Author Archives: bibliography

Linked Open BNB Preview Now Available

Background

The British Library is developing a version of the British National Bibliography which it will make available as Linked Open Data.

The initial offering includes published books with future releases extending coverage to include serial publications, multipart works, integrating resources, kits and forthcoming publications.

The first subset of the British National Bibliography, covering books published or distributed in the UK since 2005, is currently available for preview at:

SPARQL endpoint: bnb.data.bl.uk/sparql
Describe endpoint: bnb.data.bl.uk/describe
Search service: bnb.data.bl.uk/search & bnb.data.bl.uk/items

Links to the following linked open data sources have been provided:
VIAF
LCSH
Lexvo
GeoNames (for country of publication)
MARC country and language codes
Dewey.info
RDF Book Mashup

The preview system represents a work in progress, but one we hope is sufficiently developed to be of interest to external audiences. Some further details and background documentation may be found at: http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/datafree.html

Testing Resource Description and Access (RDA) – Announcement

The Library of Congress, the National Agricultural Library, and the National Library of Medicine have issued a statement from the Executives of the three libraries regarding the Report and Recommendations of the U.S. RDA Test Coordinating Committee on the implementation of RDA—Resource Description & Access. 

The full Report and Recommendations will be available prior the ALA Annual Conference on the Testing Resource Description and Access Home Page: http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/rda/

An executive summary of the report is currently available at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/tsd/cataloging/RDA_report_executive_summary.pdf

 

LC Statement on ‘Transforming our Bibliographic Framework’

The Library of Congress has issued a statement ‘Transforming our Bibliographic Framework’ in which it announces a new collaborative initiative to be led by Associate Librarian of Congress for Library Services, Deanna Marcum to look at the issues involved in migrating from MARC to new bibliographic metadata formats.

As part of its work the LC will:

  • Determine which aspects of current metadata encoding standards should be retained and evolved into a format for the future.  
  • Experiment with Semantic Web and linked data technologies to see what benefits to the bibliographic framework they offer.
  • Foster maximum re-use of library metadata in the broader Web search environment.
  • Enable users to navigate relationships among entities to search more precisely in library catalogs and in the broader Internet. 
  • Explore the use of promising data models such as Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) in navigating relationships.
  • Explore approaches to displaying metadata beyond current MARC-based systems.
  • Identify the risks of action and inaction, including an assessment of the pace of change acceptable to the broader community
  • Plan for bringing existing metadata into new bibliographic systems within the broader Library of Congress technical infrastructure.

Worldwide review of Guidelines for Subject Access in National Bibliographies started

The IFLA Working Group on Guidelines for Subject Access by National Bibliographic Agencies – including membership from the IFLA sections on Classification & Indexing, Bibliography, Knowledge Management, and Cataloguing has created a set of draft Guidelines which is now available for worldwide review at: http://www.ifla.org/en/node/1707

The International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) launched

The ISNI International Agency aims to assist media companies prepare for the International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI), a new standard which will streamline the way creative rights holders are referenced on the Internet.

“The International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI – Draft ISO 27729) is an ISO certified global standard capable of easily identifying the millions of contributors to creative works, including writers, artists, creators, performers, researchers, producers, publishers and more. The ISNI International Agency, which will be responsible for ISNI’s administration and governance, was officially incorporated by its six founding members – CISAC, IFRRO, IPDA, ProQuest, OCLC and the Conference of European National Librarians (Represented by Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the British Library) – as a London-based not-for-profit organisation on December 22nd, 2010. The consortium members represent more than 300 rights management societies and 26,000 libraries worldwide. While the Agency creates the ISNI reference database – assigning ISNI identifiers to over 5 million names – and begins building a network of ISNI Registration Agencies, media and content companies are preparing to integrate ISNI into their operations.” (ISNI Press release)

The RDA Toolkit launches

The Co-Publishers of the RDA Toolkit (American Library Association, Canadian Library Association, and CILIP—through its publishing imprint, Facet Publishing) have announced that the RDA Toolkit is now live.

The system includes:

  • RDA instructions that are searchable and browsable
  • AACR2 Rule Number Search of RDA instructions
  • Workflows, mappings: tools to customize the RDA instruction set to support organizational training and processes
  • Two views of RDA content—by table of contents and by element set
  • Full text of AACR2

Institutions or individuals can sign up for free open access until August 31, 2010, at: www.rdatoolkit.org/openaccess. Full information can be found at:  www.rdatoolkit.org where webinar archives, an RDA training calendar, presenter/trainer materials and pricing in the major currencies is now available.