Blogging About Conferences

Check out the Metadata Blog for reports from the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim:

http://blogs.ala.org/nrmig.php

And don't forget the TS/OBS blog with reports from the AALL Annual Conference in Portland:

http://tssis.blogspot.com/

BiblioCommons

"BiblioCommons, a new social discovery system for libraries that replaces all user-facing OPAC functionality, allowing for faceted searching and easier user commenting and tagging ..."

Read more at: http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6579748.html

(LITA-L e-list)

hangingtogether.org Blog

There are a couple posts on the hangingtogether.org blog by Jim Michalko about his experience at the AALL conference in Portland last week:

We paid for it: http://hangingtogether.org/?p=463

"Nothing stays where you put it" Pogue at AALL: http://hangingtogether.org/?p=462

(Lorcan Dempsey's weblog)

OCLC/ALISE Research Grants

Each year OCLC collaborates with ALISE to award several research grants. This year, OCLC decided to focus on proposals that address the issues identified in On the Record: Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control.

Read more at: http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001716.html

(Lorcan Dempsey's weblog)

Name Authorities

"Libraries have invested significantly in name authority work over the years, and have created extensive infrastructure to help manage names of people and organizations. The relationship between this work and broader interest in this topic is something that will need to be addressed in coming years if this work is to continue to have utility."

Read more at: http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/001699.html

(Lorcan Dempsey's weblog)

ASIST 2008 Annual Meeting

People Transforming Information - Information Transforming People

October 24-29, 2008, Hyatt Regency, Columbus, Ohio

http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM08/

The Sunday, October 26 plenary will be an interactive session featuring
- Geneveive Bell, director, User Experience Group Intel Digital Home Group
- Howard Rheingold, author, editor and lecturer at UC Berkeley and Stanford University
- Andrew Keen, host of AfterTV and Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

Plenary on Wednesday, October 29 will be Dr. Connie Yowell, Director of Education grantmaking at MacArthur, and runs MacArthur's $50 million digital media and learning initiative.

Meeting will feature 36 panels, 60 contributed papers, and over 90 posters or short papers covering the full gamut of what is current in information science practice and research.

Pre Conference Sessions include
- The Annual Meeting of the International Conference on Knowledge Management
- User Studies with MORAE
- The Sense-Making Methodology Approach to Interviewing for Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis
- The social analysis of computing
- Information Architecture 3.0
- Classification and the Arts: enduring practice, alternative strategies, and contrasts with other domains
- Personal Information Management as a Study and a Practice
- Getting Started with User-Centered Taxonomy Design
- Putting Your Taxonomy to Work
- Information Behavior in design & the making of relevant research
- Human Computer Interaction in Interactive Information Environments with a focus on Groups

Update on Next Generation Cataloging and Metadata Creation Pilot

Earlier this year, OCLC announced a pilot project to explore upstream metadata capture and metadata enhancement using publisher and vendor ONIX (Online Information Exchange) metadata. Here's an overview of how the pilot is progressing and the next steps.

Between January and June 2008, OCLC:
* enhanced the OCLC ONIX to MARC crosswalk.
* created the OCLC MARC to ONIX crosswalk.
* defined rules and hierarchies for mining existing WorldCat records to enhance ONIX metadata and to enhance or create records in WorldCat.
* developed software to perform creation and enhancement activities.
* began receiving ONIX metadata from publisher and vendor pilot partners.
* developed evaluative tools and case study templates for reporting on pilot results.
* began to collect statistical information on metadata received and enhanced.
* continued to refine crosswalks, rules for enhancement and software based on live data.
* began defining mapping between DDC and publisher BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications) subject headings.

Results thus far provide proof of concept that metadata can be created and enhanced through these processes.

Three pilot partners submitting approximately 1,000 ONIX records each:
* Total records processed: 2,935
* Total records matched in WorldCat: 2,724
* Total records with no exact match: 211
* Total records enhanced: 2,706

One pilot partner submitting a larger data set:
* Total records processed: 7,649
* Total records matched in WorldCat: 6,584
* Total records with no exact match: 1,065
* Total records enhanced: 6,565

During July and August, OCLC will wrap up the pilot and provide final statistics, pilot partner evaluations, case studies and recommendations for moving forward to library and publisher supply chain communities. OCLC welcomes input from both communities on new ways to think about cataloging and metadata creation in support of both library and publishing needs.

Pilot overview: http://www.oclc.org/us/en/partnerships/material/nexgen/nextgencataloging.htm

(OCLC Abstracts)

Collocate and Disambiguate Blog

Collocate and Disambiguate: Currents in authority control and authority data

Created by Lois Reibach, this blog will discuss news and trends in authority control, and new uses of authority data. Developments in controlled vocabularies will also be covered.

http://collocate.wordpress.com/

(LITA-L e-list)

Classify Service from OCLC

Classify is an experimental classification service from OCLC. Search, the resulting FRBR set is checked and then the classification numbers used displayed. Quick, simple way to get a class number. No need to be an OCLC member. Does Dewey, NLM, and LCC at least. Not sure about other less used classification schemes, like the one at the US Geological Survey.

(Catalogablog)

Build the Open Shelves Classification

"I hereby invite you to help build the Open Shelves Classification (OSC), a free, "humble," modern, open-source, crowd-sourced replacement for the Dewey Decimal System.I've been speaking of doing something like this for a while, but I think it's finally going to become a reality. LibraryThing members are into it and after my ALA panel talk, a number of catalogers expressed interest too. Best of all, one library director has signed on as eager to implement the system, when it comes available. Hey, one's a start!

The Call. I am looking for one-to-five librarians willing to take leadership on the project."

For more from Tim Spalding of Library Thing, go to:

http://www.librarything.com/thingology/

(AUTOCAT e-list)

OCLC/ISKO-NA Workshop

Workshop Name: Everything Need Not Be Miscellaneous: Controlled Vocabularies and Classification in a Web World

Organizing Committee:
Eric Childress (OCLC Programs & Research), chair
Clément Arsenault (Université de Montréal)
Rebecca Green (ISKO-NA)
Libbie Crawford (OCLC DDC)

Sponsors:
OCLC
ISKO-NA (International Society for Knowledge Organization - North America)
Université de Montréal

Date: 5 August, 2008

Venue: Université de Montréal

Registration: limited to 115 paid registrants
Registration cost: $65 CAN/person

Description: A pre-conference to the The 10th International Conference of International Society for Knowledge Organization: Culture and Identity in Knowledge Organization (5-8 August, 2008 @ Université de Montréal). This event will explore the potential value for well-structured terminology systems to power a better Web experience. Invited experts will present briefings on widely-recognized vocabularies and also introduce an emerging W3C standard, SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization Systems) which promises to be a important vehicle to help well-structured terminology systems unleash their value on the Web.

http://www.ebsi.umontreal.ca/isko2008/workshops.htm

(OLAC e-list)

Beta Test of MWeb Universal 1.2

We invite you to participate in the beta test of MWeb Universal 1.2. This beta program is open to all. If you provide us with useful feedback, we will give you a free copy of the final software. MWeb Universal 1.2 provides web-based searching of multiple MARC21 files in their native format -- no need to convert or export. Any number of files can be searched at once. All files must be either bibliographic or authority, and either MARC-8 or UTF-8.

A later release will provide the ability to mix formats and encodings. UNIMARC and MARCXML will also be supported in a later release. Search features include keyword and phrase searching, boolean, truncation, and the ability to restrict searches to specific fields. In addition, searches can be restricted to subsets of the files, such as juvenalia, reference, records with specific fields, etc.

Images will show in MWeb search results and full records if they are referenced in the 856 field, and are available via HTTP.

If you wish to participate, please go to our Beta Program page at
http://systemsplanning.com/mweb/uni12beta.asp for the download link and specific questions we hope you can help with.

Please send all questions and comments to info@systemsplanning.com. Please begin your email subject line with the words "MWeb beta" to bypass our spam filter. For further information about MWeb: http://systemsplanning.com/mweb/universal.asp

Thank you in advance for any feedback!
Stephen Toney
Systems Planning
toney@systemsplanning.com
http://systemsplanning.com
MWeb, MARCView, and MARConvert are trademarks of Systems Planning

(MARC e-list)

New Issue of NextSpace

The June issue of NextSpace: The OCLC Newsletter is available at:

http://www.oclc.org/us/en/nextspace/default.htm

(OCLC Abstracts)

CLIR Requests Proposals for Hidden Collections Grant

The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) has opened the application period for its new grant program, Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives. Information about the program and links to the online application and guidelines are available at

http://www.clir.org/hiddencollections/index.html

The deadline for completed applications is September 2, 2008.

Metadata for Resource Discovery

Metadata to Support Next-Generation Library Resource Discovery: Lessons from the eXtensilble Catalog, Phase 1 by Jennifer Bowen has been published in the June 2008 issue of Information Technology and Libraries (p. 6-19).

The slides for her talk at ALA as part of the ALCTS Program, Creating the Future of the Catalog and Cataloging (June 29, 2008) are on the XC Shared Results Page.

(Catalogablog)

Cataloging Principles and RDA Webcast

Cataloging Principles and RDA by Barbara Tillett is available as a webcast from the Library of Congress at:

http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4327

The second in a series on RDA: Resource Description and Access, the next generation cataloging code designed for the digital environment. This presentation deals with the cataloging principles that have influenced the development of RDA; the challenges they present to the international sharing of bibliographic and authority data; and the challenges they present to the developers of RDA.

Speaker Biography: Barbara B. Tillett is Chief of the Cataloging Policy and Support Office, Library of Congress.

(Catalogablog)

MARBI Meeting Minutes

The 2008 ALA Midwinter MARBI Meeting minutes are now available at:

http://www.loc.gov/marc/marbi/minutes/mw-08.html

(Catalogablog)

Uncontrolled Vocabulary

Check out Uncontrolled Vocabulary: A weekly live interactive roundtable discussion of all things library, every Wednesday at 10 PM Eastern at: http://uncontrolledvocabulary.com/

(LITA Blog)

Upcoming Changes in ABA Questionnaires

Report to Law Library Directors on Upcoming Changes in the ABA Questionnaires

We want to let you know of upcoming changes in the ABA Annual Questionnaire. First, we'll briefly report the changes and then provide you with a longer explanation.

* The Questionnaire to be completed this fall will ask us to report the number of electronic titles included in the library's online catalog. These may include purchased titles, licensed titles or free titles that the library has identified as important enough to catalog.

* The upcoming questionnaire will be the last annual questionnaire asking for volume or title counts. (The elimination for the volume count was announced last year.)

* Future questionnaires will continue to request data on dollars spent on print and non-print titles including electronic titles.

* The Site Evaluation Questionnaire will have a greatly expanded section on library services. These questions will need to be developed.

Full memo at: http://www.aallnet.org/sis/allsis/committees/liaisons/abachanges2008.asp

(TS-SIS e-list)

Extending Discovery Capabilities of WorldCat Local

OCLC and Index Data, a software development and consulting enterprise that specializes in information retrieval and metasearch solutions, are working together to extend the discovery capabilities of WorldCat Local to include all licensed and full-text resources of a library.

WorldCat Local is the service that combines the cooperative power of OCLC member libraries worldwide with the ability to use WorldCat.org as a solution for local discovery and delivery services. WorldCat Local provides a powerful discovery environment that presents localized results most relevant to the library user while at the same time allowing the user to search the entire WorldCat database of more than 100 million records.

OCLC continues to work with database producers to add article-level metadata to WorldCat.org to enrich the search experience and make collections from libraries more visible on the Web. Index Data will help OCLC incorporate metasearch into WorldCat Local for searching databases that are not indexed in WorldCat.org.

For full news release, see: http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/200821.htm

(OCLC Abstracts)

RDA Full Draft Delayed

The Co-Publishers of RDA Online (the American Library Association, the Canadian Library Association, and the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) have reached the conclusion that further time is required to complete the development of the new software that will be used for distributing the full draft of RDA for constituency review.

The full draft was originally scheduled for release on August 4, 2008. Instead, it will now be issued in October 2008. The three month time period allocated for comments on the full draft is unchanged, and in this new schedule will extend from October into January 2009. More specific dates for RDA's final release will be forthcoming shortly.

Members of the Committee of Principals (CoP) and the Joint Steering Committee for Development of RDA (JSC) agree that the importance of distributing RDA content in a well-developed and tested version of the new software is such that a two-month delay is justified. They concluded that this extension is worthwhile given the ultimate value of the exceptional effort that is going into RDA and feel that the review by constituencies will be enhanced as a result.

Cordially,
Marjorie E. Bloss, RDA Project Manager

(AUTOCAT e-list)