Hello,

Linked Data for Libraries (LD4L) is a collaboration project of the Cornell University Library, the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, and the Stanford University Libraries, that began at 2014 with a two-year Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s grant of $1 million dollar and this year has concluded its first research phase.

The news is that the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has renewed this grant with $1.5 million dollar (2016-2018) and has extended it to two other projects: the Linked Data for Libraries Labs (LD4L Labs), headed by Cornell, and the Linked Data for Production (LD4P), headed by Stanford. In this way, there is a LD4L Gateway that includes the three projects.

The goal of the former LD4L project was to create triple stores called Scholarly Resource Semantic Information Store (SRSIS) model based on BIBFRAME, to link bibliographic data (MARC21 transformation), person data, and usage data, and to connect library resources with institutional and other data on the web.

On its behalf, the LD4L Labs project is focused on developing and support “tools for linked data creation and editing, the bulk conversion of existing metadata to linked data, and a common system to support initial work in entity resolution and reconciliation”.

Finally, the goal of the LD4P is to begin the transition of technical services production workflows to ones based in Linked Open Data (LOD). This first phase of the transition will focus on the development of the ability to produce metadata as LOD communally, the extension of the BIBFRAME ontology to encompass the many resource formats that libraries must process, and the engagement of the broader library community to ensure a sustainable and extensible environment.

As you see, three leading projects on the library Linked Data arena!

Enjoy it!

Andreu Sulé

University of Barcelona

Hello,

In June 2014, at the American Library Association Conference in Las Vegas, Zepheira announced the Libhub Initiative, a project that aims to raise the visibility of libraries on the Web by “actively exploring” BIBFRAME and Linked Data. Its strategy is based on automatically exportation and conversion of library MARC21 records into BIBFRAME, and its transformation into Linked Data. Finally, publishing on the Web the transformed and connected content.

Nowadays, the Libhub Initiative is in an experimental phase: hearing from the broader community, gauging interest and willingness to get involved, and recruiting Active Supporter, Interested Participating Libraries, Partners, and Sponsors. During this experimental phase there are no costs to libraries because the main objective is to create a very big and collaborative database (cloud service) that allows library data to be discoverable and presented at or near the top of Web search engines page results.

It’s interesting to know that Eric Miller, Zepheira’s President, prior to founding Zepheira, led the Semantic Web Initiative for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at MIT, and that in 2011 the Library of Congress contracted with Zepheira to define the way forward for moving library data into the Web. Actually, for the past 2 years, Zepheira has been defining BIBFRAME.

Another interesting information to evaluate the importance of this project is to know that amongst its sponsors and partners we can find EBSCO, Innovative, SirsiDynix, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and Denver Public Library.

Without a doubt, Libhub Initiative is a project that deserve our special attention.

Enjoy it!

Andreu Sulé

University of Barcelona

Hello,

Yesterday, 1^th November 2015, Gloria Pérez-Salmerón, the new president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), visited our School to inaugurate the Master in Management and Direction of Libraries and Information Services.

Yesterday, 1th November 2015, Gloria Pérez-Salmerón, the new president of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), visited our School to inaugurate the Master in Management and Direction of Libraries and Information Services. Gloria Pérez-Salmerón’s conference was entitled "IFLA: the value of a global voice" and, after to claim the IFLA’s leadership on the realm of libraries, she warned about the required change of the professional mentality to afford the future challenges in libraries: news attitudes and news perceptions.

In relation the public libraries, her opinion was that these are key resources to guarantee a democratic access to information yet. In fact, the main goal of the IFLA’s Agenda 2030 will be to preserve the public access to information and to protect fundamental freedoms.

Once again, Gloria Pérez-Salmerón showed us that the struggle for the democracy, the freedom and the equal opportunities to access to information is not a won battle, but a continuously fight where each professional has to participate according its possibilities.

Enjoy it!

Andreu Sulé

University of Barcelona

Hello,

Today I want to point out the Marshall Breeding’s white paper The Future of Library Resource Discovery, published by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) at February 2015.

Marshall Breeding is today one of the most important library consultant, and all that he writes is always interesting. He is the creator and editor of Library Technology Guides, author of the Systems Librarian column that appears monthly in Computers in Libraries, and responsible of the essential annual publication Library Systems Report.

In this new report, Breeding analyzes the tools and technologies that facilitate the discovery of and access to the resources for the communities that they serve. To do it, the author opens the report with an overview of the current discovery environment, followed by the “descriptions of how these technologies, methodologies, and products may be able to adapt to potential future change”. Breeding devotes last sections to take a look to the future, especially on those issues related to linked data.

The paper wants to be a second step after the Open Discovery Initiative: Promoting Transparency in Discovery and includes short term recommendations as well as longer-term that investigate “how evolving technologies such as open linked data can be operationalized”.

Enjoy it!

Andreu Sulé

University of Barcelona

Hello,

Are you among those who think libraries will disappear because their services are obsoletes? Or do you think libraries will always be there because they develop services no other organization can offer? Would you like to see the future of libraries in a magic crystal ball? Ups! Don’t you have a crystal ball?! Well, instead you can read Lluís Anglada’s  paper entitled “Are libraries sustainable in a world of free, networked, digital information?”. It isn’t a crystal ball but is the most similar!

Anglada offers us a formula (yes! a formula!) to calculate the sustainability (S) of libraries over the time. Formula variables are: Use (U), Dysfunctions (D), Perception (P) and Cost (C), and Anglada combines them in this way: S = (U - D + 2P) / C.

With this formula, Anglada calculates the sustainability of libraries, retrospectively and futuristically, and makes an extrapolating to a 2030 scenario. And his conclusions are not very optimistic: “The conclusion is that if the current generation of librarians does not introduce radical changes in the role of libraries, their future is seriously threatened.”

If do you want to see more inside Anglada’s crystall ball... Enjoy it!

Andreu Sulé
University of Barcelona

Hello,

This week I read in a listserv message the reference to a James Weinheimer’s post entitled Metadata creation – Down and dirty (Updated). I began to read it because the title suggested me the post could be useful to my students on Information Retrieval System Design.

Actually, the post was originally written in 1999 but, as Wienheimer explains, its content needs relatively few updates. Its first part is more traditional. Wienheimer explains the importance of consistency and standardized terminology in the metadata creation. The main aim of these techniques is “to bring similar items together”.

But, in my opinion, the most interesting parts are "updates". Here, Wienheimer expresses their scepticism “about the superiority of library methods” of cataloguing in a (web) world where all information is connected and library user expectations have changed. Let's see two Wienheimer’s pearls of wisdom:

“The unavoidable fact is, that world has almost disappeared already and the cataloging community must accept it. The cataloging goal of making our records into “linked data” means that our records can literally be sliced and diced and will wind up anywhere–not only in union catalogs that follow the same rules, not only in other library catalogs that may follow other rules, but quite literally anywhere. That is what linked data is all about and it has many, many consequences, not least of all for our “consistency”.”

“I have discovered that the idea of searching for authors or titles or subjects is being forgotten by many young people and they think only in terms of keywords. Even the notion that searching for information can actually be hard work is difficult for many to grasp when, in other spheres, they can find a new app or find reviews for a nearby restaurant in just a few seconds. When they have trouble finding information for a paper for class, they often think it is a problem not with themselves, but with the systems—especially library systems.”

Touché! Two torpedoes to line of flotation of the library cataloguing!

Enjoy it!

Andreu Sulé

University of Barcelona

Hello,

This week I want to inform the celebration of the III International Seminar on LIS Education and Research (LIS-ER) in Barcelona (Spain), on 4-5 June 2015.

2015 will be the commemoration of the centenary of the Faculty of Library and Information Science at the University of Barcelona, and this institution wants to celebrate it with a Seminar on the future of Library and Information Science Education and Research.

The Seminar will provide “an opportunity to look back over the achievements and failings of the European LIS Curriculum Project developed in 2005 by EUCLID and to discuss the future of LIS education and research”.

I think this is a very interesting opportunity to see and hear together representatives from leading European LIS schools, and to learn challenges that LIS will have to deal with next years.

Enjoy it!

Andreu Sulé
University of Barcelona

Hello,

This week I would like to share with you an excellent paper about discovery tools entitled Evaluation and Comparison of Discovery Tools: An Update.

Wrote by F. William Chickering and Sharon Q. Yang, and published on June 2014 in Information Technology and Libraries (vol 33, no 2), the paper explains the comparative analysis that authors did of fourteen major discovery tools (three open source and ten proprietary) as the previous phase to acquire a new discovery tool by the Rider University Libraries (United States).

Due to the quantity of discovery tools analized (sixteen) and the quality of criteria evaluated (the advanced features of a “next generation catalog”), the paper serves to update librarians on the latest developments and user interfaces and to assist them in their adoption of a discovery tool.

Enjoy it!

Andreu Sulé

University of Barcelona