Category Archives: Standards Issues

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.

BIC and BISG publish new guide to the International Standard Text Code (ISTC)

Book Industry Communication (UK) and the Book Industry Study Group (US) have announced the joint publication of ‘The International Standard Text Code: A Work in Progress’ by Michael Holdsworth, the former Managing Director of  Cambridge University Press.

The ISTC has been described as potentially the most important bibliographic identifier since ISBN. It is a new ISO standard, published in 2009, which uniquely identifies an underlying textual ‘work’ independently of any specific physical or digital manifestation. As such it provides a mechanism for identifying an original text that may be available in many seemingly different published versions with different ISBNs.

Holdsworth’s paper is designed to look behind the official documentation of the International ISTC Agency at the opportunities available to publishers, retailers, rights and collection societies and bibliographic aggregators and systems providers to derive benefit from widespread early implementation of the standard.

Further information about ISTC can be found at www.istc-international.org or www.istc.nielsenbook.co.uk/controller.php?page=1022

New Register of National Bibliographies Created

The Standing Committee is currently building a register of national bibliographies to provide an up to date resource for those interested in this area of bibliographic activity.

Entries for each national bibliography will cover:

  • History & Background
  • Scope
  • Organisation & Administration
  • Services & Usage
  • Business Models
  • Standards Used

National Bibliographic Agencies wishing to contribute details of their services should complete the form on the Standing Committee website.

Please send completed forms to the Information Co-ordinator, Neil Wilson.