Re: The Return of Cards? [mailing list]

From: James Weinheimer <weinheimer.jim.l_at_nyob>
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2013 13:32:00 +0200
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
On 10/11/2013 10:59 AM, Owen Stephens wrote:
<snip>
> It would be useful if you could share examples of what you see as a 
> good approach to doing linked data in libraries. The vast majority of 
> linked data examples I'm aware of are created from existing library 
> catalogue data, and as such aren't created from 'FRBR-style' records. 
> However, there is a tendency (only a tendency, not a necessity) to try 
> to link similar things when you do linked data, so some of the 
> projects do end up with aspects of FRBR in their linked data - but 
> this is despite, not because of, the record sources. (similarly some 
> discovery products attempt to group records along FRBR lines - again 
> using data available in MARC records rather than changing the 
> underlying cataloguing standards).
</snip>

I agree with you. I cannot show you FRBR-style records because they 
don't exist as yet. That seems to be one of the main purposes of the 
Bibframe project going on now. The idea is to enact linked data for 
different parts of the current bibliographic record by splitting current 
records into the entities "work" "expression" "manifestation" and 
"item". Currently, everything is based on the manifestation record, 
which carries all of the related entity information. Splitting it would 
turn our current flat files into separate "entities" that will then be 
linked. Bibframe seems to be going another way, apparently avoiding 
"work" (I think).

But as you mention, there are other ways to do it. I think the FAO 
project is as good a model as any to start with. First, FAO does not 
follow RDA, AACR2 or even ISBD since they have their own cataloging 
rules. From my own understanding of it, for the format of the 
bibliographic records (yes, there are records) it uses primarily Dublin 
Core, but includes BIBO and some elements from other schemes, along with 
one or two of its own.

For the actual linked data, it uses at least AGROVOC, their agricultural 
thesaurus now which is also linked open data with links into other 
thesauri, e.g. Eurovoc and apparently even LCSH now. 
http://aims.fao.org/standards/agrovoc/linked-open-data A lot of the rest 
of OpenAgris seems similar to federated searching.

Again, if the purpose of all of this is "access" or "resource 
discovery", then it seems that ultimately, you want someone to discover 
and *click on a link* that leads to you and your information. Then you 
can "wow" them with all of your fabulous resources, perhaps linked in 
with other wonderful information. If this is accepted as the basic 
purpose of linked data (resource discovery in some way shape or form), 
there is a lot of information in a MARC record that does not need to be 
exported, so both the format and export could be radically simplified. 
To begin with, our records could be exported much as FAO has done, using 
DC and terms from other schemes, and if something in a MARC record 
doesn't really fit, then just don't export it.

As Bernhard points out, there are some parts of our records that could 
also be linked, e.g. names and subjects into id.loc.gov. That service 
now seems to have a few links into other thesauri but again, when it 
comes right down to it, I don't know how useful all of this would be to 
the majority of users.

It is certainly worth a try, though.

-- 
James Weinheimer weinheimer.jim.l_at_gmail.com First Thus 
http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/ First Thus Facebook Page 
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Podcasts http://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
Received on Sat Oct 12 2013 - 07:32:23 EDT