and Announcements
Reviews
OLAC Cataloger's Judgment
News from OCLC
OCLC QC Tip of the Month

International UDC Seminar

2011-10-04T09:46:00.001-05:00

Slides and audio from the International UDC Seminarare now available.

Following the opening talk, speakers from different domains expanded on their particular view of what ontologies and knowledge structures may mean in their specialised areas of work and what aspects of ontological analysis or formal ontology modelling are relevant in the world of knowledge classifications. A number of talks stressed the urgency for knowledge classification schemes to be published as linked data and the limitations of the existing web ontology standards, SKOS specifically, were revisited a number of times. Presentations about particular schemes illustrated that classifications may indeed require more thought with regards to modelling.

The Molecule of Data

2011-09-28T14:57:00.000-05:00

Karen Coyle spoke with David Weinberger for this week’s LibraryLab/ThePodcast.

How can libraries use the power of metadata — those little molecules of information that help describe the greater work — to help users get more out of their search for resources?

This is going on my MP3 player.

Addition to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

2011-09-23T16:16:00.000-05:00

The source code listed below has been recently approved. The code will be added to applicable Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes lists. See the specific source code list 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.

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

Addition:

mapland: Maplandia.com: Google maps world gazetteer

USGS Links to Change

2011-09-23T11:21:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaThe U.S. Geological Survey is changing from using the DJVU format for their scans to PDFs. The consequence of this is that all the old links will be broken stop working. They will not have a redirect from the old URL to the new.

The preferred link to USGS publications should be formatted like this:

http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/b2065
http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/pp1534
http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/cir850J

IAMSLIC News & Events has a bit more info.

The U.S. Geological Survey's Publications Warehouse (pubs.usgs.gov) will complete a process to migrate all of its' on-line publications into Portable Document Format (PDF) files by September1, 2011. At that time, the USGS will no longer support the previous DJVU format for its on-line publications. Libraries and Web site managers shouldlink to the publications citation page for USGS publications. At sometime after September 1, 2011, direct links to DJVU files will stop working and there will be no automatic redirect to the PDF version of those materials.

Information Standards Quarterly

2011-09-21T14:19:00.000-05:00

The Summer 2011 issue of NISO’s Information Standards Quarterly magazine is now available.

ISNI: A new system for name identification by Janifer Gatenby and Andrew MacEwan
ORCID: Unique Identifiers for Authors and Contributors by Martin Fenner
The Names Project: A New Approach to Name Authority by Alan Danskin, Amanda Hill, and Daniel Needham
Identify This! Identifiers and Trust by Geoff Bilder
The Use of the Standard Address Number (SAN) in the Supply Chain by Louise Timko
I² and ISNI: Improving the Information Supply Chain with Standard Institutional Identifiers by Jody DeRidder

Cartoon Gets Subject Heading Changed

2011-09-19T14:14:00.000-05:00

Today's Shelf Check cartoon managed to get a subject heading changed on a bib record. That was quick.

DBpedia 3.7 Released

2011-09-12T10:36:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaDBpedia has a new version ready to be downloaded.

we are happy to announce the release of DBpedia 3.7. The new release is based on Wikipedia dumps dating from late July 2011.

The new DBpedia data set describes more than 3.64 million things, of which 1.83 million are classified in a consistent ontology, including 416,000 persons, 526,000 places, 106,000 music albums, 60,000 films, 17,500 video games, 169,000 organizations, 183,000 species and 5,400 diseases.

The DBpedia data set features labels and abstracts for 3.64 million things in up to 97 different languages; 2,724,000 links to images and 6,300,000 links to external web pages; 6,200,000 external links into other RDF datasets, and 740,000 Wikipedia categories. The dataset consists of 1 billion pieces of information (RDF triples) out of which 385 million were extracted from the English edition of Wikipedia and roughly 665 million were extracted from other language editions and links to external datasets.

Library of Congress Preparing for RDA

2011-09-12T09:22:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaWidely posted.

The Policy and Standards Division, part of the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate at the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.), is launching a new website as the Library prepares for RDA. The site is located at: http://www.loc.gov/aba/rda/. There are links to training documents, presentations, exercises, and examples of records as well as to other RDA related sites. Many more links will be added as items are created, edited, and updated as preparations for RDA proceed. The page originally created for LC documentation related to the US RDA Test will no longer be maintained. Links from that site will be migrated to the new site over time as appropriate.

Permalink Service for Authority Data Available at LC

2011-09-08T09:30:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaWidely posted and distributed.

The Library of Congress is pleased to announce an expansion of its LCCN Permalink Service for the Library's name and subject authority records. These persistent URLs are based on the Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN). As with bibliographic records, LCCN Permalinks are displayed on authority record entries in LC Authorities.

Create an LCCN Permalink
Simply begin your URL with the LCCN Permalink domain name -- http://lccn.loc.gov/ -- then add an LCCN.
Examples: http://lccn.loc.gov/n79018774 or http://lccn.loc.gov/sh85026371

LCCNs should be formatted according to the info:lccn URI specification. Instructions are also available in the LCCN Permalink FAQ.

How LCCN Permalink Works
An LCCN Permalink retrieves a MARCXML-formatted record using the Z39.50/SRU protocol. Both valid and cancelled LCCNs (MARC 21 fields 010a and 010z) are searched. Authority record displays for LCCN Permalink follow the labelled display found in LC Authorites. MARCXML and MADS versions of the records are also available. Displays link to entries in LC Authorities and the LC Online Catalog -- and, where appropriate, to entries in the Virtual International Authority File and LC Authorities and Vocabularies.

MARC21 Update

2011-09-02T09:17:00.000-05:00

From the Network Development and MARC Standards Office

Update No. 13 (September 2011) 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 January and June 2011.

The changes are indicated in red. Each format also has an appendix,"Format Changes for Update No. 13 (September 2011)" 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 1, 2011. For more information about format documentation

see: http://www.loc.gov/marc/status.html

CILIP CIG E-forum on Reclassification

2011-08-31T09:28:00.000-05:00

On the 26 and 27 September the Cataloguing & Indexing Group (CIG) of CILIP will host a free e-forum on reclassification. On both days, sessions begin at 10 am and end at 5 pm (BST, i.e. GMT +1 hour).

The arrangement of libraries is rarely static, and even in these times of financial hardship there are many drivers for reclassifying libraries or sections of libraries. As the new edition of Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC23) starts to take hold, we ask how libraries tackle reclassification. What methods of reclassification have worked best for your library and/or what methods are you considering in the future? Which groups of institution staff have you consulted for your reclassification work and can you share tips for getting management buy-in for these important projects? Where do you stand on the in-house versus out-sourcing reclassification debate? What is the relationship between reclassification and retrospective cataloguing in your library, and are the two activities automatically and eternally entwined?

This e-forum will enable discussion on reclassification both specifically and generally. We welcome input from any library, whichever sector, and however big or small. We hope that everyone will feel encouraged to share ideas, thoughts and to ask questions -- whether you are a reclassification pro, working on your first reclassification project or generally interested in this important topic. Though the e-forum will debate reclassification generally, on the morning of Tuesday 27th September we will open up the floor to a specific discussion about DDC23 - under the helm of our special guest moderator, Gill Cooper. The e-forum will finish with a debate about the future of classification and reclassification, and will ask whether classification is even relevant in twenty-first century libraries.

It is free but registration is required.

Omeka OAI-PMH Harvester Plug-in

2011-08-30T09:47:00.001-05:00

Image via WikipediaOmeka now has a OAI-PMH harvester plug-in for Omeka.net sites.

Since 2009, any Omeka website may make their data available by activating the OAI-PMH Repository plugin and may harvest OAI-PMH data sets with the OAI-PMH Harvester. Now, the OAI-PMH Harvester plugin is available with every Omeka.net site. Are you sharing and harvesting?

They have started a wiki page listing sets that can be harvested. If your Omeka collection supports OAI-PMH harvesting and you would like the community to be aware of that, let them know. It does look like the page is only for Omeka sites, not any exposed site.

Poster Session Call for Proposals

2011-08-24T08:55:00.001-05:00

Image via WikipediaTLA's District 8 Fall Conference has issued a call for proposals for the poster session. The deadline is October 1, 2011. The meeting will be Saturday, October 22, 2011 - University of Houston M.D. Anderson Library.

There is still time to get in your session proposals. That deadline is September 1, 2011. Speakers will be notified of acceptance by September 16, 2011.

LCSH Mass Update

2011-08-23T16:08:00.000-05:00

It seems all the subject headings in LSCH have been updated. In the 005 field I keep seeing the latest change as 2011. Records that haven't been touched since 1984 have suddenly been updated. Anyone have any info on the change? Was it just moving the records to another system or has something more been checked or changed?

Broadcasting Metadata

2011-08-23T09:14:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaMetadata, especially MPEG-7, seems an important trend at the latest International Broadcasting Conference.

Metadata has never really got the juices going at IBC or anywhere else, but now at least it is being much more talked about and taken seriously by all participants in the content value chain. This will be reflected at IBC2011, where the fast expanding role of metadata in search and recommendation will be witnessed both in the conference and on the show floor. Even now metadata will not immediately leap out at delegates, since many of the relevant products and discussion topics will be under the heading of media asset management (MAM).

Thanks to Gary Price for bringing this to my attention.

Cost and Value of Bibliographic Control

2011-08-22T09:04:00.000-05:00

Assessing the Cost and Value of Bibliographic Control by Erin Stalberg and Christopher Cronin appears in LRTS v. 55, no. 3.

In June 2009, the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services Heads of Technical Services in Large Research Libraries Interest Group established the Task Force on Cost/Value Assessment of Bibliographic Control to address recommendation 5.1.1.1 of On the Record: Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, which focused on developing measures for costs, benefits, and value of bibliographic control. This paper outlines results of that task force’s efforts to develop and articulate metrics for evaluating the cost and value of cataloging activities specifically, and offers some next steps that the community could take to further the profession’s collective understanding of the costs and values associated with bibliographic control.

Additions to the MARC Country and Geographic Area Code Lists

2011-08-15T16:40:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaAs the result of the split of Republic of the Sudan (or conventional short form: Sudan) into Sudan and South Sudan in July 2011, new country and geographic area codes are being defined for use in MARC records.

The coding for Republic of the Sudan will remain the current coding for Sudan: country code sj and GAC f-sj.

MARC country code changes

The new country code is:
- sd - South Sudan
South Sudan was previously coded sj for Sudan before August 2011.
MARC geographic area code changes

The new geographic area codes is:
- f-sd - South Sudan
South Sudan was previously coded f-sj for Sudan before August 2011.

New Vocabulary Data Added to LC Authorities and Vocabularies Service

2011-08-10T14:05:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaLC has announced that new vocabulary data has been added to the LC Authorities and Vocabularies Service.

The Library of Congress is pleased to make available additional vocabularies from its Authorities and Vocabularies web service (ID.LOC.GOV), which provides access to Library of Congress standards and vocabularies as Linked Data. The new dataset is:
Library of Congress Name Authority File (LC/NAF)

In addition, the service has been enhanced to provide separate access to the following datasets which have been a part of the LCSH dataset access:
Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms

Library of Congress Children's Headings

The LC/NAF data are published in RDF using the MADS/RDF and SKOS/RDF vocabularies, as are the other datasets. Individual concepts are accessible at the ID.LOC.GOV web service via a web browser interface or programmatically via content-negotiation. The vocabulary data are available for bulk download in MADS and SKOS RDF (the Name file and main LCSH file will be available by Friday, August 12).

Please explore it for yourself at http://id.loc.gov.

The new datasets join the term and code lists already available through the service:

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
Thesaurus of Graphic Materials
MARC Code List for Relators
MARC Code List for Countries (which reference their equivalent ISO 3166 codes)
MARC Code List for Geographic Areas
MARC Code List for Languages (which have been cross referenced with ISO 639-1, 639-2, and 639-5, where appropriate)
PREMIS vocabularies for Cryptographic Hash Functions, Preservation Events, and Preservation Level Roles

Unshelved

2011-08-09T14:39:00.000-05:00

Today's Unshelved has cataloging references.

In other comic news, Rachael Rising by Terry Moore is off to a great start. Very creepy.

Linking to LCSH and LCC

2011-08-09T10:54:00.000-05:00

Linking to LCSH and LCC: Controlled Subject Headings and Classification Systems through the Web Barbara Tillett, Libby Dechman, and Loche McLean will be presented on August 16, 2011, at the World Library and Information Congress : 77th IFLA General Conference and Assembly in San Juan.

The Library of Congress is making its controlled vocabularies and classification system freely accessible on the Web. This presentation describes our services related to two of those controlled vocabularies and classification schemes: the Library of Congress Subject Headings and Library of Congress Classification. It also describes the work to link various language versions of LCSH together.

The initial structure for this service uses SKOS, Simple Knowledge Organization System, which “Provides a model for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, folksonomies, and other similar types of controlled vocabulary.

Additionally we are exploring RDF XML as another structure to use for presenting this data. The service can be found at http://id.loc.gov and the LCSH/SKOS is at http://id.loc.gov/authorities.

Thanks to Gary Price for bringing this to my attention.

OCLC Documentation

2011-08-09T10:22:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaOCLC's Technical Bulletin 260, “OCLC-MARC Format Update 2011,” is now available.

This Technical Bulletin covers all of the Library of Congress’s MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings Formats Update No. 12, dated October 2010, elements from other recent MARC 21 Updates whose implementations had been postponed, code list additions and changes published chiefly since May 2010, and other suggestions from WorldCat users and OCLC staff. Many of these elements, including those from MARC 21 Update No. 12, are related to Resource Description and Access (RDA).

New IFLA Publications

2011-08-09T09:32:00.001-05:00

Image via WikipediaVarious reports have been posted on the IFLA web site.

ISBD Review Group activities report and meeting reports

ISBD/XML Study Group activities report

A new version of Full ISBD Examples

FRBR Review Group activities report

Updated Cover Sheets for MARC Proposals and Discussion Papers

2011-08-02T11:42:00.001-05:00

From LC's Network Development and MARC Standards Office.

The cover sheets for the proposals and discussion paper presented at the 2011 Annual meetings of the MARC Advisory Committee have been updated with the results of the discussions. They are available at:

Proposal 2011-02: RDA Production, Publication, Distribution and Manufacture Statements in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-02.html)

Proposal 2011-03: Encoding Date of Copyright Notice in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-03.html)

Proposal 2011-04: Adapting Field 377 (Associated Language) for Language of Expression in the Authority and Bibliographic Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-04.html)

Proposal 2011-05: Broadening field 373 (Affiliation) for Associated institutions in the MARC 21 Authority Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-05.html)

Proposal 2011-06: RDA Fuller Form of Personal Name Attribute in the MARC 21 Authority Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-06.html)

Proposal 2011-07: Additional Corporate Body Attributes for RDA in the MARC 21 Authority Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-07.html)

Proposal 2011-08: Treatment of Controlled Lists of Terms for Carrier Characteristics in RDA in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-08.html)

Proposal 2011-09: Identifying the Source of Thematic Index Numbers in Field 383 in the MARC 21 Authority and Bibliographic Formats
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-09.html)

Proposal 2011-10: Geographic Codes in Classification Records
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-10.html)

Proposal 2011-11: Addition of 1st Indicator Value 7 (Other edition specified in $2) in DDC Number Fields in the MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority and Community Information Formats
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-11.html)

Discussion Paper 2011-DP05: Additional Means of Identifying Medium of Performance in the MARC21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-dp05.html)

HotForWords

2011-08-02T09:56:00.000-05:00

The latest video podcast by HotForWords is What is going to happen to the libraries? by Marina Orlova. She sees the demise of libraries looming. It is a combination of hearsay and personal experience that needs some correcting. Consider leaving a comment, she has a large following.

First RDA Vocabularies Published

2011-08-02T09:04:00.000-05:00

Seen everywhere.

The Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC), the DCMI/RDA Task Group (http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/), and ALA Publishing (on behalf of the co-publishers of RDA) are pleased to announce that the first group of RDA controlled vocabularies have been reviewed, approved, and their status in the Open Metadata Registry (OMR) changed to ‘published.’

This status change, from ‘new-proposed’ to ‘published’ signals that the final steps have begun in reviewing the work of the DCMI/RDA Task Group and ensuring that the RDA vocabularies (both elements and controlled vocabularies/concepts) are available in a stable form for the builders of applications. Additional reviews of the controlled vocabularies are in progress, with the parties involved expecting to finalize that group before starting on the element vocabularies. Both groups of vocabularies should be complete by the end of 2011, but developers and others should expect to see rolling announcements as reviews are completed.

Alan Danskin, Chair of the Joint Steering Committee, noted, “The RDA vocabularies are a fundamental component of RDA, promoting consistent description and discovery of bibliographic resources. The Committee is committed to publishing and maintaining the content of the RDA vocabularies, synchronized with the text of RDA, in order to support their use by the resource description community and by developers of Semantic Web applications.” JSC is grateful to the Task Group members and to the Open Metadata Registry for making possible the publication of RDA vocabularies as linked open data.

Gordon Dunsire, co-Chair of the DCMI/RDA Task Group, said: “This achievement is a significant waypoint on the collaborative journey initiated by the London meeting in 2007 between representatives of RDA and Semantic Web communities developing and maintaining metadata models covering bibliographic resources. We have learned much about each other along the way, and look forward to continuing to provide a bridge which supports our mutual interests to the benefit of all users of information. The RDA vocabularies represent many decades of library experience and practice which is now shared with the rest of the world.”

Troy Linker, Publisher, ALA Digital Reference, said: "The publishing of the RDA vocabularies in an open registry is an important step forward in making RDA accessible to the international library community and system vendors, and, significantly, beyond the library community to the rest of the Semantic Web. Working with the JSC, the Co-Publishers for RDA are committed to ensuring synchronicity between RDA Toolkit and the registry".

The finished vocabularies can be viewed using the links below. (The links lead to the description of the vocabulary itself, the specific terms can be viewed under the tab for ‘concepts’).
RDA Aspect Ratio (http://RDVocab.info/termLIst/AspectRatio)
RDA Form of Musical Notation (http://RDVocab.info/termList/MusNotation)
RDA Form of Notated Music (http://RDVocab.info/termList/FormatNoteMus)
RDA Layout of Cartographic Images (http://RDVocab.info/termList/layoutCartoImage)
RDA Mode of Issuance (http://RDVocab.info/termLIst/ModeIssue)
RDA Other Distinguishing Characteristic of the Expression of a Legal Work
(http://RDVocab.info/termList/OtherCharExpLegal)
RDA Production Method for Tactile Resource (http://RDVocab.info/termList/prodTactile)
RDA Reduction Ratio (http://RDVocab.info/termLIst/RDAReductionRatio)
RDA Scale (http://RDVocab.info/termList/scale)
RDA Sound Content (http://RDVocab.info/termList/soundCont)
RDA Status of Identification (http://RDVocab.info/termList/statIdentification)
All the RDA vocabularies can be viewed in the OMR by using this page: http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm. Those interested in following the work of review and publication of the vocabularies can subscribe to the Registry RSS feeds linked from that page. Questions on the OMR can be conveyed using the ‘Feedback’ link on each Registry page.

No More Star Wars Films?

2011-08-01T16:34:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaThe heading Star War films, and all other headings dealing with a series or character might be removed from the lcgft.

The recent separation of the genre/form thesaurus from LCSH provides an opportunity to reexamine the genre/form terms approved during the moving image experiment in order to determine whether they fit into the overall thesaurus, given the trajectory of development.

One ongoing issue has been what may be loosely referred to as “character- and franchise-based terms.” These are authorized terms that include either a character name or the title of a film or television program (e.g., Die Hard films; Dracula television programs; Scooby-Doo television programs; Star Wars films). PSD proposes cancelling all of these terms from the genre/form thesaurus, and has posted a discussion paper explaining the rationale on the Library of Congress’ genre/form web page, http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genreformgeneral.html. The direct URL for the paper is http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/character_franchise_disposition.pdf. PSD requests input from interested parties before making a final decision.

Go To Hellman

2011-08-01T10:37:00.000-05:00

Eric Hellman has been writing some posts I find very interesting over on Go To Hellman.

I think it's important to convert this level of interest into action. The question is, what can be done now to get closer to the vision of ubiquitous interoperable data? My last three posts have explored what libraries might do to better position their presence in search engines and in social networks using schema.org vocabulary and Open Graph Protocol. In these applications, library data enables users to do very specific things on the web- find a library page in a search engine or "Like" a library page in a Facebook. But there's so much more that could be done with the data.

Tematres 1.4

2011-07-28T09:17:00.000-05:00

We have the glad to invite to test the beta version of Tematres 1.4

TemaTres is a web tool to manage, publish and exploit controlled vocabularies and other formals representation of knowledge (thesauri, taxonomies, glossaries, etc).

This release includes the following fixes and improvements:

Quality indicators about controlled vocabularies The Quality assurance was improved with reports about the following quality indicators:
Free Terms
Terms without hierarchical relationships
Average number of words per term
Terms per N Broader terms
Terms per N narrower terms and depth
Terms words with not supported prefixes or suffixes

For more details: MARTÍNEZ, A.M.a et al. Concepto, forma y longitud de los términos preferentes del tesauro: una propuesta de indicadores de calidad. Anales de Documentación, 2010, vol. 13, p. 185-195. http://revistas.um.es/analesdoc/article/view/107151

MARTÍNEZ, A.M.a et al. Indicadores para evaluar el vocabulario y la estructura sistemática de un tesauro. I Jornada de Intercambio y Reflexión acerca de la Investigación en Bibliotecología, La Plata, 6-7 de diciembre de 2010. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata. http://www.jornadabibliotecologia.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/jornada-2010/martine

User-defined notes
Has been added management capabilities to manage and create user-defined notes. (Thanks to Observatorio Estatal de la Discapacidad Spain: http://www.observatoriodeladiscapacidad.es/)
Advanced configuration options
Has been added detailed configuration options available to the administrator of the controlled vocabulary.
Import controlled vocabularies
Now TemaTres can import controlled vocabulary from plain tagged text.

For example:

IMS VDEX Scheme (Vocabulary Definition and Exchange) Now with TemaTres you can Display, export and publish terms and controlled vocabularies through VDEX IMS XML schema (Vocabulary Definition and Exchange). http://www.imsglobal.org/vdex/
Controlled vocabularies RESTful Services TemaTres have support for web services accessible through a clear and simple syntax. The service support a wide variety of queries and data can be viewed in XML, JSON or SKOS-Core.

Minor bugs was solved and was added some minor features

Seen on the Code4Lib email.

Corporate Names

2011-07-25T09:41:00.000-05:00

A new paper from HP discusses the problems and an automated solution to distinguishing corporate names. Company Names Matching in the Large Patents Dataset by Timofey Medvedev and Alexander Ulanov, HP Laboratories, HPL-2011-90R1.

This paper addresses the name matching (duplicate detection) problem in the US patent dataset. It contains more then 400K unique company names spellings. In order to solve the matching problem we choose appropriate string similarity measure and clustering approach and estimate their parameters. Finally we apply them to the whole dataset and estimate the positives and negatives rates.

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

2011-07-22T09:10:00.000-05:00

Codes for the following sources were announced June 14, 2011. The codes for these sources have been changed.

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 codes have been added to the Classification Scheme Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Additions:

ubtkl/2 (formerly klasskj): Klassifikasjonsskjema (Trondheim: Fellesbiblioteket, Kongelige Norske videnskabers selskab, Museet, Norges laererhogskole)

Subject Heading and Term Source Codes

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

Additions:

noubomn (formerly nobomn): University of Oslo Library Thesaurus of Science (Realfagstermer) (Norway: Universitetsbiblioteket i Oslo)
noubojur (formerly noubojor): Thesaurus of Law (Norway: Universitetsbiblioteket i Oslo)

Genre/Form Headings Webinar

2011-07-05T09:19:00.000-05:00

OCLC has made available the recording of the webinar held on May 12, 2011 entitled: Genre/Form Headings. This one hour webinar covers the definition of genre/form headings, different sources of genre/form terms, searching in Connexion (authority and bibliographic), and tagging/coding.

SCATNews

2011-07-01T15:47:00.000-05:00

The June issue of SCATNews, the newsletter of the IFLA Cataloguing Section, is now available.

W3C Library Linked Data Incubator Group Call for Comment

2011-06-28T10:22:00.000-05:00

The W3C Library Linked Data Incubator Group has been chartered from May 2010 through August 2011 to prepare a series of reports on the existing and potential use of Linked Data technology for publishing library data. The group is currently preparing:

A report which consists of
- "Benefits"
- "Vocabularies and Datasets"
- "Relevant Technologies"
- "Implementation challenges"
- "Recommendations"
Use Cases, a survey report describing existing projects
Vocabularies and Datasets", a survey report

We (LLD XG) invite comments from interested members of the public. Feedback can sent as comments to individual sections posted on our dedicated blog or by email to a public mailing list (public-lld@w3.org, archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lld/ ) using descriptive subject lines such as '[COMMENTS] "Benefits" section'

Comments will be especially welcome in the next four weeks (through 22 July). Reviewers should note that as with Wikipedia, the text may be revised and corrected by its editors in response to comments at any time, but that earlier versions of a document may be viewed by clicking on the History tab.

It is anticipated that the three reports will be published in final form by 31 August.

Information Standards Quarterly

2011-06-22T14:51:00.000-05:00

The Spring 2011 issue of Information Standards Quarterly (ISQ) is now available online in PDF format and is open access. Both the full issue and the individual articles can be downloaded.

This special edition of ISQ presents Views of the E-book Renaissance. Guest content editor, October Ivins of Ivins eContent Solutions has pulled together a broad range of perspectives on what is happening today with e-books and particularly with e-book standards. As she states in her introductory letter: “Our goal for this issue of ISQ is to present an overview of the status of e-books from multiple perspectives—publishers and other content producers, librarians, and the many vendors who support their creation, management, sales, and distribution. Not coincidentally, it also illustrates the scope of the NISO community.”

In our first feature article, Bill Kasdorf (Apex Content Solutions) provides an update on EPUB 3, the new generation of the EPUB specification just issued by the IDPF, and likens it to opening a Pandora’s box, but where “all the creatures bursting out can be made to behave in a civilized way.” This is followed with answers by Marlie Wasserman (Rutgers University Press) to 10 questions on the state of e-book publishing for university presses.

For our in practice section Mollie Pharo and Marcia Learned Au describe the public library experience with e-books from their perspective over the last decade at the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library. Wendy Allen Sherburne (University of Illinois) provides an opinion piece on drinking the e-book kool-aid in an academic library setting.

Mark Bide (EDItEUR) has written our standards spotlight feature where he discusses the challenge for standards in the e-book supply chain. Michael Gorrel (EBSCO Publishing) provides our member spotlight where he shares with us his company’s plans for merging the recently acquired NetLibrary e-books with the EBSCOhost platform.

In NISO reports, Matt Garrish and Markus Gylling (DAISY Consortium) reveal the evolution of accessible publishing that occurred with the revision of the Z39.86 DAISY standard. Todd Carpenter follows with an announcement of a new NISO Ebook Special Interest Group that is in the process of formation.

As always, our issue concludes with Noteworthy news items such as JSTOR’s foray into e-books, ProQuest’s acquisition of Ebrary, the Project Muse and UPeC partnership to offer e-books, the trial use issuance of the Journal Article Tag Suite standard (Z39.96), and several others. And check our State of the Standards table to see the status of all of NISO’s in development projects for standards or recommended practices.

You can find the complete Table of Contents to the Spring issue of ISQ, with links to the articles and PDF downloads here: http://www.niso.org/publications/isq/2011/v23no2/

--NISO email announcement.

Awards

2011-06-22T12:43:00.000-05:00

This past year I had the pleasure of serving on the Texas Library Association's Award Committee. I have two observations after the experience.

First, there are a lot of very talented, hard-working, innovative people in our profession. And not just catalogers, but school librarians, youth, children's, reference, managers all doing amazing things. Librarians really are a special group of people.

Second, that nowhere near enough of us apply for awards. If my experience was typical there should have been many more submissions than we received. We did ask and ask again. One notice I sent out to the cataloging and special library community had almost 400 click-throughs and yet zero submissions. It does take some time to fill in the application but to recognize a special employee or group of employees should be worth the time. Even if they don't win, seeing that application and knowing their work was appreciated is worth something. Having the committee read just how wonderful your staff and library is also has value. You never know when good PR will benefit your institution.

So, next time you see an announcement for an award think about who you know that deserves one and toss their name in the hat.

Identifying Entity Types in MARC Records

2011-06-21T14:04:00.000-05:00

The report on the RDA/MARC Working Group's discussion of Identifying Entity Types in MARC records is now available.

The RDA/MARC Working Group had discussions of the many points that were brought out in the MARBI discussion of 2011-DP03, Identifying Work, Expression, and Manifestation records in the MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings formats. They found that while there was some sentiment for defining such a field, there was disagreement in the group and in the community about how the values in the field should be defined. It was pointed out in the discussion that there were various reasons for establishing this marker: to be able to validate that a record for a certain level contained the appropriate fields for that level; to correctly organize displays; and for applications that do not yet exist.

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

2011-06-21T11:50:00.000-05:00

The source codes listed below have been recently approved. The codes will be added to applicable Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes lists. See the specific source code list 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 codes have been added to the Classification Scheme Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Additions:

klasskj: Klassifikasjonsskjem (Trondheim: Fellesbiblioteket, Kongelige Norske videnskabers selskab, Museet, Norges lerhgskole)
knt: Klassifikasjonsnkkel til norsk topografi / av Vegard Elvestrand (Trondheim: Universitetsbiblioteke)
utk: University of Oslo Library Classification (Oslo: Universitetet i Oslo)
oosk: Oversikt over systematisk katalog (Norway: Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen)
niv: Norsk inndeling av vitenskapsdisipliner (Norway: Universitets- og hgskolerdet)

Genre/Form Code and Term Source Codes

The following source code has been added to the Genre/Form Code and Term Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Addition:

gatbeg: Gattungsbegriffe (Leipzig & Frankfort: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek)

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.

Addition:

humord: HUMORD (Norway: Universitetsbibliotekene i Oslo, Bergen og Troms)
noubomn: University of Oslo Library Thesaurus of Science (Realfagstermer) (Norway: Universitetsbiblioteket i Oslo)
noubojor: Thesaurus of Law (Norway: Universitetsbiblioteket i Oslo)
tekord: TEK-ord: UBiTs emneordliste for arkitektur, realfag, og teknolog (Norway: Universitetsbiblioteket i Trondheim.)

ParsCit Updated

2011-06-21T09:41:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaSeen on Code4Lib.

The ParsCit team has also been updating the ParsCit package, and is happy to announce a new version that improves on classification accuracy, especially for general science journals. This version also adds a module that further processes XML files that are the output of the commercial Omnipage OCR engine. The version also benefits from a number of user-contributed fixes and training data, such as separating volume and issue numbers for journals, and export of parsed reference strings into EndNote, MODS, BibTeX or other metadata formats via the BiblioScript library.

You can either download a copy of ParsCit for your own use, or use it through a web services interface. We welcome your feedback and hope that if you use ParsCit or any other freely available reference string parsing tool that you can contribute annotated data to help make these models more robust.

ParsCit (and its online demos) are available from:
http://wing.comp.nus.edu.sg/parsCit/

ParsCit is open source software that is used by many projects worldwide, and not just in experimental, research and academic places, but in commercial enterprises as well. Mendeley is using ParsCit to parse references from contributed papers, as is the Citations in Economics (CitEc) project.

Library Linked Data

2011-06-20T11:27:00.000-05:00

Karen Coyle writes on Coyle's InFormation that "There will soon be a call for reviews of the draft report by the W3C Incubator Group on Library Linked Data." This is a longish document. It might be best to start reading and considering it now to make an intelligent response when the time comes.

ALA 2011

2011-06-17T16:31:00.000-05:00

Some of my co-workers from the Lunar and Planetary Institute will be presenting at ALA 2011.

Sunday, June 26, 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Science Programming 101: Presenting excellent science programs in your library
MCC-Rm 287 (Morial Convention Center)
Learn how to create exciting hands-on science programs for children and young adults from representatives of the National Center for interactive Learning/Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colorado; the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas; and experienced science programmers. The program will also discuss two new science exhibits for rural public libraries: Discover Earth and Discover Tech, and introduce a new science Community of Practice librarians can use.

Give them a warm welcome and a good audience.

Invitation to comment on draft of "Examples to Accompany Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books)"

2011-06-17T09:23:00.000-05:00

Posted on AUTOCAT.

Examples to Accompany Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books) is a work in progress. The Bibliographic Standards Committee of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of ACRL has charged a subcommittee to update the second edition of Examples of Accompany Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Books.

The fifty original examples illustrating the now outdated DCRB have been revised to reflect changes made when Bibliographic Standards and ACRL adopted DCRM(B). There are also a number of examples from Deborah J. Leslie's Rare Book Cataloging workshop from Rare Book School in Virginia and a selection of examples and accompanying rules provided by volunteers. To date, there are 84 examples.

Members of BSC and RBMS have had a chance to comment. We are now reaching out to the larger community for input.

The platform we've been using, Digress.it, allows catalogers and other interested individuals to comment upon the use of specific rules, or the application of rules in general. All comments are public.

Please note: we are not asking for comments on the rules. We are asking for comments on whether the example(s) illustrate the rule(s) accurately and appropriately. Also note, that we will accept comments until July 1, 2011. At that point, the Examples and comments we receive will be sent to BSC for consideration during a close reading.

Follow this link http://rbms.info/digress/ for the working draft and opportunity to comment on Examples to Accompany Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Materials (Books). Please read the "Instructions for Commenting" before proceeding.

For information on DCRM(B): http://www.rbms.info/committees/bibliographic_standards/dcrm/dcrmtext.html

For information on BSC: http://www.rbms.info/committees/bibliographic_standards/index.shtml

Ibidem

2011-06-09T15:08:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaMFA Learning Technologies has announced the release of Ibidem, which is focused on the front end data entry process and provides user definable Lookup Tables. Ibidem exposes its content via OAI-PMH (thanks to OAICAT). "While Ibidem was developed primarily for religious ministries, it serves as a general purpose tool, suitable for building collections in any domain."

Features

Pre-populated with these field sets:
- Dublin Core
- Extended Dublin Core
- Our custom Religious Ministries set
Arbitrary number of custom field names (metadata)
Build custom field sets
Supports any file type
Multi-tenant: 1 installation supports arbitrary number of customers
User level security
OAI-PMH
Open Source

Shuttle Launch

2011-06-08T21:19:00.000-05:00

So excited. I'm going to the STS-135 shuttle launch as part of the NASATweetup. That means I get to view from the press area. That's as close as anyone except the astronauts and a couple of guys in a tank.

Metadata Authority and Description Schema 2.0

2011-06-07T09:52:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaNews from LC.

The MODS/MADS Editorial Committee and the Library of Congress are pleased to announce a new version of the Metadata Authority and Description Schema, MADS version 2.0. This is the first major revision of MADS since its initial release in 2005. MADS web site: http://www.loc.gov/standards/mads
MADS schema version 2.0: http://www.loc.gov/standards/mads/mads.xsd

Major changes in MADS 2.0 are:
Elimination of dependence on the MODS schema
Updated elements that are the same in MODS to reflect version 3 (e.g. added additional subelements under hierarchicalGeographic, added descriptionStandard under recordInfo)
Addition of authority URI and value URI for controlled lists
Addition of and elements
Addition of an otherType attribute on for relationship types not enumerated in the schema
Ability to specify if a subject heading can be subdivided geographically
A complete list of changes in MADS 2.0 may be found at http://www.loc.gov/standards/mads/changes-2-0.html. MADS user guidelines are under development and will be made available soon. Please direct any comments or questions on the MADS 2.0 Schema, or MODS/MADS developments in general, to the MODS Listserv http://listserv.loc.gov/listarch/mods.html.

Final Two MARBI Papers Available for Review

2011-06-03T10:21:00.000-05:00

Proposal 2011-08: Treatment of Controlled Lists of Terms for Carrier Characteristics in RDA in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-08.html)

Proposal 2011-12: Defining Subfield $q for an Assigning Agency in Field 084 (Other Classification Number) of the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-12.html)

The updated MARBI ALA Annual Conference 2011 agenda is available at:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/an2011_age.html

MARC Update No. 12 is Ready for Local Print

2011-06-01T15:48:00.000-05:00

In 2008, updates of both the full and concise MARC 21 Formats were made available online and the principle was established that the online is the version of record for the formats and the print a byproduct that is produced after the online version. Taking this into consideration, along with the decreasing demand for print, the Network Development and MARC Standards Office has decided to no longer print and sell updates to the full versions of the MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority, Holdings, Classification, and Community Information Formats. Instead, NDMSO has developed a stylesheet that removes characteristics of an online page when it is printed -- such as breadcrumbs, extraneous links and text -- so that it resembles the print version formerly sold by CDS.

Users who want a print of changed fields will be able to print them from the Format web pages. Eventually all fields will be printable in this manner, but for now only Update 12 fields have been conditioned for improved printing. Changes to the MARC 21 Formats that resulted from Update No. 12 (October 2010) are displayed in red print. The online documentation will incorporate a print guide for an update as part of the "Format Changes" Appendix found in each format's table of contents page.

Please note that the MARC 21 Concise Format document will continue to be printed and it will consist of the Bibliographic, Authority, and Holdings formats. The 2011 edition will be available in the last quarter of 2011.

The following sections and fields were changed in Update No. 12 and should be printed to keep a print copy of the MARC 21 Formats up-to-date:

BIBLIOGRAPHIC

Leader:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bdleader.html
Field 024 - Other Standard Identifier:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd024.html
Field 561 - Ownership and Custodial History:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd561.html
Field 787 - Other Relationship Entry:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd787.html
Appendix A - Control Subfields:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/ecbdcntf.html

AUTHORITY

Appendix A - Control Subfields:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/authority/ecadcntf.html

HOLDINGS

Field 561 - Ownership and Custodial History:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/holdings/hd561.html

CLASSIFICATION

Appendix A - Control Subfields:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/classification/eccdcntf.html

COMMUNITY INFORMATION

Appendix A - Control Subfields:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/community/eccicntf.html

MARBI Papers Available for Review

2011-05-27T10:27:00.000-05:00

Proposal 2011-02: RDA Production, Publication, Distribution and Manufacture Statements in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-02.html)

Proposal 2011-03: Encoding Date of Copyright Notice in the MARC 21 Bibliographic Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-03.html)

Proposal 2011-04: Adapting Field 377 (Associated Language) for Language of Expression in the Authority and Bibliographic Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-04.html)

Proposal 2011-05: Broadening field 373 (Affiliation) for Associated institutions in the MARC 21 Authority Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-05.html)

Proposal 2011-06: RDA Fuller Form of Personal Name Attribute in the MARC 21 Authority Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-06.html)

Proposal 2011-07: Additional Corporate Body Attributes for RDA in the MARC 21 Authority Format
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-07.html)

Proposal 2011-09: Identifying the Source of Thematic Index Numbers in Field 383 in the MARC 21 Authority and Bibliographic Formats
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-09.html)

Proposal 2011-10: Geographic Codes in Classification Records
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-10.html)

Proposal 2011-11: Addition of 1st Indicator Value 7 (Other edition specified in $2) in DDC Number Fields in the MARC 21 Bibliographic, Authority and Community Information Formats
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-11.html)

Discussion Paper 2011-DP05: Additional Means of Identifying Medium of Performance in the MARC21 Bibliographic and Authority Formats
(http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/2011/2011-dp05.html)

The MARBI ALA Annual Conference 2011 agenda is available at: http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/an2011_age.html

NISO Recommended Practice on Single Sign-On Authentication Available for Public Comment

2011-05-24T09:22:00.000-05:00

News from NISO.

Identifies Needed Improvements for Users Authenticating to Licensed Electronic Resources

NISO announces the availability of ESPReSSO: Establishing Suggested Practices Regarding Single Sign-On (NISO RP-11-201x) for a thirty day public comment period ending on June 22, 2011. ESPReSSO identifies practical solutions for improving the use of single sign-on authentication technologies to ensure a seamless experience for the user.

Currently a hybrid environment of authentication practices exists, including older methods of userid/password, IP authentication, or proxy servers along with newer federated authentication protocols such as Athens and Shibboleth. This recommended practice identifies changes that can be made immediately to improve the authentication experience for the user, even in a hybrid situation, while encouraging both publishers/service providers and libraries to transition to the newer Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)-based authentication, such as Shibboleth....

“NISO is testing various methods for identifying issues in our community where NISO can provide leadership in developing solutions,” states Todd Carpenter, Managing Director of NISO. “The ESPReSSO recommended practice is the first outcome of a Chair’s Initiative project, where the NISO Board of Directors Chair (then Oliver Pesch from EBSCO Information Services) identifies a specific issue that would benefit from study and the development of a recommended practice or standard.”

The draft Recommended Practice and an online comment form are available at: www.niso.org/workrooms/sso/. Publishers and distributors of licensed content as well as licensing organizations, such as libraries, are all encouraged to review and comment on the document.

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

2011-05-20T11:22:00.000-05:00

Image via WikipediaNews from the Network Development and MARC Standards Office, Library of Congress

The source codes listed below have been recently approved. The codes will be added to applicable Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes lists. See the specific source code list 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 codes have been added to the Description Convention Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Additions:
iosr
"Instruktsiia po opisaniiu slaviano-russkikh rukopisei XI-XIV vv. dlia Svodnogo kataloga rukopisei, khraniashchikhsia v SSSR" in Arkheologicheskii ezhegodnik za 1975 god. (Moskva: Izd-vo Akademii)
katreg
Katalogiseringsregler: Anglo-American cataloguing rules, second edition /oversatt og bearbiedet for Norske forhold ved Inger Cathrine Spangen (Oslo: Nasjonalbiblioteket)
Genre/Form Code and Term Source Codes
The following source codes have been added to the Genre/Form Code and Term Source Codes list for usage in appropriate fields and elements.

Additions:
barngf
Svenska amnesord for barn - Genre/Form (Stockholm: Kungliga Biblioteket)
saogf
Svenska amnesord - Genre/Form (Stockholm: Kungliga Biblioteket)
The Library of Congress, Network Development and MARC Standards Office provides information about existing and newly assigned source codes on its Web site (www.loc.gov/marc/).

Guidelines for Subject Access in National Bibliographies

2011-05-16T13:05:00.000-05:00

The Guidelines for Subject Access in National Bibliographies by the IFLA Working Group on Guidelines for Subject Access by National Bibliographic Agencies is now available for review.

The question of how to integrate the multitude of national online resources needs to be considered, how they should be catalogued, how they should be made accessible, and how they could be discovered by bibliography users. Because the Working Group on Guidelines for National Bibliographies of the IFLA Bibliography Section was concerned with exactly these „new directions”, we decided to build our guidelines on their recommendations, published in 2009 under the title National Bibliographies in the Digital Age: Guidance and New Directions. Our guidelines can be understood as a supplement to the 2009 Guidelines.

Our work is also an appeal to the producers of national bibliographies to provide subject access in national bibliographies. Users will benefit from using well organized subject structures of classification systems and subject headings to expand their ways of reaching the resources they want.

Seen on INFOdocket.

Library of Congress Changed Subject Heading Subdivisions

2011-05-16T11:02:00.000-05:00

A message from Joyce T. Ogden.

Library of Congress Changed Subject Heading Subdivisions is ceasing publication. The latest issue, 2010 edition, was published September 2010 at $20.00. Remaining copies will be available as long as they last for $15.00. Orders accepted with your library purchase order no. by phone, e-mail, or regular mail to the address below. Invoice will be included with the shipment, or you can send prepaid check.

More information on my website www.joycetogden.com

New Book About User Research for eXtensible Catalog

2011-05-11T13:09:00.000-05:00

A book from the eXtensible Catalog Organization, Scholarly Practice, Participatory Design and the eXtensible Catalog.

We are pleased to announce the release of a new book, Scholarly Practice, Participatory Design and the eXtensible Catalog, based on user research for eXtensible Catalog, available now from ACRL or Amazon.

As part of the development of eXtensible Catalog (XC), a project to develop open source software sponsored by the University of Rochester's River Campus Libraries, and funded by the Mellon Foundation and project partners, four institutions conducted eighty interviews and numerous workshops to understand how researchers learn about, acquire, and use scholarly resources. Research findings informed the design and development of XC, a set of open-source applications that provides access to resources across a range of databases, metadata schemas, and standards. In this volume, members of the project team report on key findings of the user research that was done at Cornell University, Ohio State University, the University of Rochester, and Yale University, and discuss the value of including library users and technology specialists from many disciplines in the software design and development process. Editors: Nancy Fried Foster, Katie Clark, Kornelia Tancheva and Rebekah Kilzer. Authors: Jennifer Bowen, Kaila Bussert, Katherine Chiang, Katie Clark, Maureen Donovan, Nancy Fried Foster, Gabriela Castro Gessner, David Lindahl, Melissa S. Mead, Kornelia Tancheva and Wendy Wilcox.

Web2Marc Generator

2011-05-10T12:05:00.001-05:00

Seen on Cataloging Futures the Web2Marc Generator.

The Web2Marc Generator is a simple tool that generates MARC or MODS records for websites. This tool is useful for librarians who are interested in adding web resources to their library catalogs.

I'd like to know just where and how it is getting the information. Its nice that it offers the records in MARC, MODS and other flavors.

Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials

2011-05-06T11:07:00.000-05:00

Image by ekpatterson via FlickrNews from LC.

Since 2007 the Library of Congress’ Policy and Standards Division (PSD) has been developing genre/form terms, and in June 2010 determined that the new thesaurus, Library of Congress Genre/Form Terms for Library and Archival Materials (LCGFT), should be formally separated from Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). In order to accomplish this, on May 24, 2011 the existing genre/form authority records will be deleted and reissued with new coding.

The current coding for the genre/form authority records indicates that the terms are from LCSH, not LCGFT. The LCCNs are prefixed by “sh” and 008/11 is set to “a,” Library of Congress Subject Headings. Therefore, the LCCNs and MARC coding both need to be revised. This will require the deleting and reissuing of the genre/form authority records.

The approximately 800 existing authority records will be deleted and immediately reissued. About 1600 records (deletes plus reissues) will be sent to subscribers as part of the May 24, 2011, Volume 26, Issue 21, distribution of subject authorities via the MARC Distribution Service (MDS).

Authority records for LCGFT terms will be coded as follows.

LCCN prefix: gf
008/11: z (“Other”)
040$f: lcgft

Example:

008/11 z
010 $a gf2011987654 $z sh2009025020
040 $a DLC $b eng $c DLC $f lcgft
155 $a Topographic maps
455 $a Hypsographic maps
455 $a Hypsometric maps
455 $a Relief maps
455 $a Topographical maps
555 $w a $a Maps

[Note that the deprecated LCCN is being retained in field 010$z, to facilitate automatic updates.]

As of May 24, 2011, new coding should be used when assigning LCGFT terms in bibliographic records. That coding is as follows.

655 #7 $a [Term]. $2 lcgft

Example:

Title: Survivor: Thailand.

655 #7 $a Survival television programs. $2 lcgft
655 #7 $a Nonfiction television programs. $2 lcgft

The genre/form FAQ http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/genre_form_faq.pdf and the Subject Headings Manual (SHM) will both be updated to reflect this change in policy.

For further information and the rationale for these revisions, please see the January 3, 2011 announcement, “Library of Congress to Reissue Genre/Form Authority Records.” http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/gf_lccn.html

Cataloging Webinars

2011-05-04T10:03:00.000-05:00

WebJunction is offering a couple of free webinars that might be interesting.

June 2: Cataloging as Collaborative Librarianship: Partnering with Your Colleagues
This webinar, presented in collaboration with Libraries Unlimited, upon the publication of Practical Strategies for Cataloging Departments, will discussion how be more effective partners with your colleagues and leverage cataloging expertise. Three contributors to the edition from the University of New Mexico Libraries will examine the relationships and potential with other technical services partners, such as acquisitions and collection development, branching out into public services collaborations; and they will address how catalogers can take an active role in the growing area of digitization services.

More information and registration »

June 14: Cataloging Efficiencies That Make a Difference
OCLC Member Services staff have been traveling around the U.S. to hear how librarians have faced the challenge to streamline cataloging at a time of reduced budgets and staff. These discussions have provided a great opportunity to exchange practical tips on how to become more efficient—from defining "good enough" cataloging to collaborating on improved workflows, to sharing the latest on RDA and WorldCat quality. In this webinar, two academic librarians will share their experiences of reviewing and revising tech services workflows, and cataloging e-books. We'll also discuss the key trends and strategies provided by the hundreds of library staff who have contributed to the Good Practices for Great Outcomes series so far, and will end with a discussion of where we go from here. Presenters: Daphne Kouretas, OCLC; Helen Heinrich, California State University, Northridge; Debbi Dinkins, Stetson University.

More information and registration »

Catalogablog

LCGFT for Moving Images: Best Practices

Code{4}lib Journal

Metadata Harvested

Related articles

MARCXML to MODS 3.4 XSLT (Revision 1.75)

Related articles

VuFind 1.3 Released

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

Publication of RDA terms for Content, Carrier, Media type Vocabularies

Related articles

Cute Catalog

Metadata Provenance

Related articles

Names in RDA

Open Data Access

.data TLD

Related articles

VAIF Webinars

Related articles

AACR2 Rule Interpretations

Related articles

New Music Cataloging Book

ALA Midwinter

MARBI News

Related articles

MARBI Paper Available for Review

Related articles

Cataloging Webinar

Linked Data and Libraries: What? Why? How? (NCompass Live)

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

Related articles

MARBI Paper Available for Review

Information Standards Quarterly

Related articles

MARC Tool

Functional Requirements for Sharing Tag Data

SCATNews

Librarian Running for Texas State Board of Education

Additions to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

Related articles

OCLC Releases FAST as Linked Data

Accident

Amazing Comics

Additions to the MARC Country and Geographic Area Code Lists

Related articles

EAD Tool

A couple of Items of Possible Interest

Related articles

No More Star Wars Films

Related articles

VRA Core Metadata Tool

Related articles

NISO Teleconference

Related articles

Another OS ILS

Syriac Romanization Table

Related articles

Privacy

Related articles

Khmer and Tamazight Romanization Tables Available for Review

OWL Ontology for the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata

Related articles

Recommended Practices for the Presentation and Identification of E-Journals

Related articles

TEI in Libraries

OLAC Newsletter

International UDC Seminar

Related articles

The Molecule of Data

Related articles

Addition to Source Codes for Vocabularies, Rules, and Schemes

USGS Links to Change

Information Standards Quarterly

Related articles

Cartoon Gets Subject Heading Changed

DBpedia 3.7 Released

Library of Congress Preparing for RDA

Related articles

Permalink Service for Authority Data Available at LC