> >> In point of fact if all libraries dumped their catalogs to linked
> data, some xml files, those files could be crawled by various services
> and in various ways they could link up the data to point someone to
the
> library's holdings...
> >
> > The question is how this would actually be accomplished. Most
> > libraries don't have this kind of expertise on hand, and even if
they
> > did, providing this service locally is more expensive than most
> people
> > are willing to admit.
For purposes of ILL, I'm tempted to say the question of announcing what
titles your library owns (holdings) is separate from where the full bib
records come from or reside.
What if my ILS automatically generated an updated XML file each night
that made my library holdings available for specified search engines (or
etc) to index? For books, it could include ISBN and possibly Title,
Author, and Year. For Serials, it could include ISSN and coverage years
if possible. For example, it could be a non-WorldCat resource, like
Google.
In fact, this is currently being done by some library systems, so that
Google can reflect their holdings in Google Scholar, for users who turn
on that preference.
Seems to me this has some realistic potential to be an alternative model
for ILL, that is, having another central place or places where holdings
of many/most libraries could be gathered for purposes of lending and
borrowing.
In this way, libraries would make the holdings info. available and allow
it to be indexed, instead of worrying about "uploading holdings" and to
only one place.
John
Received on Tue Mar 09 2010 - 12:29:09 EST