First Report from the Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative

Posted on November 28, 2012 by Frederick Timothy Knight

The Library of Congress has released, Bibliographic Framework as a Web of Data: Linked Data Model and Supporting Services, the first report based on the work of the Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative. For those of you who may not be following this initiative it’s the beginning of the “effort to translate MARC 21 to a Linked Data (LD) model.”

I thought this comment about RDA and FRBR was noteworthy:

“The RDA and FRBR efforts have been one of the key contributions in re-focusing cataloging efforts from ‘strings to things’ and in providing a set of base line functional requirements for supporting the future of cataloging. The holistic approach to retrieval and access as defined by the FRBR work has been a guiding principal to the model proposed in this document.”

The report is relatively short and gives a good overview of the current state of cataloguing complete with some thoughts on how we might start thinking about a linked data future.

Machine-Actionable Data Elements in RDA Chapter 3: Discussion Paper

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Frederick Timothy Knight

The Task Force on Machine-Actionable Data Elements in RDA Chapter 3 has recently submitted a discussion paper to the ALA Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access.

The Task Force was struck to “evaluate the structure of data elements in RDA Chapter 3 that contain quantitative information.” RDA Chapter 3 deals with the descripition of the resource carrier and the Task Force was looking specifically at sections 3.4 (Extent) and 3.5 (Dimensions), also considering other related sections such as 3.16 (Sound Characteristics), 3.17 (Projection Characteristics), and 3.19 (Digital File Characteristics).

After evaluation of a number of examples they identified a common pattern and proposed a model consisting of three parts: the Aspect being measured, the Unit of measurement, and the numerical Quantity.

It’s hoped that improvements in this area, i.e. beyond just a textual statement of extent, could provide the following:

• Easier matching for the purposes of determining differing content
• Sorting by size, dimension, or other criteria
• More granular faceting for media materials based on extent
• A better path towards automated determination of extent
• Provision of textual values and labels in a variety of languages
• Ability to compress and itemize more complex extent information for particular users (similar to MARC holdings data)
• Validation of data at the time of input

The Task Force notes that, “If we are to have the data to provide the functionality above, we should start now, rather than later.” They also suggest that “… providing the information we have now in a more machine-friendly form should be no more expensive than what we do now in text, particularly with an intelligent user interface in place that supports the use of controlled vocabularies for textual elements.”

Here’s a simple example of how this might work. The current textual statement would be recorded like this in RDA:

245 pages ; 23 cm

This might appear in the proposed Aspect–Unit–Quantity model broken out into separate parts like this:

        Aspect: extent/number of subunits
        Unit: pages
        Quantity: 245

        Aspect: height
        Unit: centimeters
        Quantity: 23

There’s a great diagram on page 8 of this report that is worth taking a close look at. It presents a graph of how this might be expressed as a single extent class, which is the first of 3 options proposed by the Task Force.

This discussion paper is directed at the CC:DA and its constituenices but the Task Force has asked that it be sent to the JSC for consideration at its meeting this month. Members of the Task Force include: Peter Rolla (chair); John Attig; Karen Coyle; Gordon Dunsire; Diane Hillmann; Randall Roeder; Paul Weiss; and Kathy Winzer.

First Update to RDA Toolkit Has Been Released

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Frederick Timothy Knight

The first update to the RDA Toolkit has been released. James Hennelly, Managing Editor of ALA Digital Reference, posted the announcement earlier this month. The updates were added to the Toolkit on April 10th.

Details of the update can be found in the new RDA Update History section. I had some difficulty locating this at first but you’ll find it at the bottom of the RDA Table of Contents page.

Update to 'RDA Implementation Day'

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Frederick Timothy Knight

Library of Congress has updated their original announcement regarding ‘RDA Implementation Day.’

Library and Archives Canada along with a number of other national libraries have now also agreed to “target the first quarter of 2013 as their RDA implementation date, i.e., between January 2 and March 31, 2013.”

LC has also provided access to their ‘Long-Range RDA Training Plan for 2012 and Beyond.’

James Weinheimer Asks "Is RDA the Only Way?"

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Frederick Timothy Knight

James Weinheimer is one of the more vocal critics of RDA. If you follow AutoCat you’ll have seen his many thoughtful and challenging posts about RDA and all things cataloguing. He was recently invited to speak at the VII Encuentro Internacional y III Nacional de Catalogadores in Buenos Aires on November 2011. His presentation, Is RDA the Only Way?: An Alternative Option Through International Cooperation, along with his speaking notes have recently been released on the conference website.

Wienheimer focuses on the “abbreviations” and “transcription” aspects of RDA and notes that many catalogue users will probably not “notice any changes at all.” I agree, these are cosmetic changes.

But this does not get at the heart of the matter: data. It’s interesting to note that the word ‘data’ is not mentioned anywhere in the speaking notes for this presentation. In my mind that is the key advantage of RDA and FRBR: to start thinking of cataloguing practice in terms of the individual data elements and leave the idea of creating catalogue records behind.

Weinheimer says the following:

“I believe that RDA and FRBR, although very well-intentioned and initiated by excellent and sincere cataloging experts, are going in a direction very different from what is needed by our patrons. In fact, when looking at those initiatives from such a viewpoint, it turns out that they actually only continue the same methods, and have the same aims that have been found from the very beginning of catalogs. As a result, I see no reason to adopt RDA since it will not be providing anything substantially new for our patrons. It only introduces new methods for catalogers to make what is substantially the same product. What we need are products that are useful to our patrons, who now inhabit a completely new information environment.”

And I don’t disagree with this either. However, I think RDA represents a transitional phase leading the cataloguing community to something like linked data where our bibliographic data will be able to more easily connect up with other data already on the web instead of trapped in traditional catalogue records and library information systems. Work on the RDA Vocabularies, for example, looks very promising.

The entity-relationship model that FRBR provides, and upon which RDA is based, will allow cataloguers to start thinking about their day-to-day activities in terms of creating and using data elements. Data that will connect to data already found on the web. This may potentially lead to an improvement in cataloguing productivity (freeing cataloguers from some of the descriptive tasks already carried out upstream, e.g. by publishers) and making our data truly “of the web.”

We have to start somewhere and RDA seems as good a place as anywhere to begin. And, as Weinheimer notes, RDA really won’t change the practice of cataloguing all that much. No matter what the size of your library I don’t think the commitment to implement RDA should be as economically challenging as Weinheimer suggests in this presentation. Although the situation would be so much better if RDA had been offered openly free for all to use*. This would surely have made it easier for libraries to adopt and would have increased potential buy in for non-library metadata creators, one of the many goals of RDA.

As I declared during a recent presentation at the OLA Super Conference: I remain an RDA optimist.

* Note that the RDA Constituency Review Draft is freely available.

Library of Congress Announces RDA Implementation Date

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Frederick Timothy Knight

Hot off the cyperpresses! (Well, yesterday actually)

The Library of Congress has announced March 31, 2013 as the official date for the implementation of RDA.

“We are now sharing our plan broadly to alert our various constituencies. By doing so as early as possible, we hope that this will help others prepare for RDA implementation.”

Are you ready?

RDA and OCLC: Discussion Paper

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Frederick Timothy Knight

OCLC has released a discussion paper called “Incorporating RDA practices into WorldCat” and is soliciting comments from OCLC member libraries. The deadline for comments is April 15, 2012 and should be sent to rdapolicy@oclc.org.

The discussion paper “proposes a number of policies that may be put in place and actions that may be undertaken as part of incorporating RDA practices more fully into WorldCat. It also attempts to balance the dual roles of WorldCat as a catalog and as a repository of bibliographic data.”

There are some suggestions concerning the modification of pre-RDA catalogue records. For example, OCLC plans to develop programming that will add the new 33X fields (Content, Media, and Carrier Types) to all records in the OCLC database.

“OCLC envisions potentially making some widespread changes to existing records in WorldCat including a number of those outlined above. Such efforts would be oriented toward reducing the need for catalogers to make similar changes as well as making the records more useful in the RDA environment. This activity would supplement other data quality efforts such as authority control, duplicate detection, etc.”

Implementation Update – U.S. RDA Test Coordinating Committee

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Frederick Timothy Knight

The first of an ongoing series of quarterly updates from the U.S. RDA Test Coordination Committee was released on January 16, 2012. The Committee will monitor the progress and activities relating to the preparation and implementation of RDA as the community approaches the January 2013 implementation start date. Through this report process the three U.S. national libraries will “judge readiness for RDA implementation to mean completion of a recommendation or convincing evidence that the recommendation is sufficiently on track to implement RDA.”

This update reviews the recommendations from the Committee’s Final Report, issued in June 2011, noting the status and accomplishments made to this point in time. It is encouraging to see that most of the recommendations reviewed in this document have a status of being either ‘on track’ or ‘completed.’

I will just mention one as an example:

Rewrite the RDA instructions in clear, unambiguous, plain English

In the status comment the Committee reports that this is recommendation would be better stated as “‘reword’ rather than ‘rewrite.’ It was not the Coordinating Committee’s intention to change the meaning or intent of the RDA instructions; the intent was to have RDA instructions written in clearer, less ambiguous language.”

And, as I’m sure you’ve heard, the selection of Chris Oliver, Chair of the Canadian Committee on Cataloguing, as Copy Editor, is listed as an accomplishment. And certainly if anyone can improve the readability of RDA it will be Chris!

The update goes on to note that “This work is already underway. Ms. Oliver will first submit reworded chapter 9, followed by chapters 10, 11, 6, and 17. The work on these five chapters will be completed and put forward for approval by the Joint Steering Committee and review by the U.S. RDA Test Committee by June 2012.”

There are many other recommendations reviewed in this first quarterly report and I encourage you to look at the others covered in this report.

Update Forum Minutes – LC Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Frederick Timothy Knight

A forum to update the progress of the Library of Congress Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative was held on January 22nd at the American Library Association Mid-Winter Meeting in Dallas, Texas. There were about 110 people in attendance including folks from the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Biblioteca Nacional de España, and our own Library and Archives Canada.

In his introductory remarks Beacher Wiggins said that this forum aimed to “learn how the Library of Congress could engage the community in the Bibliographic Framework Transition project and to foster dialogue about community concerns.”

Deanna Marcum, who now heads up the strategic consulting service Ithaka S+R, spoke about the need for a new bibliographic framework a question that has been on her mind for some time. She indicated that two recent reports were catalysts toward this initiative: the first was the final report of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control; and, the second was the report from the U.S. RDA Test Coordinating Committee of LC, NAL, and NLM which stated in part that there should be “credible progress toward a replacement for MARC” as one of the recommendations leading to a successful implementation of RDA.

Marcum also asked her then Library of Congress colleagues: “[what would Henriette D. Avram] have done in the age of Google. All agreed that Avram would not have viewed MARC as the final answer, but would have overseen an evolution of MARC to meet contemporary needs.”

Sally McCallum then provided an overview of and a synopsis of responses to initial Transition plan released on October 31, 2011. She noted that “several national libraries abroad had submitted statements of support for the Transition Initiative.”

In her remarks she stated that the Framework would:

“… most likely be based on Linked Data principles and use the Resource Description Framework (RDF), a World Wide Web Consortium specification, as its basic data model. The new framework will support many more options for data storage and retrieval than is the case now.“

McCallum also looked to the development of RDF ontologies as part of the new bibliographic framework and “stressed the need for community collaboration.”

If you haven’t yet done so one way you can participate in this initiative is by joining the BIBFRAME electronic discussion list.

The minutes for this meeting are now available.

RDA and Linked Data

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Frederick Timothy Knight

It was announced today that the RDA terms for Content Type, Carrier Type, and Media Type have been published as open linked data in the Open Metadata Registry. The terms in these vocabularies have been “derived from the RDA/ONIX framework for resource categorization which established an extensible methodology for categorization of resources according to content and carrier.”

As noted in the announcement posted to Autocat, Gordon Dunsire says:

“These vocabularies are crucial for the selection and identification of information resources. Their publication as linked data in RDF allows the terms to be used by all bibliographic metadata communities in the Semantic Web environment. I look forward to the future development and publication of mappings from the vocabularies to the RDA/ONIX Framework. Similar mappings of other content and carrier vocabularies, such as those for ISBD area 0, will support metadata interoperability between communities and improve resource discovery for all.”

Another RDA step forward …