"The University of Michigan and OCLC today announced that they have successfully transitioned the OAIster database to OCLC to ensure continued public access to open-archive collections, and to expand the visibility of these collections to millions of information seekers through OCLC services.

OAIster records are now fully accessible through WorldCat.org, and will be included in WorldCat.org search results along with records from thousands of libraries worldwide that add their holdings to WorldCat. OCLC plans to release a freely accessible, discrete view of the OAIster records in January 2010 through a URL specific to OAIster."

January 18-22, 2010
Boston, Massachusetts
ALA Hotel TBD and 90 Mt. Auburn, Harvard University

"Clarification" on the OCLC/OAIster terms--the comments are interesting

More on OAIster and OCLC

Blog post discusses OCLC's recent message to OAI-PMH data providers asking them to agree to a set of Terms & Conditions allowing OCLC to include data harvested via OAI-PMH in both free and toll services that OCLC provides.

From Legacy Data to Linked Data: Preparing Libraries for Web 3.0

Presentations from this program are available below:

Eric Miller (Zepheira), "Linked Data and Libraries" [1]

Diane Hillmann (Information Institute of Syracuse; Metadata Management Associates), "Are Libraries Ready for Linked Data?" [2]

Jennifer Bowen (University of Rochester), "Defining Linked Data for the eXtensible Catalog (XC): Metadata on the Bleeding Edge" [3]

Rebecca Guenther (Library of Congress), "Controlled Vocabularies as Linked Data on the Web" [4]

Discusses relationships in RDA and how FRBR-ization is less than a complete view of what FRBR could do for metadata

Description: OpenMIC is an open source, web-based cataloging tool that can be used as a standalone application or integrated with other repository architectures by a wide range of organizations. It provides a complete metadata creation system for analog and digital materials, with services to export these metadata in standard formats.

Streamlining Book Metadata Workflow
by Judy Luther (Informed Strategies)

Abstract: The white paper was commissioned by NISO and OCLC as a follow-up to the Symposium for Publishers and Librarians held by OCLC on March 18-19, 2009 to discuss book metadata. This paper analyzes the current state of metadata creation, exchange, and use throughout the book supply chain. With the number of book formats multiplying and the amount of digital content growing rapidly, the metadata required to support the discovery, sale, and use of content by a global audience is increasing exponentially. At the same time economic pressures on all stakeholders in the supply chain from publishers, wholesalers, booksellers, metadata vendors, and librarians present greater challenges to providing quality and comprehensive metadata at every point in the cycle. Through interviews with over 30 industry representatives, Luther has created a book metadata exchange map illustrating the process and has identified opportunities for eliminating redundancies and making the entire process more efficient.

Videos now available:

May 22-23, 2009
Milwaukee Central Library, Centennial Hall
Milwaukee, WI

Information organization (IO), like other major functions of the information profession, faces many ethical challenges. In the IO literature, ethical concerns have been raised with regard to, for example, the role of national and international IO standards, providing subject access to information, deprofessionalization and outsourcing of IO, education of IO professionals, and the effects of globalization. These issues, and others like them, have serious implications for quality and equity in information access. The Center for Information Policy Research and the Information Organization Research Group at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee join in presenting this conference to address the ethics of information organization.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Clare Beghtol, Professor
University of Toronto, Canada

José Augusto Chaves Guimarães, Professor
Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil

Janet Swan Hill, Professor, Associate Director for Technical Services, University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries, USA

"The DLF Aquifer Metadata Working Group is proud to release a brief report summarizing our Working Group's activities through the life of the DLF Aquifer initiative, reflecting on the impact and effectiveness of these activities, and suggesting some directions future similar initiatives might explore. "

"The fifteen members of the RLG Partners Neworking Names Advisory Group have articulated the problem space that the research community needs to address and the necessary components for a “Cooperative Identities Hub” that would have the most impact across different target audiences.  The group developed fourteen use case scenarios around academic libraries and scholars, archivists and archival users, and institutional repositories that provide the context in which different communities would benefit from aggregating information about persons and organizations, corporate and government bodies, and families, and making it available on a network level.

The just published Networking Names report summarizes the group’s recommendations on the functions and attributes needed to support the use case scenarios. We look forward to hearing your reactions and comments!"

This is a test

"RLG Partners participating in discussions about renovating descriptive practices have identified network-level integrating and sharing of metadata contributions as an area that would benefit from collective action. These contributions could come from curators, subject librarians, experts, users, etc., both locally and globally, that can enrich the descriptive metadata created by libraries, archives and museums. To be truly effective, we need to share and aggregate contributions added by users in many diverse environments."

"In a series of webcasts, Dr. Barbara Tillett, Chief, Policy and Standards Division of the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate, presents information about Resource Description and Access (RDA), the next generation cataloging code. Presentations currently available include one providing background and an overview of RDA, and one on the cataloging principles of RDA. Future presentations will focus on Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records (FRBR), Functional Requirements of Authority Data (FRAD), and the content and structure of RDA. "

From Cataloging Futures: New DLF report on metadata tools for aggregation

"The Digital Library Federation (DLF) has just issued a report by Greta de Groat, discovery metadata librarian at Stanford University: Future Directions in Metadata Remediation for Metadata Aggregators [pdf].

This report provides an overview of current and desired metadata tools used for mapping, correcting, and enhancing aggregated metadata."

"Understanding PREMIS" is now available from the PREMIS Maintenance Activity website. This document is a "gentle" introduction to the PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata, giving an overview of its scope and goals. It does not give enough information for implementation, but will make the larger document, i.e. the PREMIS Data Dictionary, more familiar.

"Understanding PREMIS" was written by Priscilla Caplan, Florida Center for Library Automation, for the Library of Congress. It is available at:   http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/understanding-premis.pdf

The full PREMIS Data Dictionary is available at: http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/v2/premis-2-0.pdf

Report on the Metadata Creation Survey

Karen blogs about the new report on the Metadata Creation Workflow survey

A 3-part blog on the OCLC record-use policy and what steps we could take

"Solrmarc can index your marc records into apache solr. It also comes with an improved version of marc4j that improves handling of UTF-8 characters, is more forgiving of malformed marc data, and can recover from data errors gracefully. This indexer is used by blacklight (http://blacklight.rubyforge.org) and vufind (http://www.vufind.org/) but it can also be used as a standalone project."

North Carolina Dublin Core Template

Qualified Dublin Core Generator

"DC-assist is a small, flexible help utility for metadata applications and is intended to complement the help pages embedded within existing software. "

Also from Duke. See" technical informatin" to see that it uses EAD and TEI lite

uses EAD

use for metadata as digital repository using DC with mapping

Webinar
October 29, 2008
1:00 - 2:30 p.m. (Eastern Time)

A rant against MARCXML:

"MARCXML isn't as much XML as it is MARC; it's really MARC with a bad hairdo"

Problem statement: Cultural heritage, bibliographic and archival communities use different controlled vocabularies for the resources that they manage. These controlled vocabularies may not be recognized by very diverse user communities, and ignored by large commercial information hubs and Internet search engines. Metadata needs to flow among diverse environments and reach users wherever they are. The semantic, hierarchical, and granular relationships in controlled vocabularies are often lost when retrieved outside the environment in which they were created.

Problem statement: Creating metadata that suits local needs, readily aggregates across communities, and is easily exposed to Internet search engines remains a costly enterprise. Metadata created by libraries, archives and museums is generally not available to the user communities that look first to Internet search engines. Although mapping data structures has become a commonplace solution to integrate descriptions, real interoperability across the libraries, archives and museums communities cannot be achieved without addressing differences of description at the data-content level.

Objective: Engage the RLG partnership in adapting descriptive practice to economic realities, user expectations, and the requirements of network-level services. Set new expectations for investing in metadata creation and maintenance, model attendant workflows, and facilitate the discovery of research institutions' resources by users wherever they are.

"Cataloger's Learning Workshop is a clearinghouse portal for cataloging and metadata training resources for information workers. The scope of Cataloger's Learning Workshop includes bibliographic information training in the context of formal library and information science degree programs, as well as continuing education for library practitioners. Cataloger's Learning Workshop is a cooperative project of the Library of Congress, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, and the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association.
"

Developers who need to translate metadata now have access to a new demonstration service.

OCLC Crosswalk Web Service translates metadata records from one format to another and will process up to 500 records from all requests per user, per day. With the aid of the WSDL file, users can develop a client to access the service, which is available on the OCLC ResearchWorks Web site for an undecided duration.

"Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA) describes the content of art databases by articulating a conceptual framework for describing and accessing information about works of art, architecture, other material culture, groups and collections of works, and related images. The CDWA includes 512 categories and subcategories. A small subset of categories are considered core in that they represent the minimum information necessary to identify and describe a work. The CDWA includes discussions, basic guidelines for cataloging, and examples. You may print an overview of the CDWA categories and definitions as a PDF (see left navigation).

What is CDWA Lite?
CDWA Lite is an XML schema to describe core records for works of art and material culture based on the CDWA and the CCO. CDWA Lite records are intended for contribution to union catalogs and other repositories using the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) harvesting protocol."

"Terminology Services are web-based services for controlled vocabularies. More than 4.5 million terms, 2.4 million concept links, and 2 million contextual data elements are accessible to your applications.

Each vocabulary is fully indexed and searchable. Vocabulary data is retrievable in multiple representations including the MARC authority format, used by libraries, and the SKOS Core Vocabulary used in Semantic Web applications."

Lorcan describes OCLC's Terminology services:

"We have now made a set of controlled vocabularies available as web services for experiment. In effect, these services make a variety of subject vocabularies available as resources on the web in ways that individual vocabulary elements can be found, referenced and recombined in applications. They are 'webified'."

"The University of Tennessee Digital Library Center has released the UT-DLC MODS Metadata Workbook to the library community. Developed by Cricket Deane under the direction of Melanie Feltner-Reichert, this open source client-side software provides control of date formats and other problematic fields at the point of creation, while shielding creators from the need to work in XML. The tool consists of a series of web pages that enable users to easily generate complex, valid MODS metadata records that meet the 1-4 levels of specification outlined in the Digital Library Federation Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records, (DLF Aquifer Guidelines November 2006)."

This forum allowed presenters to share various metadata related tools (including MARCedit, Archon, Metadata analysis tool, etc.)

Website includes links to a summary page for each tool.

Nine questions to guide you in choosing a metadata schema

Marie R. Kennedy

This article is a guide for collection developers at the point of considering a metadata schema for their digital collection. The nine questions asked in this article will assist a developer in clarifying how he wants the collection to be organized, described, and used. This article uses examples to illustrate how these questions guided the development of a digital collection built at the University of Southern California.

"Planet Cataloging is an automatically-generated aggregation of blogs related to cataloging and metadata"

Abstract:
"There's something very different about moving images. They're expensive to process and difficult to expose to users. They require us to engage with both new and obsolete technologies. They pose mysterious and intimidating rights issues. And they're multiplying rapidly. Special collections and archives are filling up with film, video and digital media, and most born-digital video isn't even being collected. And when it comes to providing access, we're losing the battle.

How can 21st-century archives work productively with these materials without repeating past mistakes? Most importantly, what does the history of archival engagement with moving images teach us about the future of archival access and our relationships with our users?"

This was the presentation where he used the term "embryonic metadata" (though it doesn't appear in the slides).

It details a web service that OCLC is providing for metadata conversion ("Crosswalk Web Service"); ... it gives a thorough and well-written look at the technical details of generalizing data conversion."

We conducted this survey in July and August 2007 among 18 RLG partners in the United States and the United Kingdom, selected because they had "multiple metadata creation centers" on campus that included libraries, archives, and museums and had some interaction among them. (Ten of these partners are also represented on this focus group.) Our objective was to gain a baseline understanding of current descriptive metadata practices and dependencies, the first project in our program to change metadata creation processes."

The International Standard Text Work Code (ISTC) is a numbering system developed to enable the unique identification of textual works.

Why does the ISTC matter?

As the text supply chain becomes increasingly digital, there is a growing need to uniquely identify the text of a work before it becomes a manifestation, regardless of the editions or formats which it might ultimately take. This way the creators of text works, and their authorized representatives, can more effectively manage information about the work throughout the supply chain and across industry databases and in business transactions.

As a unique identifier, the ISTC is useful in a wide range of computerized applications; some of its possible uses include tracking usage of textual works; verification of title registrations for anti-piracy purposes; management of rights information."

***************

ISTC will link various versions of texts (print, digital, large print), but it will not link all related items (so it does not solve the FRBR linking problem completely). At the DLF session "New Developments in Bibliographic Services: A Report from Bowker" Angela D'Agastino noted that it would not link translations or audio books. It is unclear whether it would link editions.

The project was commissioned as part of the response to Bibliographic Control of Web Resources: A Library of Congress Action Plan. A joint ALCTS/ALISE* task force was charged with implementing Action Item 5.1, to "improve and enhance curricula in library and information science schools by... promoting the understanding and use of metadata standards (such as Dublin Core) for describing and managing electronic and digital resources, with the goal of enabling greating participation of new LIS professionals in the development and refinement of metadata standards used both within and outside libraries." The report on Cataloging and Metadata Education submitted by the task force is available at: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/CatalogingandMetadataEducation.pdf

Blog entry describes preliminary results from a survey of RLG partners:

"In July and August RLG Programs conducted a survey among 18 RLG partners we had selected because they had "multiple metadata creation centers" on campus that included libraries, archives, and museums and had some interaction among them. Our objective was to gain a baseline understanding of current descriptive metadata practices and dependencies, the first project in our program to change metadata creation processes"

Kernel metadata is a small prescriptive vocabulary designed to support highly uniform but minimal object descriptions for the purpose of orderly collection management. The Kernel vocabulary, based on a subset of the Dublin Core (DC) metadata element set, aims to describe objects of any form or category, but its reach is limited to a small number of fundamental questions such as who, what, when, and where. The Electronic Resource Citation (ERC), also specified in this document, is an object description that addresses those four questions using Kernel and other metadata elements.

This SPEC survey investigated how metadata is implemented in ARL member libraries: which staff are creating metadata and for what kinds of digital objects, what schemas and tools they use to create and manage metadata, what skills metadata staff need and how they acquire them, and the organizational changes and challenges that metadata has brought to libraries."

As the project team investigates long-term sustainability issues for the Variations3 software, we have begun thinking about what a truly FRBR-ized version of the metadata model would look like, and if changing to this type of model would make our system more sustainable and interoperable. As a first step towards answering these questions, members of the Variations3 project team have released a report outlining the potential application of FRBR to a system designed to deliver musical content in a library environment."

ID3v2 informal standard

Almost all the capabilities from ID3 v1.1 are included in this class of frames

The aim of the program was to demonstrate how institutions can provide new methods for display, use and management of digital objects on their websites and in their repositories, using widely available open source XML tools."

June 25, 2007

The Metadata Extraction Tool programmatically extracts preservation metadata from a range of file formats including PDF documents, image files, sound files, office documents, and many others. It automatically extracts preservation-related metadata from digital files then outputs that metadata in XML. It can be used through a graphical user interface or command-line interface."

The Levels of Adoption document is intended to supplement the Digital Library Federation / Aquifer Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records, released in November 2006 under the auspices of the DLF Aquifer initiative. The Shareable MODS Guidelines represent a record-centric view of Aquifer's goals, whereas it is often helpful to set priorities for metadata creation with a user- and use-centric view. The newly-released Levels of Adoption document describes five general categories of user functionality that are likely to be supported by following specific recommendations from the Guidelines. It attempts to provide additional guidance to MODS implementers in the planning process by documenting what sorts of functionality is possible when certain elements of the Guidelines are
followed."

For those who have already begun using Core 4.0 in its beta version, the Core 4.0 website contains a document entitled "Explanation of changes between VRA Core 4.0 beta version and VRA Core 4.0 release version"

VRA Core was developed and is maintained by the Data Standards Committee of the Visual Resources Association."

* develop a formal RDA Element vocabulary (probably following the DC Abstract Model)
* develop an application profile of RDA for Dublin Core using FRBR and FRAD
* use RDF and SKOS to disclose RDA vocabularies

A new blog on the future of cataloging. 

"The focus of this blog is the future of cataloging and metadata in libraries. The preparation of the new cataloging code, RDA: Resource Description and Access, is a significant issue. The future of the MARC 21 format will also be explored. ILS/OPAC's future will be touch on also, but will not be the central focus. Also, I hope to use this blog to collocate some of the important papers, articles, websites, etc. that deal with the future of cataloging and metadata.
"

Part of the Cataloger's Learning Workshop at LC - Detailed outline with links to stndards and other supporting documents

Sally McCallum's presentation at the RLG Forum (August 06).   Sound file of the presentation also available: http://www.rlg.org/en/downloads/Sally_McCallum.mp3 (View the slides while listening is best)

Mike already tagged this one, but it's quite fascinating so I thought I'd tag it again. So, if this does what I think it does, we could export bookmarks from delicious --> tagit and vice versa. Which would be so cool.