Quoting Emily Lynema <emily_lyn...@ncsu.edu>:
Karen,
Is it just Open Library that is excluding serials, or is that the
entire OCA project?
I think the OCA was focused on monographs but did allow in some
serials, possibly because it wasn't clear what they were (as it can be
with bound or reprinted serials). I have warned the OL folks that
handling serials is quite complex; I think it's a good thing that they
are cutting their "bibliographic teeth" on monographs, which are
complex enough.
So what is OL's vision for work presentation of multi-volume monographs
in the future?
I don't think it's fixed in stone, but as your example below shows,
there will probably be use made of the table of contents area for
multi-volume works that have distinct titles or distinct contents.
That information will not always be available. As your example also
shows, the volume numbers may be embedded in the archive.org name for
the item, but I don't know how reliable those are. It doesn't appear
that there is a clear statement of volume number that could be
displayed, e.g. "v. 1 [link] / v. 2 [link]". If that can be derived
from the volume number in the data, then the OL folks are probably
clever enough to pull that off. My fear is that those numbers may not
have been applied consistently during the scanning process (e.g. I
believe that numbers are also used when a work is being scanned that
has already been scanned... and I do mean work, not manifestation,
although it could be either, because of how the names are derived).
kc
When we load OCA records back into our local ILS, we label the URLs
with volume numbers; I believe these volume numbers are pulled out of
the URL to the text itself that OCA gives back to us.
Here's an example of one of these records in our catalog:
http://www2.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog/record/NCSU2218397
Here's the same record in Open Library:
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL23299490M/ferns_%28Filicales%29
So hopefully the volume numbers have indeed been retained, even if just
part of the link to the digitized text. I'd be happy to have landing
pages like this available in Open Library for multi-volume works
(including serials, of course), even if the links to each volume aren't
labeled with the volume number! And, of course, I'd need a reliable way
to link to these landing pages from external systems (this could maybe
be accomplished with identifiers if I thought about it a little).
This one record in Open Library is already a success for me, since it
aggregates 3 individual records on the Internet Archive site (one for
each digitized volume):
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=The%20ferns%20%28Filicales%29%20treated%20comparatively%20with%20a%20view%20to%20their%20natural%20classification%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts
-emily
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Karen Coyle wrote:
Quoting Emily Lynema <emily_lyn...@ncsu.edu>:
What seems like would make more sense for us is to link to a Work
record in Open Library or Internet Archive which can then direct users
to all volumes digitized for that Work. I searched this title in Open
Library and found individual results for the various years of the
journal, so it didn't seem like that kind of aggregated record was
being exposed to users at this point.
See here for an example:
http://openlibrary.org/search?q=polytechnisches+Journal
Interesting idea, Emily. In general it makes sense, but a few caveats:
1) Open Library does not *consciously* take in non-monographs. Some
do slip in, but it is intended to be a Books database
2) Multi-volume items are a general problem because they end up
looking like duplicate entries (each is represented by the same
bibliographic data), and I fear that some may be lost during
de-duping. OL has it on its list of "things to fix". Right now, the
record format doesn't have a place to link a digital file to a
volume number within a "Manifestation" level record. (And I fear
that in some cases the volume numbers may not have been retained in
the metadata. *sigh*)
kc
Do you think a Work record page in Open Library that we could link to
from our local systems would be an effective solution to this problem?
Anybody have other ideas?
-emiliy
CODE4LIB automatic digest system wrote:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:22:41 -0700
From: Karen Coyle <li...@kcoyle.net>
Subject: Works API
Open Library now has Works defined, and is looking to develop an
API for their retrieval. It makes obvious sense that when a
Work is retrieved via the API, that the data output would
include links to the Editions that link to that Work. Here are
a few possible options:
1) Retrieve Work information (author, title, subjects, possibly
reviews, descriptions, first lines) alone
2) Retrieve Work information + OL identifiers for all related Editions
3) Retrieve Work information + OL identifiers + any other
identifiers related to the Edition (ISBN, OCLC#, LCCN)
4) Retrieve Work information and links to Editions with full text / scans
Well, you can see where I'm going with this. What would be useful?
kc
--
Emily Lynema
Associate Department Head
Information Technology, NCSU Libraries
919-513-8031
emily_lyn...@ncsu.edu
--
Karen Coyle
kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
