Wednesday, July 13, 2016

NISO Virtual Conference: BIBFRAME & Real World Applications of Linked Bibliographic Data

In mid-June, NISO hosted a virtual conference, BIBFRAME & Real World Applications of Linked Bibliographic Data.  The theme of the conference was explorations of BIBFRAME and related approaches to sharing and interacting with bibliographic data. The "morning" presentations concentrated on providing an overview of BIBFRAME and linked data development, and available resources for learning to work with linked data.  The afternoon sessions concentrated on competencies and linked data applications. Presentation slides are available via NISO's SlideShare page.

The introductory presentation given by Georgetown University Library's Shana L. McDanold, covered the somewhat familiar background of linked data and the development of BIBFRAME. She reminded attendees of basic linked data concepts, the web of data which is structured and machine readable, composed of triples constructed using de-referencable URIs and controlled vocabularies. An addition to the subject - object - predicate triple was "context", which morphs the triple into a quad. This was a first time I had heard this concept mentioned, and it became an "aha" moment for me.


The second speaker, Carolyn Hansen from the University of Cincinnati, covered the evolution of  BIBFRAME from the initial concept through BIBFRAME 1.0 to BIBFRAME 2.0 and BIBFRAME LITE. She described the differences in core concepts between the versions, shared graphics of the effects of these differences in modeling same bibliographic object and discussed the pluses and minuses of BIBFRAME lite.

The third presentation, by Ted Lawless of Thomson Reuters, discussed some of the skills needed to navigate the world of linked data.



Melanie Wacker, Metadata Coordinator, Columbia University, spotlighted the PCC Standing Committee on Training's efforts to develop and document training materials to help library staff navigate the linked data landscape. While there is a wealth of introductory and advanced materials, there is a little appropriate to the intermediate linked data learner. The PCC plans to work with CONSER and others to provide discussion platforms, sandboxes and testbeds for experimentation with linked data.

Mike Lauruhn from Elsevier Labs presented on project planning and linked data competencies, specifically the Linked Data Competency Index (LD4PE) and the Linked Data Exploratorium.

The remaining presentations covered specific linked data projects. Tim Thompson, Princeton University Library demonstrated the use of linked data concepts to encode annotations and other information about their recently acquired Derrida collection. Beecher Wiggens provided an  update on the Library of Congress' BIBFRAME pilot. A representative of Zepheira provided an overview of  their Library.Link Network (http://library.link) designed to enhance the collective visibility of libraries and their resources on the Web. The final presentation focused on UC Davis' experimentation with bibliographic description in a linked data environment with particular focus on authorities.