Transitioning to Semantic Web-Friendly Library Catalogs

Karen Coyle analyzes the current state of library catalog data in the January 2010 issue of Library Technology Reports, "Understanding the Semantic Web: Bibliographic Data and Metadata." In this report she offers a history of bibliographic data from its origins to today's digital records and offers guidelines for transforming today's library catalogs into semantic web-friendly ones. The first chapter, entitled Library Data in a Modern Context, is accessible free of charge at this URL:
http://alatechsource.metapress.com/content/p3022442071g7655/fulltext.html. Coyle is following up on this report with another that will be published as LTR's February issue, entitled "RDA Vocabularies for a Twenty-First-Century Data Environment."

This information is courtesy of Law Librarian Blog and ALA TechSource.

Introduction to Application Profiles

Former technical services law librarian Diane Hillmann has posted to Slideshare a presentation made on January 18, 2010 to the ALCTS Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA) as an introduction to RDF (Resource Description Framework) data and application profiles. Presenters were Jon Phipps, Karen Coyle and Diane. The slides are available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/smartbroad/introduction-to-application-profiles.

RDA Vocabularies: Process, Outcome, Use

The Resource Description and Access (RDA) standard, due to be released this coming summer, has included since May 2007 a parallel effort to build Semantic Web enabled vocabularies. This article describes that effort and the decisions made to express the vocabularies for use within the library community and in addition as a bridge to the future of library data outside the current MARC-based systems. The authors also touch on the registration activities that have made the vocabularies usable independently of the RDA textual guidance. Designed for both human and machine users, the registered vocabularies describe the relationships between FRBR, the RDA classes and properties and the extensive value vocabularies developed for use within RDA. The article is available at http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january10/hillmann/01hillmann.html

from D-Lib Magazine, January/February 2010

Our Future from Outside the Box: an ALCTS Symposium at ALA Midwinter 2010

For ALA Midwinter 2010, several cutting-edge thinkers prepared short opinion pieces on future trends/issues/developments that are likely to impact research, instruction and scholarly communication. The essays served as the foundation for panel discussions at a symposium on emerging roles for libraries and librarians, particularly collections and technical services librarians. The papers are available here: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alcts/confevents/upcoming/ala/future.cfm.

This information is courtesy of OCLC Abstracts.

Library of Congress Big Heads update available

The Library of Congress's January update for the ALCTS Technical Services Directors of Large Research Libraries Interest Group (for its meeting tomorrow at ALA Midwinter in Boston) is available at http://connect.ala.org/node/92055, along with the reports of other "big heads." Among the many items of interest is this report on LC's review of LCRIs:
"The Policy and Standards Division, after considering recommendations from the PCC LCRI/RDA Task Force on the disposition of the current Library of Congress Rule Interpretations (LCRIs), evaluated each of the 545 existing LCRIs in the context of the U.S. National Libraries RDA Test in 2010. PSD decided that approximately 125 be retained and revised as annotations for RDA instructions to be used during the RDA Test. Some have general application but most have a narrow scope and will need to be consulted by only some of the testers. Content with general application is being revised to remove unneeded information." LC's full report is available at:
http://connect.ala.org/files/7981/2010_01_library_of_congress_report_pdf_90542.pdf.

Designing and Developing Mobile Web Sites

Griggs, Kim, Laurie M. Bridges, and Hannah Gascho Rempel. "library/mobile: Tips on Designing and Developing Mobile Web Sites." The Code4Lib Journal (8)(21 September 2009), at: http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/2055
This article shares Oregon State University (OSU) Libraries’ experience creating a mobile Web presence, and provides key design and development strategies for building mobile Web sites.

Critical View on Europeana

Erway, Ricky. "A View on Europeana from the US Perspective." Liber Quarterly 19(2)(2009), at: http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/articles/000472/
As a senior program officer with OCLC, Ricky presented her view on Europeana, the newly created European digital library. Through her study, she discussed some important issues digitization proects need to address, such as mandate and funding, branding and public relations, rights, metadata, techonology, access, user feedback, and sustainability. She also listed a few digital libraries (e.g., UK's CenturyShare, Australian Newspaper Digitisation project) as good examples.

Privacy Groups Go Public with Federal Complaint about Facebook

According to the American Libraries News Feed, Privacy Groups Go Public with Federal Complaint about Facebook.

Concerned about protecting the privacy of library patrons and other individuals who have Facebook accounts, the American Library Association has joined nine other organizations in filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission regarding Facebook’s recent changes to its policies. Other groups joining ALA and  the Electronic Privacy Information Center  (EPIC) in the complaint include The Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Federation of America, FoolProof Financial Education, Patient Privacy Rights, Privacy Activism, Privacy Rights Now Coalition, The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and the U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation.

The December 17 complaint written by the Electronic Privacy Information Center contends that changes to users’ privacy settings that Facebook announced December 9 in actuality “disclose personal information to the public [and] violate user expectations, diminish user privacy, and contradict Facebook’s own representations.”

SirsiDynix's Stephen Abram departing

According to the December 18, 2009 SirsiDynix press release, SirsiDynix's Vice President of Innovation, Stephen Abram, will be departing the company. The press release goes on to say that Abram will "continue to be a resource for the the SirsiDynix Institute and the SirsiDynix User Groups, among other programs in the future."

According to Marshall Breeding's Library Technology GuidePosts, Stephen Abram "will leave the company to join Gale Cengage as its new Vice President for Strategic Partnerships and Markets."