Cataloging Futures

New article: Cataloguing rules!: the road to RDA

F. Tim Knight, who blogs over at The Bib Blog, just wrote a great article on RDA. Cataloguing Rules!: The Road to RDA looks at the development of RDA and addresses the issue of why we need a new code to replace AACR2.

Via The Bib Blog

OCLC record use policy: important updates

May 11, 2009: The International Coalition of Library Consortia (ICOLC) issued their Statement on the Proposed OCLC Policy for Use and Transfer of WorldCat Records.

May 18, 2009: OCLC Review Board on Shared Data Creation and Stewardship reported to the OCLC Members Council and advised that the proposed policy be withdrawn and a new policy be developed.

Future of MARC - maybe it really doesn't matter?

In Who needs MARC? Lukas Koster argues that the MARC format isn't really that crucial. 

The thing is: it really does not matter how you store bibliographic metadata in your database, as long as you can present and exchange the data in any format requested, be it MARC or Dublin Core or anything else.

New blog: Cataloguing aids

A cataloger, like a carpenter, needs a set of tools. So it's a welcome sight to see a new blog focused on cataloging tools. Lynne LeGrow recently started her Cataloguing Aids blog:

This blog has been created to guide catalogers to the information they need, when they need it.  To keep them apprised of changes in the field, to keep them in touch with other cataloguers....

Lynne also maintains the Library Cataloguing Aids website.

Via The Cataloguing Librarian

New LC webcast: FRBR for non-catalogers

In this new Library of Congress webcast, Barbara Tillett presents an overview of FRBR for non-catalogers. It's about a hour long. Tillett walks the viewer through the basics of FRBR. Highly recommended viewing!

Via ResourceShelf

New report: Advancing the State of the Art in Distributed Digital Libraries

Even though I'm going on vacation for a few days, I'm going to try to read this report: Advancing the State of the Art in Distributed Digital Libraries: Accomplishments of and Lessons Learned from the Digital Library Federation Aquifer Metadata Working Group.

One of the author, Jenn Riley, provides more details at the Inquiring Librarian blog.

I'll be "off the grid" until next Monday on my excellent Canadian adventure! Back soon.

New OCLC report: Networking Names

This new report, Networking Names, presents the idea of a "Cooperative Identities Hub." Sort of a Wikipedia for name authority work. Great idea.

The report's author, Karen Smith-Yoshimura, gives more details over at the hangingtogether.org blog.

LCSH goes Web 3.0

I was having so much fun seeing "my old friends," the Library of Congress Subject Headings, in their new home: Library of Congress Authorities & Vocabularies that I almost forgot to get ready for work this morning!

LCSH as a linked data service, to quote Jonathan Rochkind, "is AWESOME."

Richard Wallis writes:

Overnight this uri ‘http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85042531’ has now become the globally available, machine and human readable, reliable source for the description for the subject heading of ‘Elephants’ containing links to its related terms (in a way that both machines and humans can navigate). This means that system developers and integrators can rely upon that link to represent a concept, not necessarily the way they want to [locally] describe it.  This should facilitate the ability for disparate systems and services to simply share concepts and therefore understanding – one of the basic principles behind the Semantic Web.