Cataloging Futures

The Library 2.0 Gang on semantic web and linked data

Another excellent conversation from The Library 2.0 Gang. The topic is one that's important for the future of cataloging and metadata: the semantic web and linked data. Karen Coyle is the guest for this discussion.

BTW, I finally own a smartphone and am unfettered from my desktop computer. So, I hope to be able to listen to and recommend more podcasts in the future. Cataloging professional development on-the-go!

Karen Coyle's Cataloging Horizons column

Looking for a non-technical description of linked data, the Semantic Web, and cataloging? Check out this American Libraries Magazine column, "Cataloging Horizons" written by Karen Coyle.

This new data organization will permit users to navigate the bibliographic space by following connections between resources and individual elements in resource descriptions, such as authors, publishers, and dates. Curious as to what else was issued by the publisher that year? Want to see how Romeo and Juliet has been adapted through the years? The catalog based on linked data technology will be able to lead users to answers. It will also allow library data to interact with the larger web of information. This means that web pages and information resources such as Wikipedia can have direct links to library data, and users will be able to move easily between the web and library resources.

Cataloging for machines?

Web 2.0 was focused on the front-end, the domain of reference librarians. Web 3.0 is all about metadata, where catalogers rule. The "semantic web" and "linked data" are hot topics right now, but what does that mean for cataloging and metadata librarians? How will our work change?

In this post, Can Librarians Be Put Directly Onto the Semantic Web?, Eric Hellman suggests we'll be developing metadata for machines, not humans:

In many respects, the most important question for the library world in examining semantic web technologies is whether librarians can successfully transform their expertise in working with metadata into expertise in working with ontologies or models of knowledge. Whereas traditional library metadata has always been focused on helping humans find and make use of information, semantic web ontologies are focused on helping machines find and make use of information. Traditional library metadata is meant to be seen and acted on by humans, and as such has always been an uncomfortable match with relational database technology. Semantic web ontologies, in contrast, are meant to make metadata meaningful and actionable for machines. An ontology is thus a sort of computer program, and the effort of making an RDF schema is the first step of telling a computer how to process a type of information. Martha Yee's development of an RDF class to represent an Author is precisely analogous to a Java programmer's development of a Java class to do the same thing.

Allan Cho's new article on RDF, MARC, and the Semantic Web

Allan Cho, who blogs over at Allan's Library, has a new article out: How RDF Can Use MARC in the Semantic Web World: Using Existing Library Cataloguing Methods in Organizing the Web.

BTW, Allan also blogs at: The Postcolonial Librarian.

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.

Karen Schneider on the cataloging establishment

Karen Schneider challenges the cataloging establishment in a post she wrote recently on the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control (or what is now fondly known as WoGroFuBiCo, Bill Denton's stylish acronym). I think it's worth listening to what she says:

I read LC’s report as comfort food: yes, yes, we should do many things… real soon now… but since there’s no plan or timeline attached to any of this, rest assured you can just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s all part of the task force pyramid scheme, in which one report begets many more.

I like that Roy keyed in on the word, “control.” Every time I hear someone talking about “controlling” bibliographic data, I chuckle, a low throaty laugh intended to convey my disbelief that anyone thinks we will still be controlling anything in fifty years. Thirty. Ten. Five. Now, will the Big O yield some of that control itself?

Many of us in LibraryLand worry that we’re just one black swan away from “game over,” but not the muckety-mucks of cataloging. They remind me of Bush on global warming: needily grounded in beliefs and practices the rest of us see as not only foolish and outdated, but pernicious.

I have to disagree with Karen. I actually think the picture for the future of cataloging is one of a new type of order and data control based on Web developments, like the Semantic Web. How we do things may be very different, but much of what we value now: shared standards, controlled vocabularies, unique identifiers, etc. is exactly what leaders in the Web community are working on also. If you don't believe me just start reading a little about the Semantic Web initiatives to see that they're their goals are similar to our traditional library goals.

Also, please don't take this as an attack on uncontrolled data, e.g, tags. Surely, in the future there will be room for both.

Future of MARC and the Semantic Web

I've been blogging for about 6 months now and have 100+ library blogs in my reader. But one topic I'm really interested in doesn't get much press: the future of Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC).

When it is mentioned, MARC usually gets a bad rap. It's often viewed as worn out legacy metadata better suited for card catalogs with an antiquated late 1960's data structure that mystifies computer programmers when they first encounter it.

However, lately I've read a few things that say otherwise. Some say MARC is very good metadata--it just needs to be morphed into something more Web-friendly. This more positive view describes MARC as a complex metadata format, with a good level of granularity--well suited for what it was intended for at the time it was developed.

Here's one of those voices. In a post primarily about libraries and the Semantic Web, Richard Wallis comments on MARC:

So does the library world pack up its knowledge and collaborative spirit and jump on the SW bandwagon, leaving the good, but old creaking and inflexible library standards such as Z39.50 and MARC, behind? - In the very long term probably yes, but over the next while what libraries are doing today, in the way they are doing it (with the exception of the format of the odd MARC tag), is still very valuable. [emphasis mine]

I would contend that, from a cataloguing point of view, libraries are providing more value than current software packages and their user interfaces can make full use of. Some of this value is being shown by the work around faceted browsing, FRBR and the like, but this is just scratching the surface. Transferring/transforming the data in to RDF, opens up opportunities to walk or browse through the semantic relationships expressed between records and external resources to deliver a more holistic view of a resource and its place in the world.

The discussions I have watched go past can be characterized; as a binary choice between RDF and MARC. That is wrong. As we, and others, have shown MARC is a rich source of data that can drive the expansion of the semantic web. [emphasis mine]

Diane Hillmann, Second Presenter at the Bibliographic Control Meeting

Diane Hillmann, the second presenter at the LC Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control meeting, has already put her PowerPoint presentation online, titled "Structures and Standards for Our Bibliographic Future".  Don't miss it.  It's a clear vision of what needs to happen to move forward with library metatdata. What impresses me most about this presentation is its clarity, explicating what needs to change and why. To quote one of my cataloger friends, "we want change to be good change" and I think Diane Hillmann's presentation goes a long way to show that our metadata future can be very bright and promising if we make the right decisions now; decisions that require the library community to collaborate with and make our legacy resources available to a wider Web/metadata community.

If you want a quick overview of this presentation, Mark Lindner's informative post is basically a transcription of the PowerPoint slides plus additional notes.

Via Off the Mark

More on the RDA Data Models Meeting

Don't miss William Denton's excellent post on the RDA Data Models Meeting.

He provides a link to a post from one of the attendees, Alistair Miles, an expert in the area of the Semantic Web. It was there that I found the link to the meeting wiki page. Take a look--you'll find a lot more information about this meeting and enough background resources to become a veritable expert!