Standards

By Dorothea Salo on February 5, 2015
I had to put together the introductory lecture for my “XML and Linked Data” course early this time around, because I’ll be out of town for the first class meeting owing to a service obligation. Since I’m starting with linked data instead of XML this time, I found myself having to think harder about the question nearly every student carries into nearly every first-class meeting: “Why should I be here?” Why, among all the umpty-billion things a library school could be teaching, teach linked data? Why does it matter?

The Earth may not be flat, but the web certainly is.

“There is no ‘top’ to the World-Wide Web,” declared a 1992 foundational document from the World Wide Web Consortium—meaning that there is no central server or organizational authority to determine what does or does not get published. It is, like Borges’ famous Library of Babel, theoretically infinite, stitched together with hyperlinks rather than top-down, Dewey Decimal-style categories.1 It is also famously open—built atop a set of publicly available industry standards.

This document provides best practices related to the publication and usage of data on the Web designed to help support a self-sustaining ecosystem. Data should be discoverable and understandable by humans and machines. Where data is used in some way, whether by the originator of the data or by an external party, such usage should also be discoverable and the efforts of the data publisher recognized. In short, following these best practices will facilitate interaction between publishers and consumers.

To explain the utility of semantic search and linked data, Jeff Penka, director of channel and product development for information management solutions provider Zepheira, uses a simple exercise. Type “Chevy Chase” into Google’s search box, and in addition to a list of links, a panel appears on the right of the screen, displaying photos of the actor, a short bio, date of birth, height, full name, spouses and children, and a short list of movies and TV shows in which he has starred.

The Online Audiovisual Catalogers Cataloging and Policy Committee (OLAC CAPC) is pleased to announce the publication of two Best Practice Guides – “Best Practices for Streaming Media Using RDA and MARC21” and “Best Practices for Cataloging DVD-Video and Blu-ray Discs Using RDA and MARC21.”

In addition to the set of best practices, both documents include many in-line and full MARC record examples illustrating the best practices. The documents are accessible at the OLAC website.
Direct links to each document:

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and UKSG announce that the Transfer Code of Practice will now be supported and maintained by NISO.

Scholarly communication is undergoing fundamental changes, in particular with new requirements for open access to research outputs, new forms of peer-review, and alternative methods for measuring impact. In parallel, technical developments, especially in communication and interface technologies facilitate bi-directional data exchange across related applications and systems. The aim of this roadmap is to identify important trends and their associated action points in order for the repository community to determine priorities for further investments in interoperability.

CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM) Extension for SPECTRUM

OCLC Research is facilitating a focused discussion about metadata in finding aids within a scoped effort to produce guidelines for terms of use and reuse of finding aid metadata.
We have convened a working group whose members are in contact with archival authorities and associations internationally, such as the Society of American Archivists and the International Council of Archives.

We are pleased to announce the publication of nine new format descriptions on the Library’s Format Sustainability Web site. This is a closely related set, each of which pertains to a member of the Office Open XML (OOXML) family.