FSR 2014
International conference, Rome 27-28 February 2014
in cooperation with
the Italian Library Association AIB (Associazione Italiana Biblioteche)
and the Vatican Library
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Associazione Italiana Biblioteche
Associazione Italiana Biblioteche
in cooperation with
the Italian Library Association AIB (Associazione Italiana Biblioteche)
and the Vatican Library
|
|
The development and growth of electronic publications and some significant advances in the field of digital libraries are changing the scenarios in which traditional libraries are acting today. All those issues are bringing into question the goals of the catalogue and its services.
This international conference aims at offering a scientific forum on the value of cataloguing and “real” library data that brings together researchers, professionals, users, content providers and developers in the LIS (Library and Information Science).
For centuries the catalogue has been considered the library’s most powerful tool. Its organization was finely tuned in order to facilitate access to printed heritage and to allow content retrieval.
This international conference aims at addressing issues connected to the creation of catalogues and information storage, cooperation among libraries in dealing with content management, partnerships among libraries and other cultural agencies, handling of traditional heritage with specific features such as rare books, cartographic and music material vis-à-vis to digital resources such as e-books, blogs, and videoconferences.
By bringing together researchers, developers, content providers and users in the field of bibliographic data, the conference offers the opportunity of rethinking the role of libraries and their traditional and new users.
The FSR Conference will be hosting a Doctoral Consortium on 26th February 2014.
The value of cataloguing and “real” library data is a crucial issue in a time when the growing number of electronic publications and some significant developments in the field of digital libraries are changing the scenario in which traditional libraries act by bringing into question the goals of the services they provide.
The FSR Conference will be hosting a Doctoral Consortium on 26th February 2014.
General areas of interests include, but are not limited to, the following topics:
Please submit the abstracts of your paper or poster by email at <fsr2014-call@aib.it>. Deadline for submission of abstracts is 15th Nov. 2013 Extended!: 30th Nov. 2013
Accepted contributions will be limited to one paper and/or poster abstract per author. Abstract length should not exceed 500 words. Your topic could be described on a printed poster or by photographs, graphics and pieces of text that you attach to the presentation panel.
Please note that the language of the conference will be English, and therefore the committee will only accept submissions in this language (an abstract in Italian is optional).
All submitted abstracts will be peer-reviewed.
Are you involved in an interesting project or in an area of work that you would like to discuss with or show to other congress attendees? Why not present your work in the Poster Session?
The conference theme ‘Faster, smarter, and richer. Reshaping the library catalogue’ may be presented by a printed poster or by photographs, graphics and texts attached on the given panel. Presentations are welcome in English (an Italian parallel version of the poster is also welcome).
Presenters of a poster will be expected to be present on Thursday 27th February (17.30-18.30) in order to explain their poster and to hand out any leaflets, or other information materials, they have available for viewers of their poster.
Colleagues interested in presenting a poster session are invited to send a brief description in English of not more than 200 words, together with a bio inclusive of affiliation (50 words).
The boards are located along the sides of the Conference Hall. Material has to be posted to the boards on Wednesday 26 February between 15:30 and 18:00. A member of the Conference staff will be available to assist. Leaflets or any other material that is not fixed to the board should be brought with you on the Poster Session days. The exact size of the boards, as well as the instruction as to how posters should be fixed onto the boards will be supplied later on.
Selected papers will be considered for publication in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly <http://catalogingandclassificationquarterly.com>.
If chosen, authors will have to obtain permission from the copyright holder to publish any work that is not their own (e.g. screenshots from databases), and submit their papers for peer review by April 1, 2014. The length of the manuscript should be maximum of 20,000 characters (Times New Roman 12pt, including blanks, excluding references)
The main conference location is in a central area of the town, near St. Peter and the Vatican.
It can be reached from the Fiumicino “Leonardo da Vinci” International Airport in only 30 minutes by train connection (train Leonardo Express, every 30 minutes to Termini Centrail train station).
From Termini Central Train Station: bus N. 40express or Underground A-line (Stop “Ottaviano San Pietro”); from Tiburtina Station: Undergrounb B-line to Termini Station, then 40express or Underground A-line (Stop “Ottaviano San Pietro”) ; and it is linked to other areas by a number of buses and by the Metro A-line (Metro linea B: Stop “Ottaviano San Pietro” for further details go to http://www.atac.Roma.it).
Per agevolare la fruizione dei contenuti che verranno presentati durante il convegno FSR 2014, il giorno 26 febbraio 2014 si svolgeranno quattro workshop d’aggiornamento. I workshop si terranno in lingua italiana = Workshops will be held in Italian only. La partecipazione ai workshop è riservata in via prioritaria ai partecipanti alla conferenza. Dopo il 15 gennaio 2014, fino ad esaurimento dei posti disponibili, potrà registrarsi anche chi non intende partecipare al convegno.
Per Authority Control si intende un insieme complesso di attività, modellabili a seconda delle esigenze del sistema bibliotecario o documentale che lo implementa, che vanno dalla creazione e utilizzo della semplice lista di autorità alla progettazione di database con architetture a più dimensioni, fortemente interrelati tra loro grazie a una rete di rimandi o collegamenti; fino ad arrivare all’impiego di sistemi certificati che propongono l’identificazione di prodotti, opere o persone tramite la garanzia di codici identificativi standard.
Su questo tema molto vasto, ed anche in continua evoluzione, il workshop propone un panorama introduttivo funzionale alle esigenze di applicazione nei contesti bibliotecari italiani, anche con l’esame di casi reali che possono essere proposti dai partecipanti sulla base delle proprie esperienze.
Il valore aggiunto del workshop scaturisce dalla molteplicità dei punti di vista che si intende mettere in luce: quello dell’utente finale (non professionale), che fruisce dei vantaggi informativi prodotti dall’applicazione dei sistemi di authority control spesso senza conoscere nessuno dei meccanismi di verifica implicati; quello dell’utente professionale che, in vari gradi, collabora all’alimentazione degli authority data/file oppure ne organizza l’architettura logica; quello dei grandi gestori di sistemi internazionali che all’arricchimento tipicamente bibliografico dell’informazione preferiscono descrizioni sintetiche, idonee comunque a garantire in contesti multiculturali e multilingui l’identificazione univoca tramite codici standard e persistenti.
La tecnologia Linked Open Data (LOD) sta rapidamente emergendo come un metodo diffuso per pubblicare, integrare e riutilizzare dati sul web. Nel contesto di biblioteche, archivi e musei i LOD offrono una strategia innovativa per disseminare dati e metadati in un ambiente aperto e distribuito quale il web. Molte istituzioni culturali stanno contribuendo attivamente con progetti e servizi alla costruzione del futuro web of data quale piattaforma unificata e globale di scoperta e uso dell’informazione.
Questo workshop costituisce un’introduzione ai principi e alle tecnologie dei Linked Open Data focalizzata su biblioteche, archivi e musei e altre istituzioni culturali. Si partirà con l’introduzione degli elementi fondanti del modello LOD, incluso gli standard RDF e URI. Si useranno applicazioni ed esempi concreti per creare triple RDF. Verrà illustrato il ruolo di vocabolari semantici, data mapping, uso di authority bibliografiche e data query in ambiente linked data.
Verranno analizzate applicazioni correnti di LOD attraverso la presentazione di use cases e progetti in corso per offrire una prospettiva critica sui benefici e le sfide poste dai metodi e della tecnologia LOD in ambito culturale.
Nessuna conoscenza specializzata di Semantic Web e Linked Data è richiesta per seguire questo workshop. Lo stile del workshop sarà interattivo con la possibilità di attività di gruppo.
In conjunction with the FSR-Reshaping the library catalogue Conference, February 26 – 28 2014, Rome, Italy. The FSR Doctoral Consortium provides an excellent opportunity both for the beginners as well as the senior PhD students to present their ideas, receive feedback on their work, explore issues of academic and research careers with experienced researchers and professionals in the field and build relationship with other PhD students working in the research areas of FSR. The symposium welcomes submissions by PhD candidates working on the topics of FSR. You can consult the list of FSR Conference topics at https://www.aib.it/attivita/congressi/fsr-2014/2013/36531-cfp
The Doctoral Consortium is open to all PhD Students. PhD Students at the beginning of their work are particularly welcome when they have a specific research proposal with a well-defined problem statement and preliminary results and ideas about the solution that they want to discuss. PhD students in a more advanced stage of their work should still have a sufficient time before completing their dissertation to be able to benefit from the symposium experience.
Submissions should be written based on the following structure, which focuses on the key methodological components required for a sound research synthesis:
Students whose proposals are accepted for presentation at the Doctoral Consortium will be offered support in the form of waived conference fees, but will have to fund their own travel and accommodation expenses.
All submissions will be reviewed by the Doctoral Consortium Committee composed of experienced researchers and professionals, who can provide feedback and suggest future research.
Please send your submission as PDF directly by email to fsr2014-doctoral@aib.it wi
More information: Inquiries can be sent to the Doctoral Consortium Coordinator
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Please note that workshop participation is in priority reserved to conference attendees. After 15th January 2014 will be also subscribe workshop partecipation without attending the main FSR 2014 conference.
Info: fsr2014-info@aib.it
Bank transfer details
Associazione italiana biblioteche – Sez. Lazio
Bank name: Unicredit banca
ABI 02008
CAB 05009
CIN A
IBAN code: IT96B0200805009000400419660
SWIFT/BIC code: UNCRITM1004
!! Important !!
Bank transfer is expected within 5 working days by the registration date. Bank collection fees are the responsibility of the participant and should be paid in addition to the registration fee. The bank transfer should state the name of the conference as well as the name of the participant, as unidentified bank transfers cannot be processed. If payment is made for more than 1 person or by a company, make sure all names are fully indicated. Participants are also kindly requested to send a copy of their bank statement by email (fsr2014-info@aib.it)
[ENGLISH]
In a museum at the island of Man I saw a stuffed wild goose, a bird which died out in nineteenth century. According to my opinion, my presence here in this occasion offers some analogy: the last specimen of card cataloger, albeit not yet stuffed, a species died out in twentieth century. An emblematic presence, let us say, at the opening of a conference about the complicated problems of present cataloging, a presence which could be understood as an invitation to envisage those problems in their historical development, where you could catch a glimpse of embryos or desires which previously were beginning to grow; a not always acknowledged occurrence, when solutions present or conjectured in the past are regarded as absolute novelties. Well, I remember an old african saying: whether the bough wants to blow, it must honour its own roots. And obviously you must know what you honour. You must have knowledge of past in order to wholly recognize the reasons of present, in a continuance where present is implied to become past in its turn. Only in this way you will avoid the deadly danger of regarding present as an ultimate aim, as if it were the last stage of a way to perfection, rather than a stage in an evolving process. Surely, it may make a large difference in evaluating the relation between past and present, above all from generation to generation, but if you are acquainted with organization of card catalog, you will be able to weigh what you have to get rid out, or to modify in favour of new ways to be approached according to new possibilities, what corresponds to information needs, they too in movement because tied to a changing culture, of which technological side is an essential, but surely not exclusive part.
A distinctive feature of today culture is subduing of differences. Peculiarities of types of libraries are somehow limited, such as for instance to admit generic users in a university library, and this is also valid for school libraries, or for joining together in a system the different libraries in a territory, with common availability of their resources. This subduing, according to some opinion, has brought about the fall of a distinction of libraries by type. On the contrary, this occurrence shows, according to my opinion, their raison d’être, the fundamental aims of each library. The university library shall strenghten its peculiarity, its very reason on account of intensified relations with university: today we speak properly of learning centers, while the possibility to approach from outside shall confirm how much the system is important without cancelling, on the contrary emphasizing it, the definition of its type. And this is true for school libraries and for public libraries. We shall find a parallel phenomenon inside the library, where the definition of catalog as regards resources stretches indefinitely, and where the difference among distinctive classes of access points might be eliminated or sudbued. Now, albeit it could be true that the kind of an access point is wholly indifferent in order to research, provided it agrees with the system, the organization of the catalog shall still justify a preferred access both for type and form. It is however a very remarkable subduing of a traditional distinction which is not a real novelty, in that a subduing of difference took place already by degrees at the time of card catalog.
Changes in cataloging, tied to transformation and multiplication of supports, do not leave out the ground of classic line marked out by Cutter since the mythical year 1876. The increased forms of publications had suggested, in the half of past century, a plurality of rules for description of some kinds of publications, however within a general rule. Further increase of kinds of publications obliged to give up distinctive rules for single kinds. But it was a matter, however, of different types leading back to consider the document, an acceptable term for presenting a content, might it be textual, sound or figure medium. An entity which might be not independent physically, for instance within a miscellaneous or periodical publication. The traditional reference to resources kept in a library or in a system of libraries, overcome by the possibility to point out exterior objects, has given rise to doubt about the validity of that term, perhaps still acceptable when referred to a text or to an entity wholly describable. But now we can recover electronic documents from the outside and link up with other sources of information, fixing an intercourse between data of the library and resources of the net, and we shall be able to question other data banks. Moreover whichever object or part of an object, with various access points and connections, may complete the dilution of document into an indefinite variety as to justify the term resource, dreadful according to my opinion, a term perhaps too much wide in replacement of a by now too much narrow one. A phenomenon besides well known in language field, when in a sense of the right moment we prefer to replace a specific term with a more inclusive one. Horizon becomes larger, as Chris Oliver writes[1], and RDA goes much farther the library catalog.
However present electronic catalogs answer still prevalently to traditional functions, but here it is not a matter of replacing an old tool with a new one only to do the same work better and more quickly, as it happened before when the typed card replaced the handwritten card and afterwards with mechanical duplication of cards, though cataloging technics also in those occasions underwent sometimes deep changes. The object of catalog changes in the present case or, still better, its object stretches, and often a resource is not merely marked in order to allow its recovery, but it is possible to recover it directly. The renewal of cataloging technics is meaningful, in that horizontal, linear development of information about the document, with possible alternative access points, is replaced by circular access, which Vannevar Bush formerly recognized about seventy years ago as innate in our forma mentis. A change perhaps not yet fully noticed, but that is destined to become successful with real diffusion of RDA and application of FRBR. But we are beginning: it is not a case that the moment of uncertainty about adoption of a new software be tied to results of application of RDA. Today we are still prevailingly in the period of application of rules based on paper tradition, where the term document might be still consented, may be twisting a little its definition. In short, paper tradition is still prevailing in cataloging rules after the coming of computer and necessary transformation requires a change in outlook and some time, because the path of transition follows a complex and not brief course. A sweet transition, according to Oliver, who balances a flexibility necessary to future with a necessary continuation compared with past. According to Liz Miller RDA shall be applied to large libraries and “widespread implementation is likely to be gradual and take several years”[2]. On the contrary, many libraries are expected to continue with AACR2 (albeit its dilatability remains narrow); RDA is plainly consistent with AACR2 when its scenery is just bound to library, and in this we notice the presence of tradition, however inside a wider universe. I am speaking obviously of outcomes with patrons, and surely not of scientific concern for new problems from librarians. In a letter to “School library journal” (Nov.2013, p.8) a reader points out that librarians owing to the coming of technology are inclined to neglect the traditional library, whereas most people still look for books. I would say moreover that consequence of electronic technology on present use of catalog from patrons is noteworthy: it is less frequently used, with a largerly prevailing search by known item and a poor interest for subject indexing. Alternative options to information request have altered heavily the traditional resort to reference works and consequently to information service, but have involved also the use of catalog, which, according to Illien, is not any more the fulcrum of library, but shares its function with other information channels[3].
It is suitable to envisage an organization of information which allows speedy research, and today particularly that condition is peremptory, when we think of possible outward alternatives. An acknowledgment which is besides well living in tradition, as Ranganathan’s fourth law confirms: Save the time of the reader. This is a principle deeply rooted in cataloging tradition, as I said before, where the limit of the linear information is anyhow subdued by alternative headings. FRBR with its structure strengthens a circular view of information, which has well living and clear roots in history of cataloging, but which is wholly applicable only in our new technological position. The speed of research is now assured, and we must insist on the necessity to speed up the other side of information, namely the time required to fix the data valid for research and to organize them. First of all economic reasons, aiming at cost reduction, involve both reduction of working time and of number of employed people, principally due to network retrieval of catalog entries as a whole or, when be fitting, with possible changes or increases. In short, speed is required first of all when information is made ready. Therefore the ancient praises of slowness contradict present needs, where however application and recognition of access points and links envisaged by FRBR, completed with semantic side of information, may find a contrast with requirement of speed. We must not mix up speed with superficiality: it is a requirement even more indispensable today compared with past, which nevertheless must be brought to look for the needs of research, obliged to lessen in cause of improper speed during the preparation of catalog. Surely I do not wish to suggest a praise of slowness, such as we could find in Luis Sepùlveda’s new book about a snail which discovered the importance of slowness. Problems interwist: surely, if you retrieve network information you are free from the ties of a strictly local organization, but on the contrary a local or local system organization might envisage also resources requiring a peculiar care. We may see as sometimes the old saying festina lente, with its appearance of oymoron, which I prefer to translate as “hurry cautiously”, conciliates in one way its terms. Search by keywords present in description or even in the whole text might be an often useful option as to unified terms of subject access points, but might come out harmful just for its speed, also in account of widespread resources, which easily opens the way to casual retrieval compared with a whole retrieval, at least in theory, followed by inside choice.
Today we notice much more considerably the subduing of boundaries among the various spheres of activity in library organization, even about cataloging. Let us be clear: it was always inadequate an aseptic consideration of cataloging without valuing how results are used, without any recognition of research needs, at risk of a wise closing where the purpose of cataloging stood in itself, with useless plays with theoretically possible references but unlikely request, with surely possible expansions but as much unlikely request – I am thinking of some complicated specifications in the expansion of class 8 in DDC. Librarians have been always conscious of usefulness of controlling how catalogs are used, but frequently they did not carry out any control. The acknowledgment of user-centered service is tied today to social change together with technological change, but central position, always existent (is it necessary referring to Naudé, Borromeo and many more others?), is looking at the same time like confirmation in a new position, but surely not absolute originality. Borders among various activities have never been stiff, but evolution has farther subdued a formerly feeble distinction. As to catalog, its structure and its rules are more clearly conditioned by its function and by users. In consequence of emphasized regard for users the whole of cataloging is plunged in the stream of service, so that its usefulness comes out stressed. According to a recent enquiry in an english university library about the consideration of modern librarian’s professional skills, the problems of subject research, or subject expertise, appear among some few regarded as fundamental[4]. And at this point the gaps of FRBR and RDA are waiting for necessary completion. Perhaps in the past age card catalog enjoyed a quantitatively excessive weight, not always matched with quality of use, but today we haven’t to run the risk of neglecting the opposite direction: catalogers, according to Cerbo, are a connection in the chain which aids to obtain information[5]. We must drive back the trend to consider cataloging as a minor problem, which goes so far as to do away with it in programs of professional training: in effect aid to search, and still first a regard of probabilities of search bind the librarian, even if he is not expressly employed in catalog maintenance. And this may be envisaged as another confirmation of further subduing of boundaries about varied aspects of work in a library, aspects which were never clearly distinguished except when someone forgot that the first library system is library itself, in its whole.
A trend towards absolute unification, relating to a universal catalog in order to allow access to information about the whole of existing publications was recognizable in the culture of card catalog. A utopian idea, surely, however based on existence of a quantity in the same time indefinite and constantly growing, but at least theoretically definible. New ways of communication might lead to think of a nearer solution, but an emphasized acknowledgment of request variety has been made heavy by acknowledgment of resources alien to traditional document types, with outcome of a reversed trend. Conflict between universality of information and local chances arises again in a new form, with rules which make easier links and cross retrieval. Let us take again the trend towards international rule: conflict between universal idea and local choices has always existed and its exasperation due to local decisions on account of wholly personal, not tied to environment opinions, decisions which have been always dangerous, surely must be rejected; nevertheless we cannot give up to admit local cultures and needs of specific libraries. The trend to convergence towards a global unification of information about a definible set of objects, a unification anyhow conjectural owing to undefinable quantity, is neglected in favour of a diversification answering to individual needs, with many possible local choices for description, determination of access points and even for choice of resources. RDA subdues, or quite cancels, this distinction, when admits flexibility at international level, in order to allow not only translation, but adaption to local needs, and finds a suitable balance between contrasting requirements. But it is right to remember here the present carrying out of DPLA (Digital Public Library of America), a long term project described by Robert Darnton[6]. And perhaps the problem of whole unification shall be reproposed in a far future at a higher level. But navigation in science fiction is not good, particularly for a card cataloger. The dilemma of universal cataloging rules is re-proposed in this evolution. They are acceptable where a universally valid code can take up variations of languages and first of all of local cultures, alternately to a common standard pertinent to principles, to be afterwards developed according to local needs. Besides a trend to stress international look compared with anglo-american use is a well known principle, in particular in DCC. Perhaps a clear distinction in the contrast between evolutionary and revolutionary sides is not suitable. The evolution of problems about the constantly developing kinds of resources, with their access points and links, looks charming when seen by an old cataloger, so that it reminds of Wunderkammer. This appearance of wonder is unknown to young people, who deal straight these problems, which are obvious for them. It is the feeling of marvel – and of mystery – when someone touches cautiously the keys of an instrument which his granchild handles at his ease. But we may get some contribution from old experience. Information glut, which stroke a researcher in front of too many cards with the same heading, so that he in practice could not consider them wholly, may even allow to protract inspection within certain limits, but anyhow shall be a bond of whole inspection. And although a whole inspection, at least in theory, was possible in old times, in the new situation an indefinite access to an open archive shall confirm the limits of information, where deepening, widening and connections shut out a priori the whole of information. And here quantity in itself comes out to be a limit, where librarians may act as an aid to search.
Surely, difficulty of definition is still deep and definition itself is bound to undergo slidings and contradictions while civilization evolves. A sliding of definition does not regard only catalog, but library and hence librarian. Information is all? And outside options for organizing and requesting information increase doubts about the vitality of library, that in its turn looks for justifications widening the sphere of consolidated duties, which sometimes are really disregarded. Whereas, on the contrary, librarian is inclined to be deemed exclusively as an information broker. Therefore we must recognize what distinguishes both institute and profession, we must recognize the characteristics of library and librarian inside a variegated whole. Dilution of boundaries must not fail to appreciate peculiarity. Catalog does not escape this dilution of boundaries; surely, it does not limit itself any more to organize information to be found in material collected in one or in many libraries. What is requested to new catalog, if we may still accept this name? Which shall be its extent? Shall one distinguish between retrieval of document (or resource) entry and direct retrieval of document? Which shall be the connection of an online catalog in the net with network in its whole? Sed de hoc satis: more than enough. These are old thoughts of an old, curious librarian, grateful for your patient attention.
[ITALIANO]
Ho visto in un museo dell’isola di Man l’esemplare impagliato di una grossa oca selvatica estinta nel diciannovesimo secolo. Trovo che la mia presenza in questa occasione abbia qualcosa di analogo: l’ultimo esemplare di catalogatore cartaceo, sia pure non ancora impagliato, estinto nel ventesimo secolo. Una presenza emblematica se vogliamo, nell’apertura di un congresso volto alla complessa problematica della catalogazione attuale, una presenza che potrebbe essere intesa come un invito a considerare questa problematica nel suo sviluppo storico, dove si intravedono embrioni o desideri che già in precedenza incominciavano a prender forma e che non sempre vengono riconosciuti, quando si presentano come novità assolute soluzioni già presenti o ipotizzate nel passato: ecco, viene in mente l’antico detto africano che se il ramo vuole fiorire debba onorare le proprie radici. E per onorarle, ovviamente, bisogna conoscerle. Occorre la consapevolezza del passato per riconoscere compiutamente le ragioni del presente, in una continuazione dove si sottintende che il presente è destinato a sua volta a diventare passato, evitando così il pericolo mortale di considerarlo fine a sé stesso, quasi il termine finale di una via alla perfezione, anziché come fase di un processo evolutivo. Certo, la valutazione del rapporto tra il passato e il presente può essere assai difforme, soprattutto a livello generazionale, ma la conoscenza delle soluzioni offerte dal catalogo cartaceo consente di valutare quali di esse siano da eliminare oppure da modificare per lasciare spazio a nuove vie di accesso in conseguenza delle nuove possibilità, quali rispondano a esigenze informative, esigenze anch’esse in movimento in quanto corrispondenti a una cultura in movimento, nella quale l’aspetto tecnologico è essenziale ma non certo esclusivo.
Una caratteristica della cultura odierna consiste nell’attenuazione delle differenze. La tipologia delle biblioteche vede in certo modo una limitazione delle caratteristiche singole, come ad esempio l’apertura della biblioteca universitaria a un pubblico indifferenziato, caso che essa ha in comune con la biblioteca scolastica, o come la possibilità di collegare in sistema le biblioteche esistenti in un territorio con la disponibilità comune del loro contenuto; attenuazioni che hanno fatto cadere a detta di alcuni le ragioni di una distinzione tipologica. Invece è proprio questo fenomeno a porre in evidenza, a mio parere, le ragioni prime della loro esistenza, le finalità essenziali delle singole biblioteche. La biblioteca universitaria rafforzerà le proprie motivazioni e le stesse ragioni della propria esistenza grazie a un rapporto intensificato con l’organizzazione universitaria: non a caso si insiste oggi sui learning centers, mentre la possibilità di accesso dall’esterno confermerà l’importanza del sistema senza annullare per questo, anzi accentuandola, la definizione tipologica. E così per la biblioteca scolastica e per la biblioteca pubblica. Un fenomeno analogo troviamo all’interno dell’organizzazione bibliotecaria, dove la definizione del catalogo per quanto riguarda il materiale di riferimento si estende in misura indefinita, e dove all’interno del catalogo si giunge all’eliminazione o a un’attenuazione della distinzione tra le categorie dei punti di accesso. Ora, è pur vero che ai fini della ricerca è del tutto indifferente la qualità del punto di accesso, purché esso sia accettato dal sistema, ma ragioni organizzative renderanno ancora opportuno un accesso preferito sia per il tipo che per la forma. Si tratta comunque di un’attenuazione assai notevole di una distinzione tradizionale che, se vogliamo, non costituisce una novità, in quanto l’attenuazione della differenza si era già verificata in gradi successivi nel catalogo cartaceo.
I mutamenti delle tecniche catalografiche, legate alla trasformazione e alla moltiplicazione dei supporti, non escludono le basi della linea tradizionale tracciata da Cutter, fin dal mitico anno 1876. Dalla metà del secolo scorso l’aumento delle forme di pubblicazione aveva suggerito una normativa differenziata per la descrizione di certe categorie di pubblicazioni, pur sempre all’interno di una norma generale. Differenziazione che, con l’aumento ulteriore della tipologia, ha poi costretto a rinunciare a una normativa tipologica separata. Si trattava comunque di tipologie diverse riconducibili alla considerazione del documento, un termine accettabile per la presentazione di un contenuto, fosse esso testuale o sonoro o di sole immagini. Un’entità anche non indipendente da un punto di vista fisico, ad esempio all’interno di una pubblicazione miscellanea o periodica. Il riferimento tradizionale al materiale conservato in una biblioteca o in un sistema di biblioteche, superato dalla possibilità di segnalare oggetti esterni, ha fatto vacillare la validità di quel termine, forse ancora accettabile per il riferimento a un testo o a un’entità descrivibili e completi. Senonché grazie alle possibilità attuali è possibile ricuperare documenti elettronici dall’esterno e collegarsi con altre fonti d’informazione stabilendo un rapporto tra i dati della biblioteca e le risorse della rete, con la possibilità di interrogare altri archivi di dati. Inoltre qualunque oggetto o parte di oggetto, con segnalazioni e collegamenti molteplici, completano la diluizione del documento in una varietà indefinita che giustifica il termine per me orrendo di risorsa, un termine forse troppo esteso per sostituire un termine ormai troppo limitato. Fenomeno d’altronde ben noto in campo linguistico, quando ragioni di opportunità consigliano la sostituzione di un termine specifico con uno maggiormente comprensivo. Si allarga l’orizzonte, come nota Chris Oliver[1], e RDA va ben oltre il catalogo della biblioteca.
I cataloghi elettronici attuali comunque rispondono ancora prevalentemente alle funzioni tradizionali, ma non si tratta qui di sostituire uno strumento vecchio con uno nuovo per fare meglio e più rapidamente le stesse cose, come era avvenuto con la sostituzione della scheda manoscritta con quella dattiloscritta e, successivamente, con la duplicazione meccanica delle schede, per quanto anche in quelle occasioni non siano mancate modificazioni anche profonde nelle tecniche catalografiche. Nel caso odierno cambia l’oggetto del catalogo, o meglio, se ne estende l’oggetto, ed in molti casi la risorsa non è semplicemente segnalabile con un’indicazione che ne consenta il ricupero, ma la si può ricuperare direttamente. Il rinnovamento delle tecniche catalografiche è significativo, in quanto lo sviluppo orizzontale, lineare dell’informazione sul documento, con la possibilità di accessi alternativi, è sostituito dall’offerta circolare, già riconosciuta da Vannevar Bush quasi settant’anni fa come naturale alla nostra forma mentis. Un mutamento forse non ancora avvertito appieno, che con la diffusione effettiva dell’RDA e con l’applicazione dell’FRBR è destinato al successo. Ma siamo all’inizio: non pare un caso che il momento di incertezza sull’intervento di un nuovo software riguardi l’attesa dei risultati sull’applicazione di RDA. Oggi siamo ancora, in prevalenza, nella fase di applicazione di norme fondate sulla tradizione cartacea, dove il termine documento può essere ancora accolto, magari stiracchiando un poco la definizione. Insomma, nella normativa catalografica la tradizione cartacea è ancora predominante dopo l’avvento del computer e la necessaria trasformazione esige un mutamento di mentalità e un certo tempo, in quanto il movimento del passaggio è in una fase complessa e non breve. Una transizione dolce, avverte Oliver, che pone in equilibrio la flessibilità necessaria per il futuro con la continuazione necessaria rispetto al passato. L’adozione di RDA secondo Liz Miller avverrà per le grandi biblioteche: “è probabile che un’applicazione estesa sia graduale e richieda molti anni”[2]. È invece prevedibile che molte biblioteche continuino con AACR2 (le cui possibilità di dilatazione permangono comunque limitate), con le quali RDA è dichiaratamente compatibile quando il suo scenario si limiti alla biblioteca, ed in questo riconosciamo la presenza di una tradizione, sia pure all’interno di un universo più esteso. Parlo naturalmente dei risultati con il pubblico, non certo dell’interesse scientifico dei bibliotecari per i nuovi problemi. In una lettera allo “School library journal” (Nov.2013, p.8) un lettore osserva come l’arrivo di ogni tecnologia abbia fatto trascurare da parte dei bibliotecari la biblioteca tradizionale, mentre la maggior parte della gente cerca ancora i libri. Direi inoltre che gli effetti della tecnologia elettronica sull’utilizzazione attuale del catalogo da parte del pubblico siano notevoli nel senso di una forte diminuzione della sua consultazione, con un’assai prevalente ricerca per known item e scarso interesse per la soggettazione. Le alternative alla ricerca di informazioni hanno alterato pesantemente il ricorso tradizionale alle opere di consultazione e di conseguenza al servizio di informazione, ma hanno coinvolto anche l’utilizzazione del catalogo che non è più il fulcro della biblioteca, ma condivide la propria funzione con altre basi di informazioni[3].
Il riconoscimento di quanto sia opportuna un’organizzazione delle informazioni tale da consentire la rapidità della ricerca è tanto più oggi una condizione tassativa, anche per via della presenza di possibilità alternative esterne. Un ricoscimento d’altronde che è ben presente nella tradizione, come conferma la quarta legge di Ranganathan: non fare perder tempo al lettore. È un principio ben presente nella tradizione catalografica, dicevo, dove il limite costituito dalla linearità della singola notizia risulta in qualche modo attenuato dagli accessi alternativi. Il riconoscimento della circolarità dell’informazione è ora confermato dalla struttura di FRBR, le cui radici sono ben vive e riconoscibili nella storia della catalogazione, ma la cui applicabilità piena non poteva essere consentita che nella nuova situazione tecnologica. Ora che la rapidità della ricerca è assicurata si riconosce l’opportunità di accelerare l’altra faccia dell’informazione, ossia il tempo richiesto per fissare e organizzare i dati da utilizzare per la ricerca. Ragioni economiche innanzi tutto, finalizzate alla riduzione dei costi, che comportano sia la riduzione dei tempi di lavoro che la riduzione numerica delle persone assegnate al lavoro, grazie soprattutto al ricupero in rete delle notizie catalografiche nella totalità o, dove conveniente, con la possibilità di modificazioni o di aggiunte. Insomma, la rapidità è richiesta in prima battuta alla fase dell’allestimento delle informazioni. Gli antichi elogi della lentezza entrano dunque in contraddizione con le esigenze attuali, dove comunque l’applicazione e il riconoscimento dei punti di accesso e dei collegamenti considerati da FRBR, da integrare con gli aspetti semantici delle informazioni, possono entrare in contrasto con le esigenze di rapidità. Rapidità che non deve essere confusa con la superficialità: è un’esigenza ancor più necessaria oggi rispetto al passato, che deve tuttavia fare i conti con le esigenze della ricerca, la quale risulterebbe rallentata da un eccesso improprio di rapidità nella fase di allestimemento del catalogo. E questo non intende certo suggerire un elogio della lentezza, quale potremmo trovare nel recente libro di Luis Sepùlveda Storia di una lumaca che scoprì l’importanza della lentezza. I problemi si intrecciano tra di loro: certamente il ricupero di notizie attraverso la rete libera dai vincoli di un’organizzazione strettamente locale, mentre per contro l’organizzazione locale o di un sistema locale può prendere in considerazione anche risorse che richiedano un’attenzione particolare. Vediamo come a volte l’antica espressione festina lente, che ha tutto l’aspetto di un ossimoro e che io tradurrei affrettati con cautela, presenti in certo modo una conciliabilità tra i suoi termini. La ricerca per parole chiave esistenti nella descrizione o anche nel testo intero può costituire un’alternativa sovente utile rispetto all’unificazione terminologica delle vie di accesso per soggetto, ma può risultare dannosa proprio per la sua rapidità, anche perché l’estensione delle risorse lascia facilmente aperta la via al ricupero casuale rispetto a un ricupero teoricamente totale seguito dalla scelta al suo interno.
L’attenuazione dei confini tra le varie attività dell’organizzazione bibliotecaria si avverte oggi in modo assai più sensibile anche nei confronti della catalogazione. Intendiamoci, è sempre stato insufficiente considerare asetticamente l’attività catalografica senza valutare l’uso dei suoi risultati da parte del pubblico, senza riconoscere le necessità della ricerca, con il rischio di una chiusura sapiente dove la catalogazione era fine a sé stessa, con i giochi inutili con rinvii teoricamente possibili ma di richiesta improbabile, con espansioni certo possibili ma di richiesta altrettanto improbabile – penso a certe specificazioni complesse nell’espansione della classe 8 della CDD. La consapevolezza dell’utilità di una verifica nell’uso dei cataloghi non è stata mai ignorata, ma sovente non veniva effettuata. Con il riconoscimento della centralità del pubblico, oggi legata al mutamento sociale insieme con quello tecnologico, la centralità esistente da sempre (pare necessario ricordare Naudé, Borromeo e molti altri ancora?) viene ad assumere al tempo stesso l’aspetto di una conferma in una condizione nuova, ma non certo di novità assoluta. I confini tra le varie attività non sono mai stati rigidi, ma l’evoluzione ne ha attenuato ulteriormente una labilità già esistente. Nel caso del catalogo, la sua struttura e la normativa sono condizionati con evidenza maggiore dalla sua funzione e dal pubblico che l’utilizza. Si accentua dunque la considerazione dell’utilità dell’attività catalografica proprio per l’accentuarsi della considerazione dell’utente, che immerge il complesso della normativa catalografica nella corrente del servizio. Dalla recente inchiesta in una biblioteca universitaria inglese sulla valutazione delle qualità professionali del bibliotecario odierno, è risultato che la problematica della ricerca per soggetto, la subject expertise, figura tra le poche ritenute essenziali[4]. E su questo punto le lacune di FRBR e di RDA attendono il completamento necessario. Nell’età trascorsa del catalogo cartaceo forse all’attività relativa è stato dato un peso quantitativamente eccessivo, non sempre con l’esame dell’uso da parte del pubblico, ma oggi non si corra il rischio di trascurare un percorso inverso: i catalogatori “sono il collegamento nella catena che aiuta ad ottenere le informazioni”[5]. La tendenza a considerare secondaria la tematica della catalogazione, che giunge fino a eliminarla nei programmi sulla formazione professionale, è da rifiutare proprio perché l’aiuto alla ricerca e, prima ancora, la considerazione delle probabilità di ricerca legano il bibliotecario, anche chi non sia addetto espressamente all’alimentazione del catalogo. Anche questa, se vogliamo, è la conferma di un’attenuazione ulteriore dei confini tra i vari aspetti del lavoro in biblioteca, che non sono mai stati separati nettamente se non quando si è dimenticato che il primo sistema bibliotecario è la biblioteca stessa nel suo complesso.
Nell’esperienza del catalogo cartaceo si riconosceva la tendenza verso l’unificazione assoluta corrispondente a un catalogo universale che consentisse l’accesso alle notizie su tutte le pubblicazioni esistenti. Idea utopistica, certo, ma comunque fondata sull’esistenza di una quantità ad un tempo indefinita e in aumento costante, ma per lo meno in teoria definibile. Con l’avvento di nuove possibilità di comunicazione la soluzione poteva sembrare più vicina, ma al riconoscimento accentuato delle diversità delle esigenze si è aggiunto, pesantissimo, il riconoscimento di risorse estranee alla tipologia tradizionale dei documenti, con il risultato di un’inversione di tendenza. Il conflitto tra l’universalità delle informazioni e le opportunità locali si ripresenta sotto una nuova forma, con una normativa che facilita i collegamenti e il ricupero incrociato. Per riprendere l’aspirazione alla norma internazionale, il conflitto tra l’ideale universale e le convenienze locali esiste da sempre e la sua esasperazione dovuta a soluzioni locali in seguito ad opinioni del tutto personali e non legate all’ambiente, da sempre pericolose, è certo da rifiutare, senza per questo dover rinunciare al riconoscimento delle culture locali e delle necessità delle biblioteche singole. L’aspirazione a una convergenza verso un’unificazione globale delle informazioni su un insieme definibile di oggetti, unificazione peraltro ipotetica a causa della quantità indefinibile, è trascurata in favore di una diversificazione rispondente a esigenze singole, con ampie possibilità di approfondimenti locali per la descrizione, per la determinazione dei punti di riferimento e per la stessa scelta delle risorse. La distinzione è attenuata, se non annullata, da RDA, che ammette flessibilità a livello internazionale, per permettere non solo la traduzione, ma l’adattamento alle necessità locali, trovando un equilibrio opportuno tra esigenze contrastanti. Ma è doveroso ricordare l’attuazione in corso della DPLA (Digital Public Library of America), un progetto a lungo termine descritto da Robert Darnton[6]. E chi sa se in un futuro lontano non si riproponga a un livello superiore il problema dell’unificazione. Ma non sta bene, soprattutto a un catalogatore cartaceo, navigare nella fantascienza. In questa evoluzione si ripropone il dilemma della norma universale, accettabile dove le variazioni dovute alla lingua e soprattutto alla cultura locale siano assorbibili entro un codice valido per tutti, in alternativa a una normativa comune relativa ai princìpi, da sviluppare successivamente secondo le esigenze locali. Un principio d’altronde riconosciuto dalla tendenza ad accentuare l’aspetto internazionale nei confronti della tradizione angloamericana, in particolare nella Classificazione Dewey. Un contrasto tra l’aspetto evolutivo e quello rivoluzionario, dove forse non è opportuno distinguere in senso netto il primo dal secondo aspetto. L’evoluzione della problematica relativa a una tipologia delle risorse, in continuo sviluppo, con i punti di accesso relativi e con i loro collegamenti, appare affascinante agli occhi di un vecchio catalogatore, tanto da portare alla mente la Wunderkammer. È l’aspetto del meraviglioso, ignoto al giovane che affronta direttamente questi problemi, per lui naturali. È il senso della meraviglia – e del mistero – di chi tocca con cautela i tasti di uno strumento che è manovrato con disinvoltura dal suo nipotino. Eppure qualche apporto si può ricavare dall’esperienza antica. La nausea da informazione, l’information glut che colpiva chi si trovasse di fronte a una quantità di schede con la medesima intestazione, tanto da non consentirne in pratica l’esame completo, potrà anche concedere di allungare il controllo fino a un certo limite, ma costituirà comunque un vincolo all’esame completo. E se nel passato un esame completo era per lo meno teoricamente possibile, nella situazione nuova l’accesso indefinito a un archivio aperto confermerà i limiti dell’informazione, dove l’approfondimento, l’allargamento e i collegamenti escluderanno a priori la totalità dell’informazione. Ecco che la stessa quantità costituirà un limite, dove il bibliotecario potrà rappresentare un aiuto alla ricerca.
Certo, la difficoltà della definizione permane e la definizione stessa è destinata a subire slittamenti e contraddizioni con l’evolversi della civiltà. Slittamento della definizione che non riguarda solo il catalogo, ma la biblioteca e quindi il bibliotecario. L’informazione è tutto? E le alternative per l’organizzazione e la ricerca di informazione aumentano le incertezze sulla vitalità della biblioteca, che a sua volta cerca giustificazioni estendendo l’area dei compiti tradizionali, i quali ultimi a volte vengono addirittura trascurati. Mentre, per contro, il bibliotecario tende ad essere inteso esclusivamente come un agente di informazioni. Occorre dunque riconoscere quanto distingue sia l’istituto che il mestiere, riconoscere all’interno di un complesso variegato la peculiarità della biblioteca e del bibliotecario. Alla diluizione dei confini non deve corrispondere il disconoscimento della peculiarità. Alla diluizione dei confini non sfugge il catalogo, che certo non si limita più a organizzare le informazioni reperibili nel materiale raccolto in una o in più biblioteche. Che cosa si vuole dal nuovo catalogo, se questo nome è ancora accettabile? Quale ne sarà l’estensione? Si distinguerà tra la notizia del documento (o della risorsa) e il suo ricupero diretto? Quale sarà il rapporto del catalogo in rete con la rete? Sed de hoc satis. Sono pensieri vecchi di un vecchio bibliotecario curioso, che ringrazia per la paziente attenzione.
[1] Chris Oliver. Introducing RDA. Chicago: ALA, 2010
[2] Liz Miller. Resource description and access (RDA). An introduction for reference librarians, “Reference and user services quarterly”, Spring 2011, p.216-222
[3] Cfr. Gildas Illien. Décrire les objets du savoir, les nouveaux paradigmes du catalogage, “Documentaliste. Sciences de l’information”, 2013,3, p.20-29
[4] Mary Beth Weber. Librarians of the future, “Library research and technical services”, Oct.2013, p.186-188
[5] Michael A. Cerbo II. Is there a future for library catalogers?, “Cataloging and classification quarterly”, 2011, 4, p.323-327
[6] “New York review of books”, 25.4.2003; fr.trad. La bibliothèque numérique américaine est lancée!, “Bulletin des bibliothèques de France”, 2013,5, p.6-10
In this presentation the Author will describe the various discovery instruments users nowadays use and about the main characteristics, focusing the impact of these developments on the data exposure requirements and how it is changing the cataloguers workflow. Then the Author will discuss this change from cataloguing to metadata management and outline its wider global context. The bibliographic record, however, is still very in the middle of much of our work and will, finally, focus about the need to move from record management to entity management and the risks and challenges we face doing that.
Keywords: bibliographic records, semantic web, library catalogingAbstractCataloging and bibliographic description are arguably fundamental pillars of librarianship, supporting the selection, management, and preservation of information. When collections of information become too large to organize and access directly, librarians create surrogate “bibliographic records” to represent specific items in a library’s collection, physical or digital.
The purpose of these bibliographic records is to describe a document in sufficient detail to identify it uniquely among other documents and specify where the record can be located in a file of records. Originally, mere title and author information was enough to distinguish a work among others, but over time, the amounts and types of data that constitute sufficient detail to uniquely describe a resource have grown. New editions, translations, and reprints force additional data elements like edition, translator, and publication date as mandatory inclusions in a record. As more resources arise, more data is necessary to distinguish them. The conceptual model of a bibliographic record, then, is one of a collection of data elements.
However, contemporary data models like the semantic web directly conflict with this traditional conceptualization of bibliographic records. Semantic web technologies rely on unique resource identifiers (URIs) — unique character strings used to “distinguish one resource from all other resources — as a fundamental functional component. Every resource, physical or digital, concrete or abstract, is assigned a standardized character string that uniquely identifies that resource among other resources. A URI may also specify location of a resource, especially in the case of digital resources. A URI is a single data element that uniquely describes (and more often than not, locates) a resource.
The traditional conceptual model of a bibliographic records is a collection of multiple data elements, while the model of the semantic web relies on the idea that a single data element —the URI — uniquely identifies a resource. A traditional record is a conceptual whole that includes all the bibliographic information about a resource together in one place, like a catalog card or a MARC record. In the realm of the semantic web, bibliographic data need not be a conceptual whole. Bibliographic data about a resource needn’t be collected in a single location, but rather linked from many multiple locations across the web. What then, are the implications of the conceptualization of the bibliographic record for librarianship?
This position paper argues that the way in which librarians conceptualize bibliographic data —as a “record” — affects the affordances and limitations of that data, especially in digital environments. By tracing the development of the concept of the bibliographic record and contrasting that model with current developments such as the semantic web, this paper will reveal how the “record” model shaped library cataloging from early physical catalogs through contemporary digital software and interfaces.
Such reification of the record model for bibliographic data may hamper possibilities for innovation in digital libraries and catalogues, calling for a reconceptualization of what exactly bibliographic description should entail.
Keywords: library catalogues, FRBR, MARCAbstractUsing library catalogues today, it is very time consuming and sometimes even impossible to answer questions such as “What versions of Don Quixote are available in my library?” “What English translations of Don Quixote can I choose from?” “What other works by Cervantes are available at the library?” or “What kind of adaptations based on Don Quixote does the library hold?”. For each of these questions, the user would first have to form a correct query and then spend a considerable amount of time inspecting all the retrieved records in order to create a mental image of what is available in the collection and to select the records that best correspond to the query. In many cases, the system would not retrieve all the relevant records and the user would not be able to identify all the needed elements to make an informed decision. With a growing awareness that libraries need to create not only more functional, informative, and useful but also more technologically advanced library catalogues, we have witnesses several initiatives in the last few years that have triggered a long overdue deliberation on bibliographic data and formats. With FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records), RDA (Resource Description and Access), BIBFRAME and other developments, libraries finally have the opportunity to set up a framework for data and an infrastructure that will enable more powerful retrieval and semantics within user interfaces and thus better meet users’ needs. However, the transition to new formats will not happen overnight which is why it is important to understand the limitations and potentials of the current format, cataloguing practices, as well as cataloguing rules in relation to the desired catalogue functionality. Not only that, there is a danger that the transformation is not going to be successful if the objectives of a library catalogue and the vision of user’s interaction are not placed at the centre of the development.
Revisiting the objectives of library catalogues, the paper looks at how the missing functionality could be achieved by improving the underlying bibliographic data. To begin with, the paper identifies different types of queries and information needs that current catalogues do not efficiently support, such as finding all works of an author or endeavours where a person had a specific role, distinguishing between different versions of a work, identifying and associating related works etc. It then reviews bibliographic data in current MARC records, pointing out the inconsistencies and incompleteness that present an obstacle to fulfilling catalogue’s objectives. It also looks at how well RDA addresses these issues, and discusses some possible modifications (for example consistent use of descriptive identification, relator codes, field linking, access points) to help process records in a way that would support the creation of more advanced, FRBR-based library catalogues. Using our prototype system FrbrVis which enables exploration of all versions of a work, works related to the work and works by and about the author, the paper shows one possible improvement of library catalogues and discusses the changes that were needed to achieve such functionality.
Work began on the development of Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records in the mid-1990’s. The result was a conceptual model of the bibliographic universe. A conceptual model is never actionable without further development, so one measure of the success of FRBR can be found in the interpretations that various communities have made of FRBR to meet their needs. The speaker will report some of the results of a larger study in this area.
Keywords: RDA, linked data, interoperabilityAbstractRDA elements and terminologies are represented in RDF namespaces managed within the Open Metadata Registry. RDA is based on the conceptual models Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) and Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD), and RDA elements are constrained to the entities of Work, Expression, Manifestation, Item, Person, Family, and Corporate Body by declaring domains for properties based on attributes and domains and ranges for properties based on relationships, and by making specific references to the entities in the property definitions. These properties are intended for use in RDA and other applications based on FRBR. For non-FRBR applications using, for example, MARC 21 and UNIMARC encoded data, RDA provides a set of properties that are not constrained, with no declared domains or ranges and with generalized definitions. Each constrained or FRBRized RDA property is a sub-property of a non-FRBRized unconstrained property. This improves the interoperability of data from RDA applications by using a simple inference rule to generate new linked data compatible with non-FRBR applications. RDA properties and value vocabularies can also be mapped to properties and terms from other schema to improve the linking of data. The paper describes this approach to linked data interoperability and discusses the issues it raises, including the synchronization of different versions of RDA elements and of RDA with other schema, explicit and implicit mappings between elements, dumbing-down and loss of information, refinement of RDA elements, and the future development of RDA. The paper uses real examples from RDA, Dublin Core, International Standard Bibliographic Description, MARC 21, and UNIMARC.
Keywords: Linked Data, Cataloguing, Resource Description and AccessAbstractThere exists a tension between the data produced in library catalogues presently and the data requirements of an uncertain future. While Linked Data dominates the theoretical and experimental discussion of the next generation of information discovery, the daily work of the cataloguer remains mostly unchanged. The practice of following standards is essential for cataloguing data, and Resource Description and Access (RDA) attempts to bridge the gap between legacy data and a future where Linked Data is increasingly important. But in this transitional environment, where cataloguers continue to create MARC records in traditional closed library databases, can cataloguers do something more to prepare for the future to make their data smarter and richer? While Linked Data deals with large aggregations of data, how can the daily work of the cataloguer at present be leveraged to positively impact future aggregate data tasks and requirements? In short, what can the present-day cataloguer do to “prepare the way” for future data needs?
To investigate, this paper will discuss several key questions. What does the future, particularly Linked Data, require of cataloguing data? What can cataloguers do to “prepare the way” for this future as they produce granular data on a daily basis? To what extent do current standards, including RDA, help to meet future requirements? Is following standards all that is required, or are there forward-facing data principles and practices that should otherwise inform practice? And, finally, to what extent is creating good data a neutral process independent of specific current or future technologies?
The authors will examine these issues in reference to existing data quality models proposed within and outside of the cataloguing literature. Practical suggestions for current cataloguing production practice will be made based on the future needs outlined.
1. Introduction. By now librarians are used to deal with “information revolutions”. They even contribute themselves to all possible doom scenarios for their own institutions. Still less obvious for them are the “secret or quiet revolutions”, which take place in their immediate environment. Such a radical change, indeed a real, although mostly silent revolution can be confirmed also for one of the librarian core activities, namely the library catalogue and its contents (metadata). In the following I would like to support this thesis with several arguments and examples from the Bavarian State Library.
2. Changes to the catalogue. On a local level: There has been a development in several steps from the mere (conventional) holdings record to online catalogues (with each new functions/public services) and finally to a comprehensive online discovery service (even in a mobile version). This service has the capability, depending on local needs, to include open access repositories, as well as licensed or free web resources (such as Wikipedia) and provide those with immediate access to the (digital) documents/objects.
On a network level: The capacity of online catalogues to record holdings and later on also to provide access to resources diffused in the framework of library automation beyond the local catalogue version towards the establishment of union catalogues with varying characteristics and reach on a regional/national/worldwide level (e.g. Bavarian Union Catalogue , Worldcat) and meta catalogues, such as the KVK . This development finally lead to information portals with subject expertise and/or with an interdisciplinary focus which can be set up regionally (bavarikon ), nationally (Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek – DDB), or internationally (Europeana).
Linked open data: Opening up of the catalogue or provision of its contents (metadata) for non-librarian (re)use. One example for linked open data is Wikipedia – here personal names are linked to relevant catalogue records or web resources.
3.Changes in the creation and in the use of the catalogue contents (metadata). Standardisation of metadata und implementation of authority files on a regional, national and international level. Expansion of the librarian metadata concept and use. Due to digitisation and acquisition of digital media there are, next to bibliographical metadata, also other forms of metadata required and in use, such as administrative, technical and structural metadata; these are only partially recorded/visible in the catalogue. Therefore separate tools are necessary, e.g. ZEND (digitisation) or Rosetta (archiving). Excursus: The advent of the online catalogue has originally the consequence of bringing together the different catalogue types into one single bibliographic tool. With entering the digital world and the inclusion of digital media/objects in the catalogues the catalogue is again separated into an internal library data management instrument on the one hand, which you might call the (advanced) “new internal or staff catalogue (Dienstkatalog)” and on the other hand into a user oriented access tool, a key element of the new, broadly based access system, which you might call, taking up the definitions of the predigital age or the age of the card catalogue, the “new public catalogue (Publikumskatalog)”. Interdisciplinary application of standardised metadata, i.e. the use of a standardised data format (e.g. the Europeana Data Model – EDM, which has been developed for all kinds of memory institutions), of links to well-established authority files (Integrated Authority File – GND , Library of Congress Authorities, in future possibly also VIAF ), and persistent identifiers.
4. Current development trends. Implementation of an international, interdisciplinary standard for the creation of metadata: Resource Description and Access (RDA). Development and bringing into use of a new, web-ready and interdisciplinary data exchange format, which, among other things, facilitates the use of data on the Semantic Web and enables the interoperability of various data sources. With BIBFRAME such a data format is coming into being. Automatic generation and creation of metadata. This is essential, because library “collection objects” are dramatically changing. Thus catalogues include not only records for physical works but for a broad range of objects: e-books, databases, websites and in future also more and more blogs and primary research data.
Some examples concerning music resources illustrate how in different contexts, and using different languages, the same concepts are expressed with different approaches, leading to completely different interpretations, and how that ends with completely different cataloguing practices.
These examples include simple concepts, like format of notated music, arrangement, etc.
In many cases what in a language is expressed by a single word, in another language may require an entire sentence, or common cases in one environment may be absolutely unknown in other contexts – due to different performing or publication practices – and thus no equivalent term may exist.
Worries concern the tendency to rely on controlled vocabularies, and even worse to simplify them, changing the meaning of one word in one language, based on the common language and not on the specific technical term, without regard on the impact on other languages.
The risk of this practice to use linguistic terms, instead of expressing concepts with other techniques, is to present catalogue records in a form that is not understood by the users – musicians, musicologists or music specialists in this case – and to make interoperabilty more or less impossible, and data exchange or linked data non reliable.
This talk is focused on four key objectives: 1) The presentation of sets of metadata used in the Vatican Library’s individual catalogues for different library holdings (manuscripts, archival units, printed books, graphic prints, drawings, coins and medals): local definitions and the application of standards (MARC21, EAD, TEI); 2) The structure of the Vatican Library’s general catalogue:
the presence of different descriptive metadata in an integrated environment where different standards are applied in different encoding formats; the assignment of permanent URI references to metadata terms, to publish bibliographic records on the Web of data; 3) The relationship between the structural and descriptive metadata in the management of the digitization project of the Vatican Libray: the web presentation of the digitized works and the use of METS; links to bibliographic records and the use of DC and MODS; 4) The definition and the set up of data elements in cooperative programs: the experience of the Vatican Library in the context of VIAF and other joint projects.
These four different perspectives have in common a strategic assessment in the use and evaluation of the metadata as well as the data management in a holistic vision of catalogues.
Also, scope of the presentation is to highlight issues that the Vatican library, in the variety and uniqueness of its collections, has to cope with, due to contemporary changes in the current scenarios in which traditional libraries are dealing today.
the Nuovo soggettario universal Thesaurus with the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH).
In the international view, many projects have been undertaken to create an interoperability between controlled vocabularies in the same languages or in different languages, between different classification schemes and between controlled vocabularies and classification schemes.
As long ago as 1985, the scientific community worked to define specific standards for the establishment and development of multilingual thesauri and cross-concordance between terms of controlled vocabularies in different languages. The standard ISO 5964, which should be used in conjunction with ISO 2788 focused attention on the problem of multilingualism. In the course of time this standard has been a point of reference for subsequent standards such as ANSI NISO Z39.19 and BS8723.
The most recent ISO 25964 pays attention to the topic of multilingualism and to mapping terms to overcome linguistic barriers and to provide a truly multilingual search within the environment of Semantic Web and linked data.
In semantic indexing tools, multilingualism presents two types of problems: semantic-structural problems (about meaning of a term, its use in a specific language, the grammatical and syntactical rules, and the place of a term inside the tree structure of the thesaurus) and technological problems.
Nuovo soggettario Thesaurus, edited by Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze, uses a special-purpose software to manage multilingualism and, since 2006, has implemented LCSH equivalence links. Since 2010 we have established some concordances produced and improved by manually creating links, by SKOS/RDF, a format used by Nuovo soggettario and LCSH. We will explain the steps of mapping in this paper.
LCSH equivalents make it possible to access Thesaurus Nuovo soggettario directly (increasing the possibility of semantic search not only in Italian OPACs). In the future they will be able to establish other examples of interoperability to improve Semantic Web outputs and Wikidata projects which, nowadays are more and more important in libraries.
For this reason, we think that good quality open source metadata, provided by subject indexing tools, will be very important in future cataloguing and elsewhere.
This contribution will focus on the aims of the Rare Books’ Section of the Vatican Library. Taking as a start the analytical cataloging of incunabula, the Section will deal with similar cataloging of the books printed in the 16th century and later. Analytical cataloging requires deep skill in reading and interpreting the features which bear witness to the book’s journey through history: handwritten notes, coats of arms, owners’ identification, printers’ marks, bindings, etc.
In recent years, the Section also takes part in the rare books’ digitization project known as “Project Polonsky”. Thanks to digitization, scholars from all over the world will be able to see the rare incunabula preserved in the Vatican Library.
In 2012 Fondazione Biblioteca Europea di Informazione e Cultura (Beic) presented Beic Digital Library, a project which aims to make available on web a selection of international books and writings of particular value and scientific interest, through their digital copies (images and metadata).
The Incunabula in Italian collection includes over 1600 titles from Italian and foreign libraries. The approach to this heritage required the definition of standards specifically created to obtain a complete description and mapping of editorial products as complex and unique as the incunabula. While the bibliographical records are mostly extracted from Incunabula Short Title (ISTC) and Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (GW), the images mapping can almost allow a book-in-hand cataloguing, offering the opportunity to derive an analysis of the copy-specific in its external characteristics, together with an examination of the edition content.
The paper examines the genesis and the need for constant updating of all the methodological choices, it presents the results obtained so far and the future possibilities of the project. Furthermore it offers a reflection on how this work can be an opportunity of study and research for the cataloguer as well as for the user and how a professional training of the cataloguer can better meet the user’s requests and even anticipate them.
Keywords: bibliographic description, book-jackets, dust-jacketsAbstractIn 1971 the eminent American scholar G. Thomas Tanselle wrote: «the day has not yet come when one can learn anything of a library’s holdings of jackets by consulting its catalogue». Forty-three years after, library catalogues are tools that welcome lots of users’ instances; but although, they remain sealed regarding the book-jackets issue, in relation to that one, though it came from a very central area of book disciplines (especially in Anglo-American studies). Book-jackets, whose “original sin” is their being physically separate from the book, are nevertheless essential documents for the history of publishing. Their first purpose nowadays is to induce to buy the book, and, for this reason, they carry important paratextual information – both as author’s will and as a part of a marketing strategy; so that they are also, in itselves, a means to promote reading. Librarians always made use of book-jackets in indexing practices – but, paradoxically, they still don’t allow credit to them as object of catalographic description. Many libraries still do not keep book-jackets, or just keep them by sample: and so do many legal deposit libraries, whose mission should be the national publishing heritage preservation. Only a few specialised libraries somehow describe the book-jackets they keep.
That being stated, this paper aims at meeting the FSR Conference issue about «the value of cataloguing and “real” library»: in fact, it intends to examine whether – and how – the item «book-jacket» is met in some of the greatest catalographic tools (codes, guidelines, standards); it proposes to consider the reason why cataloguers usually “distrust” book-jackets; and it also aims at checking, in recent professional literature, if there is any changed attitude in taking into account book-jackets and their library management (e.g. as authoritative source): and especially whether conditions exist in order to change for the better, that is up to the point to consider the book-jacket no more just as a source, but as an object of cataloguing. Anyhow, the author’s intention is to represent the necessity, for every scholar interested in it, to access to the information about a single book’s book-jacket directly from the library catalogue, or at least from the national bibliography; furthermore, to access to the information (if given) about the responsibility for the graphic design of the book cover. Any problem related to the physical separateness of the book-jacket (e.g. the possibility to make a mistake in matching a book-jacket and a single edition of a book) nowadays is to be solved, in the author’s opinion, thanks to the many tools at the professional community’s disposal; while the scholar community could receive a great advantage by such an enriched information.
Keywords: FRBR, Work Clustering, Implementation ProjectAbstractThe presentation gives an overview of the project for the implementation of the international content standard RDA (Resource Description and Access) in the German-speaking countries Austria, Germany and parts of Switzerland. Due to the situation in cultural politics in the participating countries, this process is organized as a cooperative project. Implementing RDA in the German-speaking countries is the first attempt to adopt RDA in a non-Anglo-American context.
In May 2012, the Committee for Library Standards, which is responsible for decisions concerning library standardization in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland, decided to implement RDA. Therefore, the RDA working group was established to prepare for the changeover to RDA. One of the first tasks facing the working group set up by the Committee for Library Standards was to draw up an overall changeover schedule for all partners involved in the project. The RDA project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2015. Almost 20 institutions are represented in the project; therefore about 100 experts (catalogers, format specialists, trainers, etc.) are involved in the different working groups.
The structure of this cooperative project with its working groups and the project management in the German National Library will be demonstrated as well as the leading committees of this cooperative process. After nearly half of the term of the project, the presentation will show the first results concerning the Policy Statements for the German-speaking countries, the format adaptions which will be necessary to implement the changes required for RDA (e. g. Content, Media, Carrier Types) and the training method and schedule.
A special focus will be given on the adaption of the Gemeinsame Normdatei (GND) – the integrated authority file of the German-speaking community – in order to conform to RDA. This process will be finished soon and the change for the integrated authority file will start the implementation process of RDA in summer 2014.
Beyond that the presentation gives an introduction of the basic principles of RDA, the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), and the discussion about the presentation of works, based on the FRBR principles, in the German National Library and the Austrian Library Network will be demonstrated.
Keywords: online library catalogs, library catalog management, Opac, AlephAbstractWork experience of each library is as unique as personal one. It concerns all fields of the library activity: collection development, library management and services etc. The main library mission is to support all needs of the university community or every other community for which library works.
Libraries in Ukraine. Ukraine has quite diverse library network. It consists of 37 466 libraries, among them 18 000 are public libraries, the rest are academic, medical, school, special etc. We have 9 national libraries. The major challenges that faced our libraries are: postcomunistic factor (more than 70 years libraries had been working as ideological centers), the bad state funding and support, the absence of many very important standards for some processes, the lack of personnel. Because of some reasons the amount of libraries is shortening, especially in the countryside. The level of libraries development differs from library to library. The most developed are national libraries, state level libraries, regional libraries, academic libraries. They have their own information resources: websites, catalogues, electronic libraries and so on. On the other hand, only 12% of public libraries have Internet access and only 2% of them have their own e-catalogues. There are no corporate projects in cataloguing in the country and there is no intention to do it. There are no coordinated cataloguing standards (in use MARC 21 and UniMARC at the same time), there are no attempts to even discuss on the cataloguing problems of electronic resources or RDA implementation. Federative search and discovery systems are used only in some lonely libraries in the country. There is no Center for creation and dissemination of bibliographic records at the national level. The same situation is with authority data. In spite of all these problems we are developing and trying to support main progressive initiatives in the contemporary library science.
National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA) Library. NaUKMA Library is a library of one of the oldest university in Ukraine (was founded in 1615 and revived in 1991). Our main patrons’ categories are more than 3500 BA and MA students from 6 faculties and also University professors and staff as well as patrons who do not belong to NaUKMA community (for example, patrons of Viktor Kytasty American Library). By the Jan. the 1st 2013 the number of our patrons has reached 10 944.
Web OPAC at NaUKMA Library. The automation project has been started in 1996 with usage of ILS ALEPH 500. Bibliographic data presentation format – MARC 21. The catalogue (http://aleph.ukma.kiev.ua/F) counts more than 300 000 bibliographic records , more than 600000 items, 700+ authority records, 13 virtual collections including American Library which is public one and has got 2 separate virtual collections.
General principles of catalogue structure: user-friendly intuitive interface, broad search possibilities, tools for search results processing. So, these are the principles that can be standards and fit the requirements of usability and some Web 2.0 recommendations. Except this we use also best practices of other libraries that use the same ILS (as an example we can name the virtual collection design of new acquisitions and lists of related editions in bibliographic record).
The main specifics of the library e–catalogue: our library an academic one and our catalogue has special virtual collection for Course Reserves. Collection consists of course-related materials recommended by University professors; simple work with new acquisitions. Because of big importance of new documents for the university community we are trying make information about new acquisitions as broad and opened as possible to every member of community. Information is accessible through e-mail and RSS feeds. Each library patron (and each catalogue user) can choose topic on which he/she’d like to receive information and the way in which this information could be delivered; library catalogue gives access to the electronic resources: digitized items provided by university professors and lecturers for course learning, uploaded bibliographic records from purchased databases; the catalogue contains some virtual collections related to the university materials: Scholars works, Publications about the University, materials from University Institutional Repository, full text articles from “Scientific papers of NaUKMA” serials; part of the catalogue – the American library catalogue. This is public library and contains virtual collection that is more interesting for public library patrons; web-OPAC is source for extended communication with patrons. Patrons could receive the email letters when hold request is fulfilled, hold request is cancelled, courtesy notices or overdue letters; catalogue has the elements of interactivity. Each library patron can became the member of library collection development team. The acquisition request via the OPAC allows the patrons to request materials for purchasing that are absent in library at the moment; authority data – Name Authority Files: authority file of personal names and authority file of personal names university scholars; link to Google Books Service which is displayed from record’s full view; as a searching aid on different topics, catalogue shows related books from the record’s full view. There are established such types of relationship: books frequently read by people who have borrowed this particular item, books with equal or the same subject headings, or other editions of the same published work.
Web OPAC management. The most important thing in the library Web OPAC management is creation of the strong relationship between technical specialists and all library departments. It requires the different work groups to maintain different functions of the ILS. Because all processes at the library are interrelated and aimed at a single result – creating and maintaining services that satisfy the needs of our patrons.
Keywords: Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), linked data, multilingual equivalenciesAbstractRépertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM), with its international office based in New York, publishes since 1967 its abstracted music bibliography with a detailed indexing. As a bibliography of significant scholarship concerning all genres of music, published in all document types, and appearing anywhere in the world, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is an essential research and discovery tool used by music scholars all over the world.
First publishing bibliography in annual printed volumes and then making it available online through DIALOG Information Retrieval Services as early as 1979, RILM has always been at the forefront of technological innovations, making its international and multilingual content equally accessible to scholars working in different linguistic environments. At the time when RILM was appearing only in print, its indexing thesaurus were translated to seventeen languages, allowing users to find the desired English-language term starting from a language most familiar to them. Now, when the bibliography is available online through EBSCO and ProQuest platforms, RILM has implemented several tools for searching in a variety of languages and from computer keyboards using different scripts. Bibliographic information and sbstracts for publications in languages using non-roman writing systems RILM presents in English as well as in the original language. For personal names, geographic locations, musical instruments, genres, work titles, and institutions RILM has created equivalency files which allow efficient searching of its English-language content with terms in other languages. RILM’s database also implements a number of fields which facilitating linked data within global library networks, such as DOI for bibliographic information, URLs for the content residing on open web, VIAF and ISNI numbers for linking names to national library authority catalogues, Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names® for linking geographic locations. Concepts for future linking data include matching RILM indexing with the content in relevant music databases, such as for example manuscripts and prints in the Répertoire International de Sources Musicales (RISM). The presentation will demonstrate the requirements placed before a global bibliographic service and the tools which RILM has developed to answer them in making its content available for an efficient search within multilingual global environment.
Keywords: Wikidata, libraries, open dataAbstractWikidata is the newest project of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the non-profit U.S.-based foundation that runs Wikipedia and its sister projects. Officially released on October 30, 2012, and developed by Wikimedia Deutschland (WMF’s German counterpart), Wikidata is a free knowledge base that can be read and edited by humans and machines alike, published under a free license, allowing to everyone the reuse of the stored data in many different scenarios.
The main goal of Wikidata is to centralise access to and management of structured data about every subject covered by Wikipedia and its sister projects (i.e. the exact number of inhabitants of a country, the apparent magnitude of a celestial body, the birthplace of a Chinese Emperor, and so on). Data are organised into “statements,” i.e. a property-value pair such as “Location: Germany,” with optional qualifiers and with their original sources (such as books, reviews, authority databases…). Wikidata is run by a community of voluntary editors, who decide on the rules of content creation and management, and is based on open-source software MediaWiki – the same software of Wikipedia – with the addition of the Wikibase extensions, specifically created for this project.
At the moment, Wikidata is already a test-field for several collaborations with Italian and international libraries: for example, it has already 30+ properties related to National Libraries’ authority files, included a property that links to Italy’s Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale. Acting as a hub of properties and identifiers, Wikidata is so becoming a “super” authority control. Moreover, there is also an official cooperation between the Association Wikimedia Italia and the National Central Library of Florence, in order to connect BNCF’s thesaurus to Wikipedia articles through Wikidata. As of November 21, 2013, more than 1600 SBN authority codes have been imported to Wikipedia, as long as around 10,000 BNCF’s thesaurus entries. Both data are still growing.
There are also plans for future collaborations: an informal “task force” for books (both as sources and as “items”) has been set up on Wikidata, in order to uniform Wikidata properties to the Dublin Core metadata scheme and allowing the basic description of documents. An Italian mailing list has been also set up, to which some Wikipedia and Wikidata users and a growing number of librarians subscribed, in order to discuss how librarians can contribute to WMF projects. This led to the organisation of a series of meetings, called “biblio-hackathons” (a portmanteau for “biblioteca,” “hacking,” and “marathon”), in which librarians are asked and “incited” to get their hands on and improve Wikipedia and its sister projects, with the help of some Wikipedian volunteers.
Although I received my bachelor’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles in the field of Anthropology in 1949 (long before most and probably all of you were born), I did not begin library school there until 1970. I had worked as a student assistant in cataloguing and thought then about attending library school because the work seemed to be very interesting. In 1968, I started a job working full time as a Library Assistant in circulation. At that time, I decided that it made sense for me to attend library school and become a librarian, with my interest primarily in cataloguing. Working at the biomedical library helped me in my classes, with my project for a system analysis class being the analysis of circulation in the UCLA Research Library. Library School was a fun time for me, even though I was working full time and had children still at home; I had wonderful instructors and all of the classes were interesting. I earned my Master of Library Science degree in 1971.
In library school, we were taught the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, which had been in use for several years, although we also learned about previous rules so that we could understand existing records. This was in the days of card catalogues, when many libraries in the United States ordered cards from the Library of Congress, using its cataloguing rather than doing original cataloguing for all materials. Some examples of AACR then: a system of what was called “superimposition” for pre-existing names was used in the United States to avoid changing masses of forms of names for certain types of headings, including some corporate bodies as well as some personal names. For example, the University of California, Los Angeles, was for a long time California. University. Los Angeles. Also, “latest entry” was used for forms of some names (e.g. the International Federation of Library Associations changed to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, and all the cards were changed to the later form, with a cross reference from the former). When a serial title changed, cards were changed to have the entry under the new title, with a “Title varies:” note. Compilations and edited works were put under the editor or compiler. A few years later, the rules were changed to put the edited and compiled works under title main entry, and about 1974, ISBD punctuation was introduced into AACR for monographic publications. There were several specialized ISBDs, but initially the ISBD punctuation was to be used in AACR only for monographs. Some people didn’t like this, but for most it was not difficult to change and was even a welcome change, since it was now clear what the information in a record was, e.g. when dealing with languages unfamiliar to the cataloguer.
Dorothy McGarry during her testimonial at FSR 2014, Rome, 28th february 2014.
I began cataloguing for the physical sciences and engineering libraries at UCLA in November 1971. My cataloguing teacher had been Elizabeth Baughman, who had worked with Seymour Lubetzky for a number of years, and who educated some great catalogers. I was fortunate that she sent me a series of wonderful library interns, among whom were two you may have heard of, Martha Yee and Sara Shatford Layne.
It was primarily because I had taken some mathematics classes, and the supervisor of cataloguing for the science and engineering libraries at UCLA didn’t like to catalogue mathematics, that she chose me over the other candidate for an open position. I was fortunate also that my supervisor didn’t like meetings and committees, so I was able almost from the beginning to participate in policy decisions for the UCLA Library. Especially interesting, one of my first committee assignments was representing our cataloguing area on the Working Group on Public Catalogs. We looked at the cataloguing operations in the then four major cataloguing areas at UCLA (the research library that dealt with humanities and social sciences, the physical sciences and engineering libraries, the biomedical library, and the law library) and agreed on consistency in what we all were doing. Over the years, practices had drawn apart, and we wanted to use the same standards. I was also fortunate to be sent by the Library to a map cataloguing workshop at the Library of Congress, and became for a number of years the only cataloguer engaged in map cataloguing on campus.
In 1975, the year before I became head of the UCLA Physical Sciences and Technology Libraries Cataloging Division, I began to attend the American Library Association conferences, where there were a great many committee meetings on cataloguing while AACR2 was being developed. Many proposals had to be discussed to see which changes could be agreed upon. At the ALA meetings, I could talk about cataloguing all day every day, and keep up-to-date with what was happening with changing rules.
I have attended the Special Libraries Association annual conferences since 1976, where I have met and discussed topics dealing with the physical sciences and maps with librarians from libraries devoted to those subjects. The SLA meetings gave me great opportunities to speak with librarians dealing with the public services and collection development aspects and to consider the interactions of these with people working in cataloguing.
Soon I was not only attending committee meetings, I was participating in the work of these meetings. Within the ALA Cataloging and Classification Section, I served on a number of committees, including the Policy and Research Committee, the Subject Analysis Committee, the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (as secretary one year and chair of the committee the next, in 1985/86) and was chair of the Cataloging and Classification Section in 1997/98. During the year I was chair of CC:DA, it was before email distribution of documents, and I had to photocopy many pages of documents relating to AACR2, collate them, and put them in envelopes and send them off by regular mail to 40 or so committee members. Email makes things so much easier in this regard! Years ago, before online catalogues were common, among other committees on which I served were a Catalog Use Committee, a Book Catalogs Committee, and a Catalog Form Function and Use Committee. I also served on a committee within the Association of College and Research Libraries dealing with understanding title pages of publications of conference proceedings, because many editors and publishers set up title pages that make conference proceedings difficult to catalogue and often lead to different interpretations of what is the title proper. I was honored by being awarded the Margaret Mann Citation by the ALA Cataloging and Classification Section in 2005.
Much thought went into development of the second edition of AACR. It was decided to stop “superimposition”, with studies being made by some individuals to show that there would not be a lot of disruption. Successive entry was to be used for forms of corporate names and for titles of serials, and more serials were to be put under title, while “uniform titles with qualifiers” were to be added when more than one serial entered under title had the same title. I liked the successive entries, because I thought it made things clearer for the users, both for names and for serials, but some people did not like successive entry, particularly for serials, thinking that this did not result in a record that would bring the entire run together. Rules for newer resources were also developed. By this time, many libraries were using online utilities for cataloguing, so standardization was important. A few years later online public access catalogues became prevalent, especially in larger libraries, and many felt it important to be able to search them with similar commands and to find similarly understandable records, based on the same rules.
I served on the SLA Committee on Cataloging for many years, and for many of those years, as chair of the committee. The committee looked at the various issues being discussed in cataloguing, and having an SLA committee allowed SLA to have a representative on the ALA Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access. This allowed the SLA people to have a voice in discussions on the many proposals that came to the latter committee. I served on the SLA Board of Directors for two years, was chair of two divisions and one chapter, and served on the international relations committee, among others. I was honored to receive the SLA John Cotton Dana award in 1991, and to be inducted as an SLA Fellow in 1994 and into the SLA Hall of Fame in 2000.
In 1985, I began to attend the IFLA conferences, and was elected to the Standing Committee of the Classification and Indexing Section from 1987/1995, serving as chair from 1989/93 and secretary from 1993/95. It was an exciting time to be on this Standing Committee and involved in the work of the Section. The Section conducted a satellite meeting in Lisbon in 1993, and a publication resulted from the meeting: Subject Indexing: Principles and Practices in the 90s, published in 1995. The Standing Committee had several working groups on which I served, including one that produced Guidelines for Subject Authority and Reference Entries, published in 1993, one on Principles Underlying Subject Heading Languages, published in 1999, and more recently one on Guidelines for Subject Access in National Bibliographies, published in 2013. I was a member of the IFLA Study Group that produced Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records in 1998. On this Study Group, there were several consultants and a number of members. The SG had many discussions on our way to the final publication. The consultants worked on the theoretical matter, which was then considered by the members as a whole. There was concern on the part of some regarding the four levels: work, expression, manifestation, item. Some felt that three (essentially, work, manifestation, and item, with some of the expressions being looked at as works and others as manifestations) would accomplish what was needed and would also mirror what had long been the framework for cataloguing rules. However, the four levels were kept. Also, subjects were divided into four categories: concept, object, place and event, although years later the Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data members decided that these should all be combined into “Thema” and that the meanings of those four terms were not equally understood in all cultures and countries. I, personally, was surprised when it seemed not much attention was paid to the data elements necessary to meet the functional requirements and very much attention was paid to the data model after publication.
Because of my service as an officer of the Classification and Indexing Section Standing Committee in the 1990s, I was also fortunate to be one of the speakers at seminars on Universal Bibliographic Control in Rio de Janeiro and in Bucharest in 1993, and in Vilnius in 1994. I served on the ISBD Review Group from 1997-2013, and am now an honorary member and a corresponding member. We revised the ISBDs for monographic publications and the General ISBD, and changed the ISBD for Serials to the ISBD for Continuing Resources. We worked on ISBDs for Cartographic Materials and Electronic Resources and finished revisions, but these two were not published because we had already begun to work on the consolidated edition of the ISBD. I also gave a paper on priorities for retrospective conversion at a workshop held in Moscow during the 1991 IFLA conference. Currently the ISBD Review Group is planning to conduct a survey to determine use of the ISBD directly or as a basis for a national or regional cataloguing code, and to determine expectations for the future of the ISBD.
A Study Group on Future Directions of the ISBD was formed within the ISBD Review Group in 2003 to discuss whether a consolidated edition could be developed, following which a draft was prepared. Both within the ISBD and AACR communities, it came to be thought that there was much repetition in dealing with different types of materials separately. In a number of cases, the same result was achieved, but the wording varied. The group working with the ISBD Review Group cut and pasted stipulations dealing with similar elements together, and wording was decided for a consolidated ISBD, where the main points for all materials came first, followed by stipulations for particular types of materials, for example, for maps, scale and projection, for serials, numerical and chronological designations, and for music, a music format statement. The ISBD for Older Monographic Publications (Antiquarian) was the hardest to integrate, since many of the practices differed from those for non-antiquarian resources. For example, with non-antiquarian resources, typography was taken into account when recording place and publisher, while for antiquarian publications, sequence was considered more important.
I served on the Cataloguing Section Standing Committee from 1995/2003, Classification and Indexing again from 2003/11, and Cataloguing again from 2011. Currently, one of the groups working under the Cataloguing Section Standing Committee is looking at a need to revise the Statement of International Cataloguing Principles that was published in 2009 (Agnese Galeffi is chair of this group). There is thought that not all of the statements are “principles”, and so the title and structure probably need changing. The individual statements are also being looked at and consideration given to see if something new might be needed in a revision or if some wording may need changing.
I co-edited, with Elaine Svenonius, Seymour Lubetzky: Writings on the Classical Art of Cataloging. We were very happy to make this significant material widely available; much of what Lubetzky had written was, until this publication, available in privately circulated photocopies of typescript reports. (During the time Dr. Svenonius and I were working on this, Agnese Galeffi visited at UCLA and I was pleased to meet her there.)
I catalogued using AACR and AACR2, and though I have been at discussions of RDA for years, I have not actually catalogued using RDA. I retired from full time work in 1993. The volunteer work I’m doing now is to check the bibliographic database for records for the physical science and engineering libraries, correct the records with errors, and convert previously unconverted records. I do not change the type of cataloguing that had been used before, unless there seem to be problems with the cataloguing.
For AACR, there developed a decision within the Joint Steering Committee for Revision of AACR to change the name to Resource Description and Access. Along the way, many changes were made. For example: Latin abbreviations were changed to English phrases (to be translated into the language of any translation). Many people never understood “s.l.” and “s.n.”, used when the place and publisher were unknown, but in my view it didn’t seem to bother users. Changes to non-use of “e.g.”, “i.e.”, “circa” and other such terms seemed unnecessary to many, but the JSC apparently decided that there are many people who do not know these terms today. RDA has worked from many proposals generated from and through the bodies composing the JSC, and consensus has been reached on some issues, but there are also many options and alternatives, which can mean that records are less standardized depending on which options or alternatives are selected. RDA did not call itself a “standard”, but a set of guidelines, and does not follow the ISBD framework of areas and elements. Many anticipate that a national library will choose options and alternatives, and most of the libraries of that country will follow, but I spoke with a couple of heads of university cataloguing departments who said they were allowing each of their cataloguers to make his or her own decision. So much for consistency and sharing of records world-wide! RDA has also brought about changes in terminology, which some people like, but which I don’t. People cataloguing have known “main entry”, “added entry”, “uniform title”, and many other terms that have now been replaced with new terms. For example, “main entry” has become “authorized access point for a work”. It is thought by some that RDA will meet the needs of working with linked data. The ISBD Review Group has a Linked Data Study Group, and I assume catalogue rule-making bodies in other countries are also working on linked data.
My first trip to Rome wasn’t until 2001, for a seminar organized by Mauro Guerrini, where I spoke on the ISBDs for Continuing Resources and for Cartographic Materials in terms of their electronic resource aspects. It was a wonderful trip, and I have since been back to Rome once before now, and to several other cities in Italy. There is so much to see in Italy, with so much history, the people are so very friendly, and the land itself is beautiful. On my 2001 trip, Professor Guerrini arranged for several tours for us in Rome. When IFLA was in Milan, there was a satellite meeting in Florence, where I saw something of that city, and a colleague and I took a short trip on Lake Como. When I returned for a different meeting in Rome in 2010, Agnese Galeffi took two other colleagues and me to see some sights, and when I went to a city near Florence later, I was given tours by Professor Guerrini and his wife of a couple of Italian cities I would never otherwise have seen. I hope to return to Italy in June for a conference in Naples composed mainly of astronomy librarians.
Through this all, I have met many wonderful librarians from many countries and it has been a pleasure serving with them on Standing Committees, the ISBD Review Group and subgroups, and Working and Study Groups, and contributing to the work of IFLA. (There are too many to name, and I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out.) It is special to me to have seen many of these librarians year after year at IFLA and to see other librarians I’ve come to know at other conferences. I have been fortunate to have some wonderful library interns and other mentees, and am very happy to have seen librarians that I have mentored go on to happy and fulfilling careers, and in some cases to make significant contributions to cataloguing. I can certainly recommend cataloguing as a wonderful career.
The International Cataloguing Principles are currently being revised by IFLA’s Cataloguing Section. The group dedicated to carrying out this task is composed of Dorothy McGarry, Elena Escolano Rodriguez, Maria Violeta Bertolini, Bobby Bothman, and Agnese Galeffi. Rather than a radical revamping of the text, the revision is a relatively minor one.
Even if it seems a little paradoxical, the principles of cataloguing have to be updated in concomitance with the changes that occur in the functionality of catalogues. The aim of this presentation is to remind that principles, data, and the functionality of catalogues constantly exert a reciprocal influence on each other.
The title “Cataloguing principles, data, and catalogue features” juxtaposes three different elements: Principles (of cataloguing), Data, and the Functionality (of catalogues), but in reality this juxtaposition isn’t so bold. The section headed “Scope” in the 2009 ICP tells us that “The principles stated here are intended to guide the development of cataloguing codes. They apply to bibliographic and authority data and current library catalogues.”
Can it be possible that the principles are a “guide to the development of cataloguing codes” at the same time as being applicable to both data and catalogues? In order to effectively fulfil the role of a guide, principles should tend towards generality and universality. How, then, can it also possible to utilize them to assess two products of cataloguing work – data and library catalogues – which in turn are (also) composed of such data?
Cataloguing can be considered a phenomenology, which is to say a description of phenomena: the way in which a reality manifests itself. In fact, we can regard both resources and entities (to adopt FRBR terminology) as phenomena.
To gain a better insight into the revision of 2009’s ICP, it might be useful to ask ourselves exactly what, in a general sense, principles are. Well, it’s interesting to discover that they can actually be two different things, depending on whether you chose to interpret the term from a philosophical or scientific viewpoint.
The concept of a “principle” first emerged in the ancient Greek between the 7th and 6th centuries BC. The philosophers Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes spoke of an αρχή (archí), meaning “principle, beginning”, in their effort to identify the primordial substance from which all things originated. This chronological precedent also served a benchmark of value. Thus the term αρχή took on the more general meaning of “foundation” or “raison d’etre” in an essentially ideal, intrinsic sense. The Oxford dictionary defines “principle” as “a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behaviour or for a chain of reasoning.”
In the realm of the natural sciences, however, the term “principle” refers to the (more or less) universal methodological laws that the said sciences have to obey within the structure of their respective doctrines. These principles are based on experience; they are, in fact, generalizations of more specific laws.
So, to which of these two categories do cataloguing principles in fact belong? Are they philosophical or scientific principles?
In order to be philosophical principles, they would have to be representative of a basic principle underlying everything; they would have to be intrinsic and universal in nature; they would have to belong to cataloguing per se, be at its core, be its very essence. But can this really be possible?
In order to be scientific principles, they would have to be derived from generalizations drawn from practical, real life experience. In the FRBR – one ICP’s basis –, when addressing the “recommendations for a basic level bibliographic record”, we are informed that “the assessment was based in large part on the knowledge and experience of the study group members and consultants, supplemented by evidence in the library science literature gathered from empirical research, as well as assessments made by several experts outside the study group”. I would like to underscore the terms evidence, empirical and assessments, all of which refer to the perceptible, phenomenological world.
If a principle is derived from a vast amount of experimental experience, it follows that if that experimental experience changes in some way, then the principle (or principles) will also change. The principles we’re concerned here with are closely bound to the cataloguing experience, which is aimed at creating research tools. Changing the descriptive experience – what is described and for whom – should necessarily result in changes in the underlying principle or principles.
Convergence to digital media with such standards as HTTP, XML-RDF and library linked data can soon make possible to search a wide variety of information collections, including libraries, archives, museums and galleries, through common interfaces. This, however, only solves the technical part of the problem: the remaining part is conceptual, that is, having the different resources indexed by knowledge organization
systems (KOS) that are truly interoperable. The role of KOSs is becoming more and more relevant in the development of a semantic Web, as they are the only device able to act as a bridge between contents in different formats and media. KOSs themselves may have limitations of several natures, including linguistic, disciplinary, and representational, that affect the possibility of mapping them to each other. Conceptual structure and availability in interoperable formats make some of them more suitable than others for exploiting bibliographical and factual data in the wider context of networked information exchange.
Integration of user-generated content with library catalogs is a remarkable point with the developments in web technologies and semantic networks. In the light of these developments, library catalogs are linked with open data resources like VIAF, DBpedia and amazon.com with the aim of bibliographic description via URI based structures. On the other hand RDA, as a new cataloging standard, supports libraries for their bibliographic description studies by increasing access points. Furthermore, many initiatives have been launched by countries who would like to keep themselves up-to-date by using and implementing RDA in their catalogs.
All kinds of libraries in Turkey use Anglo American Cataloging Rules Second Revised Version and MAchine Readable Cataloging in order to describe information resources. Howewer, some libraries have been observed to utilize different rules which brings out some problems. Moreover, there is no national cataloging policy, subject and author headings lists, the catalogers have the lack of knowledge and experience about new rules, standards and models and encounter problems in cooperation, their needs of in-service training are not met, copy catalogers use the headings of records they download directly or by translating them into Turkish, there are differences between the records related to the period and persons in Turkey. The increasing importance of RDA implemantation requires the adaptation of new bibliographic environment by removing the existing problems. Therefore, it is crucial to determine the perceptions and expectations of Turkish catalogers as regards RDA and their institutional enterprises about the transition to RDA.
In this study, it is aimed to point out the awareness, expectations of catalogers in academic libraries in Turkey about transation to RDA and their probable problems while adapting RDA. The situation in Turkey in terms of academic libraries have been evaluated with the help of findings obtained from this study. As an originality value, this paper reflects the insights and perceptions of research librarians for the first time in Turkey.
This study group intends to analyze the Resource Description and Access (RDA) code’s pros and cons, under one point of view of some Brazilian catalogers, that is, from an emerging country. The five International Meetings of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code (IME ICC) brought many expectations world-wide about a new international cataloging code, free as the International Standard Bibliogrpahic Description (ISBD), and that could merge different points of view for cataloging questions. The RDA proposes itself to be this international cataloging code. Undoubtedly, it brings innovations and various positive points, as the introduction of digital materials and some elements from the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Description (FRBR) family. At the same time, RDA can be analyzed under other aspects, such as: a) it is not as close to FRBR as expected, by keeping a more descriptive approach instead of a relationship model one; b) it is not as far from AACR2 as expected, by keeping rules and examples to catalog manifestations instead of a multiple level approach; c) as a consequence, it doesn’t use all possibilities offered by the new computer technologies; d) the facet translation versus adaptation: in Brazil, AACR2’s translation was restricted to the original text, not including solutions and examples used in our country and with our language. It is expected that RDA respects these issues; e) and last, but not least, the RDA prices for licencing or copyright must consider the current world economic crisis, specially for emergent and developing countries. RDA remains an open question, although it brough many improvements for cataloging practices.
Keywords: Cataloging, Persian Romanization, Data retrievalAbstractThe problems of cataloging of non-roman library materials, especially the use of Romanized data in bibliographic and authority records, have raised some discussions among catalogers in recent years. In this regard, the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) Non-English Access Working Group on Romanization recommends in its final report recommended that the factors discussed in the report are significant enough to make a general shift to the use of non-Roman data in vernacular script in bibliographic records, and at the same time, having Romanized access points in records provides enough added value that their use should be continued indefinitely. In addition, Resource Description and Access (RDA) 1.4 Language and script, advises vernacular transcription of virtually all elements of the description, and advises transliteration only when transcription in the language of the work is not possible. This article discusses which problems encounter catalogers implementing each recommendation in cataloging of Persian library materials. How these problems cause false drops in information retrieval, and finally, the article presents some solutions.
Keywords: authority control, authority file, UNIMARC Authorities formatAbstractEleven years are passed since the International Conference on Authority Control took place in Florence and the today meeting give us the possibility to look at the current state of the traditionally most relevant activity in library life, the authority control. It is known that the functionality of a catalog without syndetic structure is limited, for this reason in the 70Th several authorities archives doing a connection with bibliographic data have been developed. The main authority control standard is UNIMARC Authorities, developed in 1991 from IFLA, and in 2009 at its third edition (with the updates of 2012); it gives the possibility to organise and structure analytically the authority data. But in spite of it analysis capacity this format is not so used in the world’s authority archives. We will examine some examples of authority files local, national and international, based on UNIMARC Authorities to explore the potentiality of the format.
In the second part of the speech we will face the downside of authority archives being. They present inadequate advantages for users. It is not possible to do a complex research, for example it is not possible to select an author starting from sex, or languages used in writing or starting from the period they are operative, although if these informations are present and codified with the right etiquette in the database.
Therefore, to one side we have authority data well structured in codified fields and we are not able to capitalize on it, on the other side our authority files are not enough competitive in information if we compare with the data sources of Wikipedia or similar.
It is time to ask ourselves if it is worth to still invest time and resources in the complex construction and maintenance of the authorities archives. Are we sure that the instrument, as it stands now, is useful in the world of the web 2.0 in continuous evolution? If yes the question is: how can we improve the authorities archives? What is the best way to reshape this instrument? In the last part of the speech we can try to answer together to this questions about the future of the authority control in library field.
This presentation shares a vision of the enterprise of cataloging and the role of catalogers and metadata librarians in the 21st century. The revolutionary opportunities now presented by digital technology in the internet age liberate catalogers from their historically analog based static world, re-conceptualize it, and transform it into a world of three dimensionality and fluidity. We are constantly being reminded that we need to focus on the tasks of organizing information and creating information surrogates that no longer resemble the orthogonal vision of a catalog record. The power of semantic technologies is freeing us from the two dimensional surrogates to a much richer, more fluid and more complete three dimensional concept. Catalogers need to adapt to the changing world, and transform themselves to accept new roles. How successful are we in those attempts to transform? Strout warned us in 1956: “We may be so blinded by … firmly established customs that we are incapable of seeing some utterly simple alternatives which might quickly resolve our problems, and which will someday look so easy and obvious that our descendants will in turn look upon us as unseeing and unimaginative.” The need for the library technical services departments to be proactive in the development of innovative new ways of creating, re-using and sharing of metadata is obvious. Have we taken advantage of the tools available to contribute to the new library ecosystem and showcase our ability to embrace the change, adapt to it, and take an active role in the creation of new exciting digital exhibits? There is a whole new world beyond MARC and that world should include us – the catalogers. Are we able to play a leadership role in crafting the information environment; are we able to adapt to the world beyond MARC? Are we sure we will have a library catalog in our future, and if we do – what will that catalog look like? Our catalogs are full of rules and standards which are, no doubt, essential, but, as Williams noted “standards should be seen as a source of usefulness not as a source for trauma and nervous breakdown.” Illustrative examples of innovative metadata creation and manipulation, such as non-MARC name authority records, will be presented to encourage attendees to embrace the new technologies. The goal is to contribute to the libraries’ mission with innovative projects that enable discovery, development, communication, learning and creativity, and hold promise to exceed users’ expectations.
Linked Open Data is seen as a promising web technology allowing libraries, archives and other cultural institutions to connect and share their data on the web to foster new forms of content discovery and use. Linked Jazz is an ongoing project that applies Linked Open Data technology to digital collections of jazz history to reveal the network of relationships between jazz artists, ultimately enhancing visibility and access of cultural heritage content. The Linked Jazz project has progressed in an iterative and experimental fashion through the design and the development of new tools and practices that include data extraction from textual primary sources, data curation through mapping and authority work and data crowdsourcing. This presentation will use Linked Jazz as a case study, sharing the lessons learned as well as the contributions made to the knowledgebase of sound principles, methods, and best practices for developing Linked Open Data for libraries, archives and museums.
Since the end of the last Century, catalogues are changing faster and faster, and this change is following a well recognizable mainstream. It begins with the publication of FRBR, that represented a turning point for catalogues as it logical model started a deep change in the way we thing to bibliographic work.
FRBR was the basis for a logical reorganization of international cataloguing principles, for the revision of international standards of IFLA, as ISBD, and for the foundation of new cataloguing codes as REICAT (Regole Italiane di Catalogazione) and RDA (Resource Description and Access).
Logical improvements derived from FRBR require to change data structure of the catalogue and, consequently, of cataloguing software and bibliographic formats. This further development is recognizable also in FRBR family evolution, where groups and reports changed their focus and terminology from bibliographic records to data, underlining the increasing importance and the role of granularity in catalogues.
From a completely different starting point, also the world of the Semantic Web has to face a deep change, the shifting from the web of documents to the web of data. There is great convergence among libraries and the Semantic Web, both because Principles described by Tim Berners Lee for the creation of Linked Data, the basis of the Semantic Web, are directly associable to users’ function defined by FRAD, and because authority work produces in library catalogues is high valued in the context of the web of data.
While principles, models and rules are well established, bibliographic format seems to be a real bottle neck. Old bibliographic formats prevent the creation of really new users’ interface, even if many attempts were made to overcome the limits of MARC format and to create FRBR-ized catalogues.
Millions of bibliographic records cannot risk to be discarded; nevertheless they are not directly usable in the new context. In this perspective, in 2011 the Library of Congress launched a new initiative, named Bibliographic Framework Initiative, with the aim to implement in the future a new bibliographic environment for libraries, that makes “the network” central and makes interconnectedness commonplace.
The BIBFRAME report states that the “new model is more than a mere replacement for the library community’s current model/format, MARC. It is the foundation for the future of bibliographic description that happens on, in, and as part of the web and the networked world we live in.” (Library of Congress, 2012, p. 3). Even if it is just a draft, BIBFRAME shows also weak point, that must be carefully considered.
While catalogues have found a critical turning point, the context of production and dissemination of intellectual and artistic content seems to be characterized by a process of dematerialization of the work, in which text is reachable in more and more formats.
This paper has the aim to present an overview of the many evolutions that are in progress and to highlight potential convergences, developments and weak points of this very changeable context.
Keywords: FRBRAbstractIn March of 2012, the Jewish Public Library (JPL) in Montreal became the first public library in the world to adopt and implement FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) as part of its integrated cataloguing system, Virtua. The JPL is both a public lending and research library. Its academic collections of Judaica span a diverse array of languages, its holdings consist of vital canonical works ranging from various editions of the Bible, Talmudic, kabbalistic, and the Jewish legal corpus, and its users extend beyond the local Montreal population. It had grown increasingly more challenging to search these collections within the limitations of MARC21, and required the expertise of the library’s bibliographers and reference staff to assist our users.
FRBR is a means of linking bibliographic records according to a set of criteria that used conceptual relationships to determine the underlying connections between discrete works. Its applications to the collections were a foregone conclusion: in a relatively short period of time, we have created extensive genealogies between parent works and their children that have enabled librarians to produce not just a set of reference points for the user, but a means of understanding library collections from a different perspective.
Specifically, the FRBR add-on to the JPL’s catalogue allows cataloguers to map relationships between editions, translations, and formats of works on a graphical tree that sits atop the FRBRized record.
In 2014, the JPL will also be celebrating its centennial year with a curated exhibition and printed catalogue of its antiquarian book collection: these books date back to the late 15th century and were among many others distributed throughout the world by the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee after 1945. The implementation of FRBR will allow us to link many of these works to their corresponding earlier editions, contemporary translations, and other canonical arrangements that constitute the library’s primary collections mandate.
This paper will chronicle the JPL’s planning, implementation, and early observation of its FRBRized bibliographic records, as well as its plans to FRBRize targeted components of its historical ephemeral collections (Jewish Canadiana). The JPL’s FRBR application also allows for the creation of aggregate relationships between components of works (eg. anthologized short stories, songs on audio CDs, etc.) and larger related works: this has extensive applications for bibliographers whose research encompasses all literary genres, and has already proven to be of inestimable value for our own users who are aware of popular stories, songs, and other small units of text by one name, and can now locate them using FRBR’s linking capabilities.
Keywords: digital preservation, metadata, photographsAbstractThis paper describes the process developed by Binghamton University Libraries to extract embedded metadata from digital photographs and transform it into descriptive Dublin Core metadata for use in the Libraries’ digital preservation system.
In 2011, Binghamton University Libraries implemented the Rosetta digital preservation system (from Ex Libris) to preserve digitized and born-digital materials. At the same time, the Libraries’ implemented the Primo discovery tool (from Ex Libris) to bring together not only the digital collections in Rosetta, but also bibliographic holdings from our integrated library system and other sources.
Currently, the Libraries are working with the campus photographer to preserve and provide access to 350,000+ digital images. Most of these images depict campus events, such as Homecoming, Commencement, etc. that are of historical and immediate social value to the campus community. These images are used widely in marketing and outreach materials, and on the University’s website. However, owing to volume of photographs, as well as to budgetary and other constraints, it is not possible to have library staff inspect the photographs and create a complete descriptive metadata record for each, so we needed to explore different options. Each of photographer’s images contains embedded metadata (file format, date and time stamps, location, etc.) and additionally, many of the files also contain basic descriptive information supplied by the photographer, including his name, keywords and/or a short description.
Using this basic metadata as a starting point, cataloguing and systems librarians at Binghamton University Libraries were able to create an automated process to reformat and enhance the available descriptive information, crosswalk it to the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, and map keywords to controlled subject and location terms (including Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM), Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN), etc.) Following the initial set-up, the only steps requiring manual intervention are extracting and identifying new keywords, updating the mapping table, running the scripts, proofreading the Dublin Core metadata once it has been produced, and lastly, depositing the images and metadata into the preservation system.
Using this collection as a case study, we will demonstrate how embedded metadata can be upcycled in order to produce complete descriptive metadata records, which can then be integrated and indexed with metadata from other sources, and ultimately made discoverable by library users. After all, no matter how well a repository takes care of a file, how well it keeps, preserves or displays it, it makes no sense to put an digital object into a system if you cannot find it later.
The Libraries’ workflow and portions of code will be shared; issues and challenges involved will be discussed. While this case study is specific to Binghamton University Libraries, examples of strategies used at other institutions will also be introduced. This paper should be useful to anyone interested in describing large quantities of photographs or other materials with preexisting embedded metadata.
Keywords: digital preservation, metadata, photographsAbstractWith the widespread availability of online resources and the associated expectations from library users that these resources be easy to find, libraries must offer increasingly sophisticated and seamless access to their collections and services. As a result, much of the recent library literature, including research reports from major library associations such as OCLC’s Perceptions of Libraries, 2010: Context and Community; ACRL’s The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report (2010); ACRL’s 2012 Top 10 Trends in Academic Libraries; and RIN and RLUK’s The Value of Libraries for Research and Researchers (2011), is concerned with examining how libraries can demonstrate their value to their home institutions and communities in this new information environment. How does the value of cataloguing fit into this broader discussion of library value? By the very nature of their work, cataloguers tend to lack visibility unless they interact regularly with library users. Additionally, while technological advances and enhancements of the catalogues empower users to become more independent researchers, they make it less apparent who is behind this valueadded service. At this junction, it is essential that cataloguers are active participants in the broader discussion and demonstration of library value. But how can cataloguers participate in this discussion and express the value they bring to their institutions? Valueadded cataloguing holds the promise of helping cataloguers describe and provide access to increasingly complex digital resources beyond the confines of the traditional bibliographic record. The presentation will consider a definition of valueadded cataloguing and analyze new developments in digital publishing that challenge us to reflect on the the traditional library tasks of acquiring, describing, providing access and preserving innovative and highly dynamic forms of scholarship. Finally, the authors aim to identify areas for further research that will aid cataloguers in advocating for the importance of cataloguing within the broader context of the value of libraries.
The “great absent” in cataloguing literature in recent years seems to be the quality of catalogues. Or, perhaps better, the real contents of real catalogues of today.
Despite the indisputable fact that library catalogues have been a cornerstone of scholarship and of access to recorded knowledge and human expression for many centuries and the almost ubiquitous mention of “quality” in every field (and in our own), the issue of the quality and value of (good) catalogues is underrated and understudied. Thoughts and studies about catalogue quality and value are almost non-existent (as quite a number of the “objects” described in our catalogues…), excepting, of course, few praiseworthy contributions.
The quality of information in today’s large catalogues is apparently very uneven and often very low. This fact can be explained by a number of factors, but it is striking that while in other fields the progress in sophistication of methods and quality of results is beyond doubt, unfortunately in the field of cataloguing and indexing theoretical advances have been lacking in the last decades and the quality of large bibliographic databases is not rising but declining (except perhaps in some very specialized areas).
The return of interest for information organization in catalogues with the FRBR study (1998) appears now as a “lost opportunity” (a lost illusion?). Later developments were mostly concerned with the formal machinery of “models” without a sound and deep examination of the very complex phenomena that we deal with (e.g., what is a work, how works are conceived, composed or realized, and published, how the content of publications may be understood and analyzed in terms of works, etc.). So, we may ask ourselves a provocative question: under the dress (the models, the technologies), nothing?
It’s easy to show that a large number of query results from library catalogues are simply nonsense. And that much relevant information is not given, is given in tortuous ways or is given in a (badly-chosen) jargon that users cannot understand. The low quality of large catalogues is not simply due to the vast amount of duplicated records, unprofessional work, errors of interpretation, miskeyings, etc., but in the first place to the misunderstanding (and undervaluing) of functions and aims of bibliographic information and to unwise cataloguing standards, rules and policies.
While today there is plenty of casual (unstructured, uncontrolled) information about books and other publications, for better or worse, in the Net, the need for good-quality, organized bibliographic information is apparent, e.g. from the development of this kind of information in Wikipedia and its success.
Libraries are the social institution (the only one institution in this field) having responsibility (often legal, always cultural and historical) for the control, organization and communication of information about the published output of human knowledge and expression. Maybe it’s better to do (well) our own work, and not to ape (without much success) what others (with aims and responsibilities different from those of public institutions) already do.
Understanding better the needs and demands of users of digital resources plays a key role in their use by various user communities. However, the needs of users related to domain of eInfrastructrues still needs further systematic studies in order to understand how various types of users interact with such environments. This is particularly valid in the case of citizens: while the research lifecycle of academics and the support from eInfrastructures and virtual research environments attracted significant attention in the last decade, the understanding how citizens can be involved in research and creativity within the digital domain is still in its infancy.
This paper will outline main avenues of user-related research in the domain of digital resources, and will look in particular into the challenges of understanding how citizens act as users in eInfrastructure environments.
It will look into models of academic research lifecycles mapped to digital infrastructures which could help only to some extent because the nature of involvement of academics and citizens and their need of support differ considerably. While the academic users’ support is seen as most typically mapping onto phases from the traditional research lifecycle, such as resource discovery; experiments, research and analysis; publication; and administration and institutional process. Initial research done on citizen science suggests that such projects do not typically addressing the generic lifecycle but concentrates on specific activities (e.g. define question, gather information, develop hypothesis, design study, data collection, analyse samples, interpret data, draw conclusions, disseminate results, discuss results).
The paper will also explore how the presence of eInfratsructures influences the work of academic and public libraries and what are the implications on the librarian profession, in particular on the library online catalogues and on the new skills would be in demand to serve library patrons better when they are interested to contribute to “citizen science”.
For centuries, the Memory Institutions (collective name for Libraries, Archives, Museums, often abbreviated in LAMs) have based the main aspect of their mission (collecting content and making it accessible to their users) on the general notion of a “catalogue”, something used, at the same time, to describe the content of the institution and to help the users finding the desired information. In about three decades, the availability of catalogues online and the increase in the amount of “digital information” have forced the LAMs to re-think the way in which their assets are accessed. It is becoming more and more important to meet users’ expectations of finding and (re)using information and data online.
The emergence in the recent years of the Semantic Web has provided powerful means to add value to digital data, by allowing (in a semi-automated way) to establish links between different (but related) concepts in the same domain and, even more important, to establish links crossing the traditional boundaries of different disciplines. Transforming the catalogue into a “cloud” of linked data will make it easier to find the desired information and will allow serendipitous discoveries. There is a growing need for information professionals with skills in digitization, data enrichment, digital archiving, long term preservation, or, in other words, in what is today called “digital curation”, i.e. the ability to add value to digital assets for access, use and re-use over the long term.
However, most of the time, curriculum models still support the traditional definitions of roles, functions, and audiences of the LAMs, encompassing descriptive cataloguing, subject access, classification, metadata, knowledge organisation, bibliographic control and other related areas for all formats of information resources. Convergence of the educational curricula for information professionals has been a topic of much discussion in the LAM communities; the emerging similarities between these three types of cultural heritage institutions (most apparent in their on-line activities) are not yet evident in the education of professionals who work in them.
The presentation will report about the on-going investigation of current digital curator education and training programs with regard to the role of information professionals in the digital information lifecycle. The investigation has been based on a series of surveys, workshops and events discussing the concerns of researchers and teachers about digital information and digital curation. Some preliminary results have produced a list of competencies and skills at the technical and operational level that information professionals should have. Professional practice can evolve in the context provided by digital curation, and respond in a manner that supports common goals across institution types. New inter-disciplinary foci for professional training can provide skills needed across the sector, while respecting the distinct histories, cultural roles, and responsibilities of libraries, archives, and museums.
Keywords: users, interface, webAbstractThe rapid changes of the last five years have created , in internet, new usage dynamics and different categories of users. We apply cross-cultural analysis to these varied, contrasting categories, new habits, new usage profiles, new perceptions and their requirements.
We wonder if these new technological tools at our disposal will allow us to tailor the supply of cultural content and services to the dynamics of the “new network”, without the need for undue compromise.
The submission is based on both technical and sociological analysis of usage statistics of some the main Italian on-line catalogues and library portals. Observation of user behaviour highlights both the interests and trends that motivate users. At the same time one perceives an evident need for strong cultural mediation coupled with new forms of presentation and new ways to propagate this through the network.
Today Internet is a social instrument based on global collaboration and participation and it is also a powerful vehicle for communications, always available and characterised by ever changing strategies for the spread of ideas such as “SEO or Search Engine Optimisation” and “Email Marketing”.
The cultural mediator must know the network, be a part of it, and be aware of the new devices the user adopts. He/She must have a complete picture of the customs and habits of the different categories of network user.
Consequently the new generation of library portals must show the best of their holdings and provide quality network services. Into this context the cultural mediator must focus all of his/her experience and become protagonist, editor, popularizer and blogger.
A cultural mediator, aware of the nature, benefits and limitations of the network, can play an active role in cyberspace and is able to turn the network into a powerful instrument for the propagation of knowledge.
Libraries are facing many challenges today. In addition to diminishing funding and increased user expectations, the use of classic library catalogues is becoming an additional challenge. Library users require fast and easy access to information resources regardless whether the format used is paper or electronic. Google search, with its speed and simplicity, set up a new standard for information retrieval which is hard to achieve with the previous generation of library search facilities. Put in a position of David versus Goliath, many small, and even larger libraries, are losing the battle with Google and letting many of its users use Google rather than library catalogues.
The International Nuclear Information System (INIS) hosts one of the world’s largest collections of published information on the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology. It offers online access to a unique collection of 3.6 million bibliographic records and 320,000 full-texts of non-conventional (grey) literature. This large digital library collection suffered from most of the well-known shortcomings of the classic library catalogue. Searching was complex and complicated, required some training in using Boolean logic, full-text searching was not an option, and the response time was slow. An opportune moment came with the retirement of the previous catalogue software and with the adoption of Google Search Appliance (GSA) as an organization-wide search engine standard. INIS was quick to realize a great potential in using such a well-known application as a replacement for its online catalogue and this paper presents the advantages and disadvantages encountered during three years of GSA use. Based on specific INIS-based practice and experience, this paper also offers some guidelines on ways to improve classic collections of millions of bibliographic and full-text documents, while achieving multiple benefits such as increased use, accessibility, usability, expandability and improving the user search and retrieval experience.
The logical model outlined in Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records in 1998 has led to a theoretical reflection on the function of data and their organization into catalogues that hasn’t found stable effects in the representation of information yet. A consequence of the wide theoretical resonance of FRBR report was the review of regulatory codes and standards for electronic recording of bibliographic data. The first code that partly implements the FRBR model is the Italian one, published in 2009, the Italian cataloguing Rules: REICAT. The revision the Anglo-American cataloging rules has resulted in a new tool, based on the FRBR model and not set as a cataloging code: RDA. Resource Description and Access, released in 2010. To changing patterns of information models and contents’ media it has to add new information environment available to users, accustomed to using search engines as information retrieval tools, powerful and generalist.
Today’s electronic catalogs are based on MARC formats for encoding of information, aimed at sharing and exchanging bibliographic records. However, the library data encoded in MARC exchange formats are invisible to search engines.
Gradually, over the last few years, software modules devoted to cataloging have been differentiated from those for consultation, data visualization interfaces dedicated to users aimed to simplify the search mechanisms.
One of the open issues relating to the new display systems concerns the selection and presentation of data. The sorting order is based on the criteria of relevance, which is based on scores that a software assigns to the record in relation to the weight or importance of the words entered in the search string.
The new display systems of users ‘ searches, the discovery platforms that simultaneously query heterogeneous data bases for content and location, including also the OPACs, no longer use the languages of librarianship. The final display of search results does not conform to librarians’ models, judged commercially unclear for end-users, now accustomed to the seeming simplicity of the search engines. The risk , both at scientific and at professional level, is to lose the opportunity to propose not only a model for description of resources, but also a model for displaying data, the structural representation of entities based on the FRBR model, or RDA or REICAT principles.
The paper here proposed analyzes different patterns of bibliographic data visualization that libraries’ OPACs and library service platforms begin to offer, focusing on three categories of innovations in displaying of cataloguing data: the data proposed by discovery tools or library service platforms, that transform and integrate information taken from the Integrated Library Systems with other collections accessible through libraries; the data derived from the cataloguing based on RDA started in some libraries; the displays of bibliographic data emulating the hierarchical organization among entities foreseen by FRBR.
Keywords: Dewey Decimal Classification, signage, library instructionAbstractThis paper intends to present the in-progress project for the signage system of the Dewey classified shelves in the Library of Social Sciences at the University of Florence.
The aim of classified arrangement in open access shelves is not only to direct users to works on a particular subject, but also to encourage them to browse works which are shelved in close proximity in the context of the same discipline, according to the hierarchic logic of classification.
Classified arrangement in open access shelves can be effective if the characteristics, the fundamental elements and therefore all the potentials of class indexing can be expressed and presented to users in a visible and understandable way. In the case of the Dewey Decimal Classification these characteristics are the organization by disciplines, the principle of hierarchy expressed through both the structure of classified subjects and the notation, and the decimal notation, which expresses the coordination and the subordination of subjects.
The signage system for the classified arrangement in open access shelves in the Library of Social Sciences aims to make clear to users the criteria with which the documents are organized, to indicate the position of the shelves in the physical context of the library as well as in the conceptual context of the Dewey Classification, and to display effectively all the classified subjects of the works contained on each shelf. The project for the signage system of the Dewey classified shelves at the Library of Social Sciences dates back to 2005: https://www.aib.it/aib/contr/fabbrizzi1.htm.
In order to achieve its aims, this signage system integrates the library’s communication means at various levels, both in the context of the same medium and between different media: between the information signs at the head of the shelves, between these information signs and the library website, between the library website and the catalogue; the cross-media nature of this signage suggested also the use of the QR code. The initial project was to get the signs to interact with the library’s or the users’ computers, which, for the particular architecture of the Library of Social Sciences – a completely open environment – are generally in close proximity to the open shelves; nowadays, mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, due to their portability, seem to be even more suitable for this integrated system. The possibility to access the Web while moving from shelf to shelf allows this project to be put into practice even in environments which are structurally different from the one for which it was designed.
This signage system creates a close relationship between the Dewey classified shelves and the catalogue: because of their material presence, the open shelves could be considered in turn signage for the electronic catalogue.
With not only the Library of Congress and British Library moving to RDA in 2013 (Wiggins, 2012; Danskin, 2013), but also major research libraries including Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian and Trinity College, Dublin (Carty, 2013; O’Reilly, 2013; McManus, 2013), while others are adopting a wait and see approach (Gryspeerdt, 2012), it is not only current cataloguing staff who are required to understand and be able to create records in both the old (AACR2) and the new (RDA) cataloguing standards; library school students must prepare for a working life in which their future employers may be looking for expertise in one standard, or the other, or both. This paper presents the findings of a project to introduce a flipped classroom model to the core cataloguing module on University College London’s MA in Library and Information Studies.
As a teaching and learning concept, the flipped classroom has been gaining coverage in the academic press both for secondary and tertiary education. In essence, the provision of video and other online content enables students to undertake the passive learning that normally occurs in a classroom at home and to complete activities in class-time that previously were undertaken as homework. Based on the well-established theories of John Dewey that experience is the mediator of knowledge (Dewey, 1929) and that we learn best not merely through the performance of an educator at the front of a room but by undertaking activities independently of the educator, although with their appropriate support (Dewey, 1897), the flipped classroom provides a student-centred approach as opposed to a “one size fits all” approach to teaching (Michael, 2006).
Although all students must complete at least one year’s experience working in an information service, the cataloguing experience of individual class members varies greatly at the start of the module, and this is a challenge for both students and instructors (Middleton, 2013; Welsh, 2013). In this study, the flipped classroom model, with its greater capacity to accommodate individualized learning, was found to accelerate learning for both beginning cataloguers and those with greater experience at point of entry. An anonymised analysis of the results of the assessment (due in January 2014), alongside a comparison with previous years’ assessment results will be used to evaluate whether this aspect of the flipped classroom may be regarded as having ‘leveled the playing field’ for students, or whether the spread of results is the same as in previous years even although the students’ perception of their learning is different.
This research investigated several aspects of the flipped classroom, and, in particular, the following research questions: Does the flipped classroom provide enough support for students to learn two cataloguing standards (AACR2 and RDA) in a module with the same student:teacher contact time (30 hours) that it had when only one standard (AACR2) had to be learned? Which elements of the module worked best in a flipped format? Are there elements of a basic cataloguing module that benefit from presentation in standard lecture format, as Strayer (2012) found in the introductory Statistics courses he evaluated? o If so, what are these elements? Did students spend more time outside class in learning the two standards than was needed to learn one standard in previous years, or did the flipped classroom materials provide any efficiency in saving time? o If so, which materials were most helpful in this regard. Did students’ results from the module assessment match their expectations? Are their negative impacts from the flipped classroom model? o If so, what are they? Data was collected from students using a survey and interviews. These methods were particularly appropriate intruments to gather information both on factual aspects (e.g. “How long did you spend working on learning cataloguing outside class) and subjective observations (e.g. “Would you feel confident to apply for a cataloguing role now you have completed the module?”). Data on students’ subjective observations was considered useful and important with regard both to the perceived impact of the flipped classroom and their expectations of their performance in the assessment. A phenomenon of the assessment in previous years, when cataloguing was taught using a “one size fits all” model was that students commonly expected to do much worse in the assessment than either the teacher expected or, more significantly, in terms of how they actually did perform. Any lessening of this “perception gap” is a positive gain.
There are some limitations to the study. It presents action research, which, although following robust academic standard, was gathered with the principal aim of providing data to assist in the further development and fine-tuning of the module materials and delivery for the next academic session. The sample size (30 students) is not large, although it represents the entire cohort for the MA LIS in 2013-14. Finally, as the last MA LIS course in the UK that offers detailed instruction in cataloguing standards (Bowman 2006; Whalen-Moss, 2007; Wiley, 2011), as opposed to a more general approach based solely on principles and concepts (Bawden, 2012), the course does attract those new entrants to the profession who are particularly interested in Cataloguing, Classification and Systems work, and this may skew results somewhat with regard to enthusiasm about Cataloguing in general and cataloguing standards in particular.
Nonetheless, the findings of this study of the first year of the flipped classroom at UCL are extensible to others teaching and training Cataloguing and indicate that a blended learning approach of videos, handouts, direction to other useful online sources; in-class lectures; and interactive activities provides a powerful and rewarding method for delivering instruction in AACR2, RDA, MARC 21 and BIBFRAME. This paper suggests that the future of cataloguing teaching and learning, like the future of catalogue records themselves, is hybrid.
If we search Thomson-Reuters Web of Knowledge database for “library website” (or “library web site”) we find about 300 articles. Like all studies about websites, these articles mainly verify the presence of some elements listed in a checklist (navigation tools, interactive tools, photos, texts, links and so on); the checklist is always based on previous studies and/or on the analysis of a certain number of other websites, somehow considered as “best practices”.
This kind of study is suitable for a quantitative analysis and it can be used in two ways. First, it takes a picture of a specific website genre at a precise moment (and it is much more useful if similar researches are held periodically). Second, it can be used to detect, in a specific sector, how close to best practice websites are. This latter approach is more normative than descriptive; it can be useful, but in my opinion cannot be the only one because it has two limits:
– checklist items are usually too generic: website elements of the same kind can have different communicative effects if they are done in different ways;
– checklists are sometimes based on benchmark models chosen without a previous analysis of communication strategies; this can lead to wrong conclusions or to self-fulfilling prophecies.
Semiotics produces qualitative textual analysis. This does not mean it cannot be done on wide corpora or in a systematic way. I will propose some semiotic considerations about library websites.In my study (not an exhaustive one) I have considered library websites from two points of view. The first one is closer to the aims of the literature I have just discussed. It is mainly focused on usability and information architecture. We can start from user information needs and behaviours and try to understand how library websites respond to them. How is catalogue proposed to users? How is it integrated in the website context and with other tools? How have library websites responded to web evolution on one side and to catalogue evolution on the other? Are visual representations of catalogue information really useful? Can a website reproduce experiences typically had in a library? And so on…
Another interesting theme is how a library website foresees and builds its user model. Labelling, information structure and hierarchy are important clues. And it is even more important to understand how close the user model is to the real user.
The second point of view I have considered deals with communication strategies. Literature about library websites always considers library users as “cognitive subjects” looking for information. I think they can be considered as “pathemic subjects” too (and I would like to underline “too”). This means that they can be seen as subjects looking for information and other things: a sense of community, of belonging, value sharing, participation, interaction with other peoples. These are all valuable concepts if, as it seems to be from the most recent debate, libraries in the web age are increasingly seen also as “spaces” or “places” for personal interaction and communities. This can hardly be substituted by a remote query. Many experts say that if libraries want to go on delivering services in physical spaces they have to take into account these subtle and traditionally secondary needs. Many libraries already manage to do this; and perhaps they have done since they began. But how many libraries communicate this added value through their websites? And how to do this? I hope some initial answers will be given.
The last decade transformed faceted navigation from a “nice-to-have” into a “must-have functionality” for all online web services that contain a search function. The movement has been started by commercial websites, such as online clothing stores, with the purpose of facilitating access to the products.
Now, faceted search seems to be more and more well-known within the community of information institutions and their digital services, too, as for example the online catalogue of
the Library of Congress or Europeana show. In this context, as well, the feature is often sold as an added value to access the content of their sites in a more effective way. Still, experience shows that the use of faceted navigation in a digital library context is more complex than for online clothing stores. For this reason, it is important to focus on the usability of such functionalities and to test it as often as possible during implementation and regular use, as well. Site providers have to be aware of one important fact: a faceted search that has not been implemented correctly or does not work in the way the user expects it, will create frustration and/or not be used at all. This implies in a worst case scenario that users don’t come back to the site anymore, and may even spread their negative experience among the community. To prevent this, usability tests, either with experts or real users, should be conducted regularly.
This can be done with common usability tests, using direct human interaction with a system, or with online tests, where test user are free to fill in the test whenever they want. In both cases, test results illuminate a system’s weaknesses and expose dysfunctional issues, which should be improved in order to offer a positive experience to its users.
For more than five years, the project ACCEPT, a subproject of a Swiss national project called e-lib.ch, analyzes the usability and usefulness of digital libraries, by using user oriented methods. Experience has shown that filters provided through faceted navigation are considered as positive and very useful by end users. Nevertheless, based on different test results, several returning mistakes have been detected and it turns out that there are some ‘unwritten standards’ concerning e.g. position, labelling or ranking which should be respected to fulfil the aim of a good usability which users do expect of such web services. In this poster we will first give an introduction to faceted navigation, actual design issues and their use in digital libraries and then present testing methods, which can be easily applied in a digital library context. Together with a list of best practices concerning faceted navigation drawn out of different test experiences, the paper should give the reader all important information to evaluate its current faceted navigation and see where improvements could be made.Eliane Blumer has a B.Sc. in Information Science and is currently working as research and teaching assistant at the Geneva School of Business Administration within the fields of usability of digital libraries as well as innovative user interfaces.Jasmin Hügi has a B. Sc. in Information Science and is currently following a Master in the same field. She is working as research assistant at the Geneva School of Business Administration within the fields of usability of digital libraries and semantic publishing.Prof. Dr. René Schneider works since 2006 as Professor in Information Science at the Geneva School of Business Administration. Along with his teaching tasks, he coordinates several projects about the creation of innovative user interfaces as well as the usability and usefulness evaluation of digital libraries. He graduated in Computer Linguistics and Hispanics and holds a Ph. D. in Linguistics.
Italian Law 106 of April 15th, 2004 (legislation concerning the legal deposit of documents of cultural significance intended for public consumption) made it obligatory to submit for legal deposit any document intended for public consumption in order that a lasting memory of Italy’s cultural and social life be preserved. Lombardy Region has entrusted the management of its Archive of Published Documents to the BEIC Foundation. Every year more than 18,000 monographs, 40,000 issues and 2,500 multimedia items are processed by the Archive staff and the records are added to the national catalogue (SBN catalogue).
To promote its activity and collections, the BEIC Foundation has recently implemented an enriched dedicated OPAC (the first of its kind in Italy) following the STATEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL CATALOGUING PRINCIPLES (ICP) and adopting Primo (Ex Libris) as discovery tool. A tool to identify and georeference the publishers according to the district and the annual production has been realized through the enrichment of the bibliographic data.Chiara Consonni graduated from the International Master in Digital Library Learning (Oslo, Norway; Tallinn, Estonia; Parma Italy) and is employed at the Fondazione BEIC as responsible for the infrastructure and applications. Her research interests embrace digital library services and how they can support the knowledge creation process.Danilo Deana is employed at the Divisione Coordinamento Biblioteche of the Milan University and is the project manager of the Digital library division of the BEIC Foundation. In the recent years he has worked with several institution and company dealing with digitization systems.
The realization of Linked Open Data vision demands extrovert behaviour from the side of libraries engendering a leakage to their data silos. This openness should be accompanied with the establishment of common contact points, escaping from the “Tower of Babel” of the web. With the aspiration to introduce itself in the linked data environment and to make an initial step towards the communication between Greek academic libraries, Panteion University Library has developed POLAriS (Panteion Open Linked AuthoRItieS), which is a webification of Subject Headings of Panteion Library, focusing on Social Sciences, linking to LSCH (http://library.panteion.gr/polaris/)
Subject indexing is a time consuming process which indicates an imperative need for an efficient tool among cataloguers’ community, assisting their daily tasks. The proposed Web based application facilitates library’s personnel to detect any equivalencies between two authority files and untwine any disambiguation. POLAriS is a step forward to the enhancement of the uniformity of subject indexing among Greek cataloguers regarding the subject headings of social sciences. Cataloguers’ work is simplified through the visualization that offers a topic map. Acting as a Cataloguing Support Tool, it emphases on the visual browsing of authorities, aiming at librarians’ consistency, efficiency and productivity. POLAriS data have been integrated as a tool to our repository as a subject recommendation system for the dissertation submission. POLAriS usage will intensify the consistency of our subject indexing behaviour adding value to library resources and increasing the effectiveness of our work.
POLAriS is based on a bidirectional relationship with the user. On one hand, users can consult it regarding to authorities interconnections and their full UNIMARC records, having at the same time useful manuals on the same screen for simplifying the process of subject indexing. On the other hand, POLAriS empowers users to make suggestions on the terminology used for Subject Heading of the selected record and edit it according to his needs. Functionalities like downloading and printing are embedded in the application. Furthermore, POLAriS is bridging bridges library’s resources under a single platform. Each user can access repository’s (http://pandemos.panteion.gr/) and OPAC’s (http://library.panteion.gr/opacial/) records browsing POLAriS data.
Our belief is that the provision of Subject Headings on the web will give us the opportunity to prove the richness and validity of Panteion Library’s authority data. At the same time, we hope that the publicity of such projects will sensitize the community of Greek academic libraries towards cooperation. An additional poster’s aim is to contribute to the discussion on open bibliographic data and Linked Open Data in the area of academic libraries. Conclusions, regarding the problems encountered, will benefit librarians revealing new ways for further exploitation of current infrastructure.Dionysios Kakavoulis obtained his Bachelor in Informatics and Telecommunications in 2009 from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and his Master in Information Systems from Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece in 2012. Currently he works as an IT Specialist in Information Technology and Technical Support Department of the Panteion Univercity Library. His research interests include web-based software applications, Semantic Web, Information Retrieval and digital libraries.Leonidas Papachristopoulos is a PhD student at the Department of Archive and Library Sciences at the Ionian University. He received his MSc in Library management with a special focus on new technologies and his research interests include ontology management, ontology evolution, digital library evaluation, methodology assessment in digital library evaluation and bibliometrics.Constantia Kakali is the Director of Panteion University Library, Athens, Greece. She received her diploma (MLIS) in Information Science at the Department of Archives and Library Science, Ionian University in 2006 and her BSc in Department of Library Science and Information Systems at the Faculty of Management and Economics of the Technical Educational Institution of Athens in 2001. She owns also a degree in Sociology. Her rich research activity focuses mainly on the knowledge organization systems and subject indexing.
RISM is the largest and only globally–operating enterprise that documents written musical sources.
The International Inventory of Musical Sources – Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM) – aims for comprehensive documentation of extant musical sources worldwide. These documented primary sources are manuscripts or printed music, writings on music theory, and libretti. They are housed in libraries, archives, monasteries, schools and private collections. Today, RISM is recognized within the scholarly community as the central place for the documentation of music primary sources.
In the past working for RISM was more or less a one way. Working groups or catalogers in the libraries sent their information to the Zentralredaktion in Frankfurt, where they have been entered or loaded in an internal database and published as CD–ROM or as Internet database. Since 2010 this database is available free of charge for searching. For using the data they are offered as open data since 2013 and for spring 2014 a linked open data publication is planed. Moreover the Zentralredaktion offers the data via a SRU Interface.
The poster will describe some examples for collaborations between library projects and RISM, for RISM data used as meta data for digital resources and will give some technical and methodological background information.Klaus Keil is a musicologist and theologian.Born 1954 near Göttingen (Germany). Studied philosophy, Catholic theology, and musicology at the Philosophical-Theological Seminary St. Georgen, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt, and the Albert-Ludwig-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau. Research on the repertoire of the papal singers’ society “Cappella Sistina” during the time between 1520 and 1580. Since 1982 employed at the RISM Zentralredaktion (Central Office) in Kassel as editor (student worker), creating parameters for the development and testing of new computer applications. Permanent employment in 1987 as research associate and in 1991 promoted to director. Since then, diverse publications on the work of RISM, most recently co-editor of the conference proceedings Academic and Technical Challenges of Musicological Source Research in an International Framework (Hildesheim, 2010). (Representative of the Independent Research Institutes section of the Hessian State Music Council and since 2013 co-president of the International Adolph Henselt Association).
RLUK (Research Libraries UK) is a consortium of 34 of the top research and national libraries in the UK and Ireland. The consortium was founded 30 years ago and has since continually developed itself on the back of shared services, principles and action. In 2013, RLUK became the first consortium to join The European Library on its relaunch. One of the principal drivers behind becoming part of The European Library was the prospect of transforming our union catalogue of bibliographic metadata into a huge set of linked open data. Linked open data is no longer at the embryonic stage of use and deployment to effect new ways of discovering, searching for, connecting and enriching resources for all on the open Web. However, in the library sphere, systems that could truly take advantage of a fully semantic approach to resource description, discovery and access have been slower to appear. Moreover even the very few that have come into being based on linked data principles are still based on what are arguably traditional library functions: accession, description, and access.
RLUK therefore seeks not only to release through The European Library what will eventually be one of the largest sets to date of linked open data but also to build a community around its use. The aim will be twofold: initially it will be to bring together developers from all quarters, be they library based, attached to academic research projects, commercial or open source software writers to see what can be created using our linked open data, with an opening Hackathon at Easter, 2014. Developing alongside this, RLUK will seek also to engage vendors and researchers to see where and how more ad–hoc and ephemeral services in the service of scholarly work can be made more applicable, more relevant and more efficient as tools the library can offer its patrons and users to help them both create new and apposite tools, and consume them, beyond even ‘the catalogue’ or ‘the discovery service’, whether they are established academics, early career researchers, undergraduates, or in outreach work to members of the public. Ultimately, this would point to the co–design of systems that would combine library and active research needs more holistically, and allow not only the direct linking of passive resources for discovery but also actively assist researchers in the dynamic creation of new knowledge, new methodologies and new forms of broadcasting research. Would such a marriage of systems or functions be possible through using a linked open data or fully semantic approach on that basis? The poster will suggest why this should be optimally aspired to.Mike Mertens is Deputy Executive Director and Data Services Manager of RLUK. Mike has advised a number of other groups including The European Library, LIBER, Jisc, Mimas, and the DPC. Mike’s academic background is in languages and history. He still actively researches, and has recently collaborated with colleagues in both the academic and artistic fields.
After the publication of the platform http://dati.camera.it, containing linked open data about the official acts, the bodies and the members of the Italian Chamber of deputies since 1848, the Chamber is now applying linked open data principles to the bibliographic references in the database called BPR – Bibliography of the Italian Parliament and Electoral Studies.
The BPRis a database created and mantained by the Library of the Chamber of deputies; it is updated three times a year and currently contains more than 20,000 bibliographic references relating to the Italian Parliament, the post–1945 National Consultative Assembly and Constituent Assembly, and the general elections, since 1848.
Each reference is assigned one or more classification codes, which are taken from a directory of over 100 classifications that are organized into seven major fields.
The BPR encompasses mainly juridical essays, but also research on political and organization science, on political sociology, as well as relevant historiographical literature. It includes references to books and articles published in periodicals, miscellaneous volumes, encyclopedias and selected websites. It also offers nearly 3,000 full texts.
The database can be consulted at http://bpr.camera.it and from the historical portal of the Chamber of deputies (http://storia.camera.it/bpr#nav). During the restructuring of the database, which is being realized jointly by the Library and the Information technology Department, it was decided to adopt the linked open data model both internally, using the PAD modular system (Piattaforma aperta per la documentazione digitale = Open platform for digital documentation) and in the publication of data, not only on the official portal but also on the new BPR website, that will permit direct download of data in the RDF/XML serialization. The BPR linked open data project is at an advanced stage and it is expected to be concluded in early 2014.
The Library participated mainly in the following activities: 1. Selection of the ontologies to be used for data publication (Dublin Core, ISBD Ontology, Bibo Ontology); 2. Mapping from the previous db Access to the properties of the ontologies chosen; 3. Customization of the PAD platform functionalities; 4. Redesign of the consultation website, based mainly on faceted search; Next steps are:
5. Linking to other linked open data resources: firstly, to the biographical datasets already published by Chamber of deputies according to the OCD ontology (Ontologia della Camera dei deputati = Chamber of deputies Ontology); secondly, to external datasets such as VIAF for authors, and, possibly, to the Italian Nuovo soggettario for classification terms; 6. Increasing the external projection of the BPR, permitting data harvesting by portals such as CulturaItalia (the Italian aggregator toEuropeana) and general data reuse.Lucia Panciera is an official of the Library of the Chamber of deputies, at present in charge of the management and the quality control of the library catalogue. She graduated in 1992 at the Advanced School for Archivists and Librarians, Specialization for Librarians (University of Rome “La Sapienza”)and got a master’s degree in Library Management and Administration in 2009 (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan – IAL Nazionale, Brescia) . She has been working since 1993 in the Library of the Chamber of deputies (reference, acquisitions, cataloguing and
parliamentary databases departments). She is a member of the library working group for the Bibliography of the Italian Parliament and electoral studies since its constitution in 1997. Her main interests are metadata, search interfaces and the semantic web.
Since catalogue is the main tool guiding researches through a library collection, a key responsibility of librarians is to maintain a high–quality collection’s catalogue. Transformation of catalogues from paper to online format is a historical process that has still to be thoroughly managed in the music field, as information currently produced on paper catalogues is hidden to studies. The lack of coordination between two humanistic disciplines, information science and musicology, which is happening at national and level, should be overcome. Collective cataloguing is a methodology yet to be shared, even if it led to essential results already in the ’60. The founder of Italian music bibliography Claudio Sartori used it and through the collective catalogues he worked on he promoted access to music. Cataloguing data published in scholarly works are also hidden to catalogue users until they are retrieved from publications. Cooperation with sister disciplines – archivists and museum curators – may be also crucial.
This view underpins cataloguing activities at the Library of the Conservatorio di musica ‘L. Cherubini’ in Florence since 2011. Badly damaged by the flood of Florence in 1966, the library was quite closed until 2009. The interruption of professional library activities gives the current librarian an opportunity to review all library procedures. Early results lead to a methodological proposal for updating library catalogues here explained through two case studies: the Pitti collection and the Basevi collection.
The Pitti music collection – 6000 items including 4000 manuscripts – tells the story and role of music at the Habsburg court of Ferdinando III (1769–1824), the Grand duke of Tuscany, who let copied and acquired materials both in Tuscany and in Austrian and German countries, where he had to live after 1799, before he came back to Florence (1814). The collection represents connections among Florence and Europe. The Basevi collection of rare items represents the personality of Abramo Basevi, musician, music critic and musicologist, founder of the Conservatory (1862), of the “Società del quartetto”, of the journal “Boccherini” and of the Competition for quartets named after him. The collection represents the role of Florence in the Italian history of music.
The renewed cataloguing process implies sharing of information among collective catalogues, musicologists and researches, and the library, which assumes the role of a research centre distributing updated information received by the users to other users, therefore strengthening the scholarly community while developing communication through old and new media, as well as keeping the focus on its own research aim: to maintain the catalogue seen as a best practice activity. Professional librarians should therefore have a capacity to use new technologies; to follow the current trends in cataloguing development, as well as to implement ideas circulating among the library and its users, while sticking to basic values of library information science, based on a strong self–consciousness of its historic development. The aim of this mutual help should be to strength the influence of music within culture and society.Federica Riva has a degree in Musicology (1987) at the Università degli studi di Pavia, Scuola di Paleografia e Filologia musicale di Cremona. Two years music cataloguer of printed music by the Biblioteca del Conservatorio statale di musica “G. Verdi” (1989) the music librarian in Campobasso, Palermo (1993-1994), Parma (1994-2010) where developed experience on archival documents and museum objects in music, Firenze (2010-) where library services have to be completely re-organized after 40 years of closed library. Conservatories. Studies in and Information science of the second level Master course (University of Newcastle and Università di Parma) with prof. A.M.Tammaro). Active in the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres (IAML) as chair of the Libraries in Music Teaching Institutions Branch (6 years), Copyright Committee (6 years, promoting a worldwide survey on copyright and music libraries published on the IAML website) IAML Vice-President (6 years). At present secretary of the Archive and Documentation Centres branch and chair of the working group Libraries in Music Teaching Institutions and accreditation. Co-founder of the Italian national branch of IAML (1994), since then organizing the scientific aspect annual meetings promoting collaboration with AIB. Treasurer; now President, developing cooperation with national central Institutes (ICCU; Direzione generale Archivi) and international R-projects. Published about the state of art of Italian cataloguing of music primary sources in relationship with international projects and local research; library services (loan, reproduction) and copyright law; authority control (names in music) with Massimo Gentili-Tedeschi. Publications: works in progress: Issues in Music Iconography from the Italian Conservatories in Parma and Florence (RIdIM Istambul conference 2013), Are we following Claudio Sartori’s lesson? Managing union catalogues of music in Italy between paper and digital technologies: methodological issues and the state of art (IAML conference Vienna 2013). Ongoing individual scientific projects: Cumulative Index of teachers and students of the Italian Music Conservatories in the XIX century. Publication list on the Conservatorio di Firenze website.
The poster will describe the cataloguing workflow as a part of catalogue improvement.
As a librarian involved in day–by–day cataloguing, every research on a library catalogue is an occasion to discover, in bibliographic and in authority entries, a huge amount of mistakes, expecially in printed book and film description, and it is far from rare to have the doubt if the record I’m looking has been created for the same edition of my copy–in–hand, or for a different one.
In my contribute, referring to the italian (i.e. REICAT) situation but triyng to having a look on the international (i.e. RDA) one, i’ll discuss some practical examples of book and film cataloguing, on the assumption that examples are both important to build good cataloguing rules and to apply them.
Particular attention will be paid to record duplication and inaccuracies, triyng to understand how to avoid them, focusing on the procedures of correcting errors in particular what a cataloguer has to do to contact the collegue who created the record, discuss with him which corrections the record needs, who will made them and so on.
If the efficiency of cataloguing workflow is a crucial factor to build a library catalogue with clear and correct descriptions of the materials the library owns, then the back–office cataloguing needs to be fast, rich and smart as much as the catalogue is.
Starting from that point, I’ll try to evidence how is better to rethink both the catalogue and the cataloguing process before reshaping them.Stefano Bolelli Gallevi, after a degree in Library science at the Università di Pisa with a dissertation in theory of cataloguing (tutor prof. Alberto Petrucciani), he now attends the post-graduated Scuola di specializzazione at SSAB – Università La Sapienza di Roma. He worked for several years in university libraries and collaborated with the commission for the REICAT cataloguing rules in the PERRICA project.
From July 2013 he is a librarian at Università degli studi di Milano, working at the Biblioteca del Polo di mediazione interculturale e di comunicazione di Sesto S. Giovanni.
The websites are kinds of information resources in the knowledge and information cycle. On the other hand, the cataloging and organizing of information resources is the basic, technical and central element or core in this regard. So it is necessary to pay attention to these websites by NLAI. Because one of the main function and responsibility of NLAI (like many other ones), is to supervise, control and compile cataloging standards for other libraries and information centers.
The NLAI has done and entered in the field of processing and cataloging of books and non–books materials consist of printed and electronic resources. So the NLAI should have a clear program and plan for cataloging, updating and managing the websites. This research intends to explore the feasibility study about the cataloging of websites as the significant electronic resources in the national and international field by NLAI. The importance of this research. Deferent advantages and aspects: 1. To establish and design of websites database and to enrich the National Bibliography of Iran; 2. To searching the websites with utilization of the (RASA) library software capability; 3. To establish the accessibility points or links of descriptive and analytical aspects for the end users; 4. To reach to the recall and precision in information retrieval systems in websites bibliographic records; 5. To make standard and integrating of websites cataloging from the descriptive and analytical aspects. The research aims. The main object of the present study is to achieve to the websites cataloging with using the standard rules which are used in NLAI. For this purpose these sub aims as follows: 1. To study about the gathering websites information; 2. Bibliographic description of the websites on the basis of standards and rules which are used in NLAI; 3. The recall and precision accessibility to the websites with establishing the retrievals links and topical analyses in this regard as well; 4. Utilization of subject systems which are used in NLAI for websites indexing. The main questions. 1. From what ways can we reach to the websites information? 2. How is the situation of the websites bibliographic description, on the basis of NLAI, standards and rules? 3. How is the situation of recall and precision accessibility to the websites links and subject analysis in this regard? 4. How is the utilization of subject systems in NLAI for websites indexing? The statistical society. The statistical society of the present study is 50 websites. These are in 20 subjects which have been selected as random from the Pars Index websites. Methodology of the research. The present research has been carried out using the descriptive survey study and library one. To collect the necessary information we have used check list and for the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, has been used. Conclusion. The researchers are intending to come to this conclusion that is it possible for utilization of electronic resources cataloging rules and standards about the websites cataloging or not? And also is it possible to carry out the customized rules and standards of cataloging on the websites as the kinds of electronic resources in NLAI?Reza Khanipour has a PhD in LIS, and is Faculty member of NLAISoheyla Faal has a Master Degree in LIS. Head of Non-book Resources Section of NLAIMahbube Ghorbani PhD student of LIS. Deputy of Director of Processing Department of NLAI
The world of ETDs: publishing the scholarship of thousands of students, providing access to research, facilitating graduation and providing researchers discoverability to data. The University of Cincinnati, in collaboration with the state of Ohio’s OhioLINK Consortium, provides the means and platform for electronic theses and dissertations to be published and available to researchers locally and globally.
From the automated submission process designed by the University of Cincinnati Graduate Studies Office, to the OhioLINK platform, with collaboration with the UC Libraries Electronic Resources Department, ETDs are submitted, cataloged and available for discovery in the library catalog and Summon, OCLC WorldCat and The OhioLINK ETD Center in and efficient and timely manner.
This poster explains the steps, platforms and process used, including automated and manual, local, state and national standards, scripts for cataloging and systems.
Information included will demonstrate the usage and download statistics for ETDs including global maps.Susan Banoun is Head of the Electronic Resources Department at the University of Cincinnati Libraries
BeWeb – online ecclesiastical cultural heritage – is a project to establish a portal dedicated to the cultural and artistic heritage of the Catholic Church, by providing an integrated view of data regarding churches, the artwork and items of worship they contain, library and archive funds of diocesan and religious institutes, with a special focus on cultural, scientific and pastoral care aspects, in order to provide an authoritative tool for users to know more about these extraordinary assets.
Our goal is to share the outcome of all activities carried out by dioceses and ecclesiastical cultural institutes to manage and enhance their cultural and artistic heritage, both through the catalogue – which provides a virtual map of buildings, items, cultural institutes, archives, funds and libraries – and also through content creation, by connecting different resources together and helping users find their way through this wealth of material, in order for them to appreciate aspects related to pastoral care and worship, in addition to history and culture. Integrating this kind of information leads to a clearer perception of the Church’s unique cultural heritage, which can be understood only by referring to local contexts that provide users with a fundamental key for interpretation.
The digital inventory of ecclesiastical cultural and artistic heritage, that Italian dioceses have been urged to contribute to by the Italian Bishops’ Conference since 1997 – with the support of the National Office for Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage (UNBCE) acting as coordinator – has led to the creation of a massive digital data bank in the last ten years. The inventory documents an extremely important, sizeable and peculiar cultural heritage, and testifies to the sense of responsibility and spirit of service of dioceses and religious institutes.
UNBCE has laid down the methodology, identified strategies, provided means and support in the different work stages, but this project has been and still is a major networking effort, to which each diocese and institute contribute, safeguarding the added value that is given by the close union between information and heritage which, in several online projects, is sometimes undermined.
The various inventory projects are the result of intense activity based on specific agreements signed with the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities and respective Central Institutes, to promote filing initiatives that comply with relevant national and international standards, safeguarding filing entities’ specifities. The traditionally active dialogue between UNBCE, Ministry officials and particular Churches has led to the pursuit of shared goals in implementing this ambitious project.
Currently, BeWeb hosts the data banks of several Italian dioceses’ historic and artistic heritage, in addition to fact sheets regarding dioceses and cultural institutes (museums, archives and libraries). Over time, it will be enriched with data banks of architectural heritage, archival funds and library assets, thus becoming a cross-sectoral portal of ecclesiastical cultural heritage with and extraordinary potential.
BeWeb engages in dialogue on a 360° radius: this project also includes continuous updates and reflections regarding national and international scenarios, through a semantic web, open data and integration with internationally-renowned archives such as VIAF, ULAN, TGN. All this is also made possible by the development of access point control and standardization (authority files).BeWeb’s aim is to provide for different navigation needs: from average users looking for basic information to specialists engaging in more sophisticated searches. BeWeb acts as a mediator between users and cultural institutions, to enhance the Church’s important cultural heritage through greater participation by making communication easier.Stefano Russo graduated in Architecture at the Faculty of Pescara, in 1991 he obtained a Bacellerato in Theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. In 1991 he was ordained as priest. Since 1991 he is parochial vicar in the Parish of St. James of the Marches at Ascoli Piceno. Since 2005 he is Director of the National Office for the ecclesiastical cultural heritage of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.
Our contribution concentrates on the processes of cataloguing and digitalizing of hand–written letters and business documents belonging to the “Ricordi Historical Archive” in Milan, which is at present housed in the Braidense National Library; the archive possesses documents referring to the history of the publishing company covering the two centuries of its activities.
Starting from the ledgers compiled by Giovanni Ricordi, which cover a period from 1814 up to the middle of the 19th century to the documents relative to the school of engraving, the archive also houses a large number of editorial catalogues, published by Ricordi and by other publishing houses which it took over, as well as the original contracts stipulated with composers and librettists from Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini to Arrigo Boito. The collection of about 15,000 hand–written letters covers the period from the beginning of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century and includes documents sent to Ricordi from writers, singers authors, and composers such as Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and Ottorino Respighi and librettists Luigi Illica, Giuseppe Giacosa and Arrigo Boito. The second part of the correspondence is made up letter–books and business correspondence which were kept intact from 1888 to 1962, except for the period from 1944 to 1953. Since 2006, work has been carried out to catalogue and digitalize the Ricordi Archive based on the standards set out by the National Library Service (Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale – SBN) which is head of the Central Institute for the Single Catalogue (ICCU). The structure and use of the archive and the external transmission of its contents are safeguarded and enhanced thanks to the combined work of cataloguing and digitalization of this heritage: the preliminary cataloguing of the documents uses a simplified model of the scheme adopted in the description of the manuscript according to sw Manus, elaborated by ICCU: the detailed cataloguing uses seven main fields (identifier, creator, publisher, subject, description, contributor, date) followed by six fields relative to the material details of the document (type, format, language, relation, library, shelfmark); digitalization is done after cataloguing of the pieces: in this brief contribution we will show the production phases (Shooting mode, electronic formats of the digital articles, identification of images) and post–production (Indexing and editing of metadata mag) of the digitalized files. “The Ricordi Historical Archive” also uses a dedicated portal which is compatible with the research on the website “Internet Culturale”(Cultural Internet) (IC) of MagTeca–ICCU which includes, to date, 8338 bibliographic references relative to the Archive. The complete archive of the “Ricordi Historical Archive” can also be explored in its various sectors using the Unified Informations System for the Archivistic Supervision (SIUSA) which can be consulted on the website http://siusa.archivi.beniculturali.it/cgi–bin/pagina.pl.Mathias Balbi graduated in Arts at the University of Genoa and has a Master degree in LIS at the University of Pavia. As a librarian and archivist he specialized on Cataloguing of Rare books in 2003. From 2003 to 2009 he involved in special collections’ projects at the Accademia delle Scienze and Biblioteca Nazionale. He currently works at Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense in Milan, where, after the development of a major cataloguing project of the Jesuit editions between 1501-1830, is involved in the cataloguing project of the Ricordi Historical Archive, within the “Verdi on–line” project.Alberto Abis works at the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense and is involved in the cataloguing project of the Ricordi Historical Archive
Dissertations consist of significant information which are used by the researchers and students in different fields. So access to them is very important. We can reach to this essential aim by the means of cataloging and indexing. By standard cataloging and indexing, the correct information of every record (metadata) will be presented and thus we can evaluate the resources collection with various criteria. Finally for enriching and completing of the NLAI collection, we can propose the scientific and effective steps.
The present research will study the situation of dissertation cataloging and indexing in NLAI on the basis of the usage of metadata standards and rules. These rules are in two sections: descriptive & analytical cataloging. In this regard we present the thesauruses which are used as well. Meanwhile we explore about the software and metadata standards. Then we explain about the way of designing the MARC sheet works and their usage, fields and subfields in this regard. The present essay will explore about the dissertations of NLAI. In this regard we study about the records of theses in the Iranian bibliographic database on the basis or three criteria: date, university and subject field.
We use two descriptive methodologies in this research: survey and documentary or library research. The tool of gathering necessary information is checklist. Meanwhile we have used the descriptive statistics to analysis the information. With the used of advanced search and also Boolean logic in the NLAI comprehensive software (RASA), we reached to the necessary data. The researches intend to answer the mentioned question in the criteria. And with the use of the advantages and also the evaluation of descriptive and analytical collection of the dissertations in the NLAI, we propose the recommendations to enrich and complete and acquisition of the collection with pay attention to the needs of end users and NLAI aims and regulations.Soheyla Faal has a Master Degree in LIS. Head of Non-book Resources Section of NLAIMitra Samiei has a PhD in LIS and is General-Director of Processing Department of NLAI
The poster describes the new catalogation protocol and architecture that we are building at Brescia & Cremona public libraries consortia (Network).
The catalogation group is doing a wide semantic catalogation of work adding to them subjects, names and classes and avoiding to link same semantic indexes to manifestations (editions) linked to work. This makes quicker the catalogation of new edtions and reduce the costs of catalog maintenace for the future. This actvity is performed mainly on fiction material.
Another research area is about reshaping and simplufy catalog searches “decomposing” subject in terms and connecting single terms to works or manifestations. In this way we hope to reduce catalog maintenace and make easier the indexing process performed by cataloguers; new tools are built to answer questions like: “find which terms are used as subjects with those other terms? Or find manifestations linked to a specific list of term or subset/superset of it. This process is derived from Postcoordinated indexing.
The poster will describe this project using couple of catalog example using a graph approach.
The Ufficio Biblioteche della Provincia di Brescia, active since the early ’90s, manages the catalogation process for most of the public libraries of Brescia and Cremona Provinces. This entity is very careful to catalogation science and latest theories and it’s very precise about documenting his activities, best practices and protocol standars applied duris his work.
Comperio is a solution provider for libraries working to support all need of libraries. In this case Comperio is working to build all tools and LMS functions needed by this project.Dario Rigolin founded e-Portal Technologies with Paolo Pezzolo in 2002 and is currently Head of Research and Development Comperio. Dario has gained many experiences, even abroad, in the design and implementation of information systems based on open source technologies.
Sala San Pio X, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
— via dell’Ospedale 1, Roma
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