New BIBFRAME website announced

The Library of Congress has launched a new website (http://bibframe.org/) in support of its Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative. Begun in May 2011, the Initiative "aims to re-envision and, in the long run, implement a new bibliographic environment for libraries that makes 'the network' central and makes interconnectedness commonplace." The new model for linked bibliographic data is called BIBFRAME, short for Bibliographic Framework. In the Overview section, the BIBFRAME.org website provides access to background documents about BIBFRAME and to webcasts presented by Kevin Ford of LC and Eric Miller of Zepheira (LC's BIBFRAME development partner). Other sections of the website present the draft BIBFRAME model vocabulary, sample collections of linked data translated from MARC into the BIBFRAME model, and two tools to evaluate MARC bibliographic data in the BIFRAME model: the "comparison service" and the "transformation service." The comparison service allows you to "[e]nter the bibliographic identifer (MARC BIB field 001) or a Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) and view a before and after presentation of a MARC record from the Library of Congress's database as BIBFRAME resources." The transformation service permits you to "[s]ubmit your own MARC bibliographic records (as MARC/XML) and view them as BIBFRAME resources ... "  Finally, there is a link to the BIBFRAME online discussion list (http://listserv.loc.gov/listarch/bibframe.html), for those wishing to contribute to the discussion about the development of BIBFRAME.