Pons, Lisa (ponslm) wrote:
>
> So, I believe to move beyond talking to implementation, at least one
> thing the library world needs to do is first move away from organizing
> our resources in ways that suit the staff, to embracing some best
> practices and new standards for making and presenting our results so
> they are more useful to users. I think many libraries are doing this-
> but it is difficult
Lisa, I agree. I have been having this discussion with a variety of
persons and organizations, mainly due to the desire to move the user
experience up a level or two beyond the individual catalog to a wider
bibliographic view. (Such as WorldCat Local, which some libraries are
embracing.) In the past, we've tied the user view to the same data that
we use for library management (purchasing, checking in, inventory
control). What would change if we were performing those functions in one
system, and providing the user view in another?
One possible change would be that publisher and reseller data, perhaps
in the form of ONIX records, would be the main source of data for the
library management functions. Not the way it looks today, perhaps,
because libraries and their vendors would need to negotiate to make the
data usable for all. However, I see the ONIX serials and license efforts
to be heading in this direction. If we analyze the data that is needed
(identification, pricing, replacement agreements, scheduled delivery,
etc.) we can develop a very workable flow for this data.
What is more complex is how we will create the user data. Linking from
the library management system to the data record that facilitates the
user view would need to be done with an identifier, and we've talked
here before about needing a way to share an identifier so that we know
that my "book x" is the same as your "book y." We also need a way to
enhance records with other data, local and not local, and to produce
views based on a profile (my library view, a consortial view, an
archival view, whatever).
Without worrying about whether we use LCSH or user tags, or any other of
those questions, we could begin to design a modular system in which to
create that user view. Ideally, it would be flexible enough that we
could experiment with a lot of different content options, rather than
having to determine ahead of time what the contents would be. This is
somewhat the idea behind ThingDB
(http://demo.openlibrary.org/about/tech) that the Internet Archive is
working on. Although I think the current design is too simple for our
needs (they are thinking of adding more base types as well as RDF-style
links), it's an interesting model for us to think about: create a design
that can take any content, and work from there. Start to put stuff in it
and see how it goes. The difficulty (as if there is only one!) is that
we need to be able to build in semantics between data elements, so we
need a design that has that capability. I don't know how to do that, but
will keep investigating that area. If anyone has ideas, I'd like to hear
them.
kc
--
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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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Received on Mon Jan 07 2008 - 12:32:02 EST