| Chapter 2: Essential Resources | |
| Brad Eden | |
|
|
|
| Abstract |
“As a long-time cataloger, I truly feel the pain that technical services personnel have known for a long time: the era of the library OPAC is over.” — Brad Eden, from the “Introduction” of Library Technology Reports 43:6 As library technologists and librarians are well aware, since the advent of the Internet, the relationship between the user and his/her library has changed. In a world of quick-and-easy search engines and of online social networks—in which information gets shared at an astonishingly rapid rate—information retrieval and aggregation are no longer the purview of the library institution alone. “[N]ow that I am a library administrator dealing with staffing and budget issues on a daily basis,” states Dr. Brad Eden, in the “Introduction” to the sixth issue of Library Technology Reports in 2007, “it has become quite clear that the way libraries do business just isn't working.” Eden, who early in his library career worked as a cataloger, is now the Associate University Librarian for Technical Services and Scholarly Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Also in his “Introduction,” Eden chronicles, through his own career, how the library institution and its role have changed and continue to change in the Information Age. In addition, he asserts, “So, going beyond the arguments about whether the library catalog is important or of value (it is), and going beyond the arguments about whether structured metadata, in MARC or something else, is important and of value (it definitely is), the reality is that libraries have limited resources to compete and position ourselves in the new information universe. We have gone from a monopoly, which could impose whatever rules and software and search strategies that we wanted on our users, to a bit player in market overflowing with technological gadgets, tools, and algorithms that capture the attention of the public and leave libraries with but a slim slice of the information pie, all in the space of approximately 15 years.” Thus, Eden tackles the important topic of “Information Organization Future for Libraries” in this final issue of Library Technology Reports in volume 43. In this issue, Eden focuses “not only on current initiatives around ‘reinventing’ the OPAC and all of its attendant possibilities (provided in the context of economic realities),” but, in the report, Eden also looks at “opportunities to get away from the OPAC and focus resources on new areas, such as 3D information visualization, mass digitization, Library 2.0, and metadata related to digital resources.” In this issue of Library Technology Reports, you'll find:
About the Author Brad Eden is Associate University Librarian for Technical Services and Scholarly Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Previous positions include Head, Web and Digitization Services, for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries; Head, Bibliographic and Metadata Services, for the UNLV Libraries; as well as Coordinator of Technical Services for the North Harris Montgomery Community College District. He is editor of OCLC Systems & Services: Digital Library Perspectives International and The Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances, is associate editor of Library Hi Tech and The Journal of Film Music, and is series editor of the Routledge Music Bibliographies. He has master's and Ph.D. degrees in musicology, as well as an MS in library science. He publishes in the areas of metadata, librarianship, medieval music and liturgy, and J. R. R. Tolkien. He recently edited Innovative Redesign and Reorganization of Library Technical Services: Paths for the Future and Case Studies (Libraries Unlimited, 2004) and is the author of five previous issues of Library Technology Reports, including “Metadata and Its Applications” (ALA TechSource, 2002), “3D Visualization Techniques” (ALA TechSource, 2005), “Innovative Digital Projects in the Humanities” (ALA TechSource, 2005), “Metadata and Its Applications: New Directions and Updates” (ALA TechSource, 2005), and “FRBR: Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records” (ALA TechSource, 2006). |
I no longer have any encyclopedias, any dictionaries, or any reference materials, I don't need them. I've stopped using all reference materials because you don't need it. All you need is a search engine.—Colin Powell1
In this new information universe where the library no longer holds a monopoly, it is essential that those who wish to understand the economics of the challenge before us open their minds to the new technologies, not only because they are useful to our users and to us as communication and collaboration tools, but also because they ARE the new technologies. Keeping up with the new technologies is essential. These include blogs, wikis, tools, and even listservs that have as their focus how to address the challenges and concerns surrounding information description and organization in libraries. Some of these resources are listed below. The resources in this chapter are more general than the ones listed in subsequent chapters; they should be included in any blog service that you choose to join, and should be read daily. Why? Because the big names and players either post on or maintain these blogs and listservs, and their opinions and thoughts help to drive momentum and change within our field.
This fairly recent listserv is devoted to discussions centered around how to make our OPACs more user-friendly and used by the public, as well as being a forum to discuss new technologies, products, softwares, and tools geared towards next-generation library catalogs. It is a very active listserv, and many of the major players and innovators in this area subscribe and contribute regularly to the discussions. To subscribe, send the message “subscribe ngc4lib Your Name” (no quotes) to listserv@listserv.nd.edu. There are several separate archives for this listserv, which are listed in the gray box.
This section includes actual blogs and wikis of importance, as well as links to information that discusses blogs and blogging. While not all blogs and wikis are included in this report, I am listing those that I think are the most relevant and the most active. The resources listed in Table 1 are focused on issues related to the future of cataloging and of OPACs in libraries
NGC4LIB Archive http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.culture.libraries.ngc4lib
NGC4LIB Archive: Blog-Like Interface http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.culture.libraries.ngc4lib
NGC4LIB Archive: Threaded Version http://news.gmane.org/gmane.culture.libraries.ngc4lib
Mohamed Taher, Information Visualization blog, last updated March 2, 2007
http://akbani.blogspot.com/2006/05/blog-as-teaching-tool.html
This is a well-presented, overall introduction to blogs and their use in education. It points to various related topics in other blogs, such as blogging for scholars, how NOT to use blogs in education, and arguments for using blogs as a tool. It has an excellent webliography at the end that links to various resources.
Michael D. Brooks, Associates 14, no. 1 (July 2007)
http://associates.ucr.edu/707wbro.htm
This is a concise guide to the hows and whats of blogging.
Jenny Levine and Michael Stephens, March 2006
www.tametheweb.com/presentations/BlogsPLA06.pdf
This extensive and image-packed presentation looks at library blogs and RSS feeds.
This engine searches over 700 library blogs.
This site contains the blog musings of a library technologist trying to deal with the new challenges facing libraries in the Internet environment. It includes extensive postings on the application of service-oriented architectures in academic libraries.
Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog, Jan. 15, 2007 http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001245.html
The musings of Lorcan Dempsey, vice president and chief strategist for OCLC, on the future of the OPAC are of especial interest. This post lists his favorite blogs.
Steve Cayzer, presentation, Semantics 2006, Nov. 28–30, 2006, Vienna, Austria www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2006/HPL-2006-149.pdf
This presentation gives a brief history of semantic blogging, which is defined as “the use of rich metadata to transform blogs from simple online diaries to full participants in an information sharing ecosystem.” It discusses two experiments/tools: BlogAccord and Snippet Manager. It was written by a Hewlett Packard programmer.
Karen Coyle's blog http://kcoyle.blogspot.com
See especially her September 1, 2006, posting “Murdering MARC,” as well as other thoughts regarding the future on the OPAC.
This section lists open-source tools that have been developed to help libraries manipulate the data in their catalogs in new ways, such as user-friendly interfaces, 3D information visualization maps, automated cataloging, FRBR implementations, etc. Many of these tools can be used to develop next-generation catalogs. For those who have the systems staff, these tools are an excellent way to experiment with and launch new interfaces for their catalog and other metadata. There are also a number of links to interesting articles related to tools.
This open-source software in beta version currently works only with the Voyager catalog, but the programmers at Villanova are working to add additional drivers that will work not only with proprietary OPACs but also with open-source ones like Koha and Evergreen. Originally written in XML, it is now powered by Apache Solr. A mailing list is available for subscription.
This is described as “a Firefox extension that provides direct access to your library's resources.” It is sponsored by the Virginia Tech University Libraries, Virginia Tech computer science department, and an IMLS grant. At least 61 academic and public libraries currently offer LibX editions to their users, with 86 libraries using test editions.
www.blyberg.net/2007/01/21/aadlorg-goes-social
John Blyberg's open-source tool works on III catalog data, allowing social networking tools to be integrated into the OPAC. It gives users the ability to tag, rate, comment on, and review items. The Ann Arbor District Library currently features an implementation of SOPAC.
Ann Arbor District Library www.aadl.org
Steve Mitchell. First Monday 11, no. 8 (Aug. 2006)
This article provides extensive information on two University of California–Riverside projects: iVia and Data Fountains. These open-source software tools help to create new digital library/library finding tool services. iVia is the code base for a number of digital projects, including Data Fountains, National Science Digital Library Data Fountains, Library of Congress Exploratory Data Fountains, and INFOMINE. Data Fountains, an evolved variant of the iVia system, is a self-service resource-discovery, metadata-generation, and rich-text-extraction utility for collection building. Both are based on LGPL and GPL open-source code.
iVia http://ivia.ucr.edu
Data Fountains http://datafountains.ucr.edu
press release, Feb. 21, 2007
www.talis.com/applications/news_and_events/pdfs/TOCROSS_press%20release.pdf
Sponsored by a number of United Kingdom library-related groups, the development of the Table of Contents by Really Simple Syndication (TOCRoSS) project uses open-source software and the ONIX metadata standard to help libraries automatically download journal article data into their OPACs.
www.montesanoassociates.com/apps-msafrbr.htm
This subscription service adds Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records (FRBR) views to an OPAC. It does not require recataloging or manipulation of data, since it uses an algorithm to harvest data from the MARC record.
Comments by Karen Coyle on the NGC4LIB list, April 30, 2007
As part of the first Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Cataloging meeting at the Google offices in Mountain View, California, one speaker noted that users were looking for “tools” to help them in their research. Some of these include:
- tools that recognize existing clusters of knowledge; if you find a book using LCSH, you probably already know it existed. A tool that recognizes the conversation the book was in. A tool that identifies books that were written after the book came out and have continued the conversation.
- tools that know lines of descent; chronology of publications; later readers determine connection between texts.
- tools that find unknown connections (full text search; topic maps?)
- tools that produce serendipity—hidden connections.
- tools that inform about the authority of the information.
- tools that know about real world usage (those who bought x bought y; how many people checked this out?)
- tools that know about the sociology of knowledge; the pedigrees of authors: who were they trained by, how long ago; how trustworthy is this institution?
Developed as an open-source metasearch application built with Ruby on Rails at the Oregon State University Libraries, LibraryFind allows for a two-click user workflow (one click to find, one click to get), an integrated OpenURL resolver, a three-tier caching system to improve search response time, and customizable user interfaces. It was launched to the public in February 2007 as version 0.7.
Although this Web site has had limited use because Amazon.com is behind it, there may be some reason to watch its growth. Using collaborative structured tagging, it allows users to share in a community environment. Still in beta version.
This workbook can be purchased to assist programmers who are interested in converting MARC data into XML by using the open-source software MARC4J.
http://simile.mit.edu/repository/RDFizers/marcmods2rdf
This tool, developed by the Simile folks at the MIT Library, converts MARC and MODS data into RDF. The MIT Library catalog can be downloaded in either MODS or RDF format using this utility.
http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/gnu2/iwfmdh
This open-source software product reads data from servers, moves it into databases where various kinds of searches can be implemented, and then writes HTML files to display the results. It currently handles Z39.50 data using the PICA format and OAI/XML data. Although the software was developed using Microsoft products, the developer hopes to move the programming to GNU/Linux soon.
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Source_Repository_Information
This Java tool embeds XMP rights metadata into JPEG image files. It is useful for integration with photo-heavy Web sites.
Trond Aalberg, Frank Berg Haugen, and Ole Husby, Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2006), 453–56
www.ercim.org/publication/Ercim_News/enw66/aalberg.html
This is a short online abstract of a book chapter that describes a FRBR-based tool for converting MARC records. The abstract also includes an image model of the process.
An IMLS initiative developed by the Emory University Libraries, this tool allows small information organizations such as research centers, archives, and museums to convert their local records into OAI-PMH–compliant search data using the Dublin Core metadata scheme.
NISO Metasearch Initiative, 2006
www.niso.org/standards/resources/MI-MXG_v1_0.pdf
Developed by NISO, the MXG protocol is a low-barrier-to-entry resource tha t allows content providers to expose their content to numerous metasearch gateways without requiring substantial technological or economic resources.
This integrated interface software allows users to construct “a corner of the Web” any way they wish. Named after New York's East 41st Street (Library Way), this interface appears to be used by a number of libraries (mentioned on the Web site) and features Amazon-like browsing with library-like get-it functions.
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/MozCC
An extension for Mozilla-based browsers such as Firefox, this tool allows users to examine Creative Commons licenses embedded in Web pages. It adds support for metadata in RDFa.
RDFa Primer 1.0: Embedding RDF in XHTML www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-rdfa-primer
http://spo.umdl.umich.edu/monthly/peerreview.html
This report, by Kam Shapiro from the Scholarly Publishing Office at the University of Michigan Library, details software tools now available for controlling and supervising peer review electronically. It is very detailed and of interest to libraries that are attempting to participate in and manage electronic journals for their faculty.
Solvitur Ambulando blog, Aug. 24, 2006
If you need to create metadata for images in XML (MIX) records, then these instructions for using the JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment (JHOVE) will be invaluable to you. See also the JHOVE Web site and the MIX Web site.
JHOVE Web site http://hul.harvard.edu/jhove/index.html
MIX Web site www.loc.gov/standards/mix
http://simile.mit.edu/repository/RDFizers/oai2rdf
This is a tool for changing an entire OAI repository into RDF records.
http://oregonstate.edu/∼reeset/marcedit/html/index.php
Developed by Terry Reese at Oregon State University, this tool helps to convert delimited text into MARC by exporting the records into Excel and then into a local OPAC utility. It has a number of fascinating features, such as an RSS reader, a MARC validator, and a URL checker, among others.
This bibliographic bookmarking tool from Nature can export records in a variety of formats, including MODS, RIS, BibTeX, and EndNote.
http://chopac.org/cgi-bin/tools/az2marc.pl
Charles Ledvina of the Outagamie Waupaca Library System has developed a tool that transforms Amazon XML data to create MARC records. One enters an ASIN number, and the program returns a fairly basic MARC record (with fairly bad subject headings).
http://coffeecode.net/archives/78-Super-alpha-MARC-package-for-PHP-comments-requested.html
This is a pre-alpha tool for working with MARC records using PHP. It is licensed under LGPL.
Notes
| 1. | Colin Powell, quoted in Barbara Quint, “The Chain of Demand,” Searcher, January 2003. No longer available online; appears in John Hubbard, “Going Virtual: Technology & the Future of Academic Libraries,” presentation, Library Council of Southeastern Wisconsin Annual Conference, Milwaukee, WI, May 16, 2007, available online at www.mcfls.org/librarycouncil/lcacademic.pdf. |
Tables
Important blogs and wikis dealing with the future of cataloging and of OPACs in libraries.
| ALA TechSource Blog | www.techsource.ala.org/blog |
| Catalogablog | http://catalogablog.blogspot.com |
| Cataloging Futures | www.catalogingfutures.com/catalogingfutures |
| Digiblog, ALCTS and the Future of Tech Services | http://blogs.ala.org/digiblog.php |
| Futurelib | http://futurelib.pbwiki.com |
| Hangingtogether.org | http://hangingtogether.org |
| Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog | http://orweblog.oclc.org |
| Metadata Blog | http://blogs.ala.org/nrmig.php |
| Outgoing (Thom Hickey's Weblog) | http://outgoing.typepad.com/outgoing |
| Planet Cataloging (This blog aggregates and collates blogs related to cataloging and metadata.) | http://planetcataloging.org |
| TechEssence.Info | http://techessence.info |
| Texadata | www.texadata.com |
| Z666.7.L364 | http://jenniferlang.net |
Article Categories:
|
|
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Published by ALA TechSource, an imprint of the American Library Association.
Copyright Statement | ALA Privacy Policy