Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Ross Singer]

Right, ok, so an RDF graph can say the same resource is multiple
things at the same time, so that's how you deal with this:

 rdf:type  .
 dc:title "Doctor Zhivago"@en .
 dc:creator
 .
 rda:uniformTitle "Doktor Zhivago. English" .
 rdf:type  .
 rdf:type  .
 frbr:embodimentOf
 .

I'm guessing on the RDA assertions, because the schema in the
metadataregistry doesn't make much sense to me.

Anyway, this shows how you can say multiple things from different
vocabularies for one resource.

-Ross.
On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Karen Coyle  wrote:
> Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
>>
>> I'm curious why you think that doesn't work?  Isn't "place of publication"
>> a characteristic of a particular manifestation? While, "title", according to
>> traditional library practices where you take it from the title page, is also
>> a characteristic of a particular manifestation, is it not? ("uniform title"
>> is _usually_ a characteristic of a work, unless we get into music cataloging
>> and some other 'edge' cases. Our traditional practices -- which aren't
>> actually changed that much by RDA, are rather confusing.)
>
> Well, I was responding to Ross' statement that bibo and FRBR could be used
> in combination, depending on whether one was at that moment describing
> 'bibliographic things' or 'work things'. bibo doesn't have a uniform title,
> so the question is: can you use a bibo title and say that it is a work
> title? I thought that Ross was indicating something of that nature -- that
> you could have a FRBR 'work thing' with bibo properties. I'm trying to
> understand how that works since Work is a class. Don't you have to indicate
> the domain and range of a property in its definition?
>
> RDA tries to solve this by creating different properties for every
> concept+FRBR entity: title of the work (Work), title proper (Manifestation).
> [I don't understand why expressions don't have titles a translation is
> an expression, after all.]
>>
>> I am confused about what one would do about the fact that RDA defines
>> attributes a bit different than FRBR itself does. It's not too surprising --
>> FRBR is really just a draft, hardly tested in the world. When RDA tried to
>> make it a bit more concrete, it's not surprising that they found they had to
>> make changes to make it workable. Not sure what to do about that in the
>> grand scheme of things, if RDA and FRBR both end up registering different
>> vocabularies. I guess we'll just have two different vocabularies though,
>> which isn't too shocking I guess.
>>
> I'm not sure there's anything to do, but I do know that the developers of
> RDA feel very strongly that in RDA they have 'implemented' FRBR, so we have
> to find a way to integrate FRBR and RDA in the registered RDA vocabulary. I
> agree that there's no problem with having RDA and FRBR as two different
> vocabularies, it's the effort of bringing them together that boggles me. I
> feel like it leaves a lot of loose ends. I'd be happy to see FRBR revised,
> or to have it re-defined without the attributes, thus allowing metadata
> developers to use the bibliographic relationship properties with any set of
> descriptive elements.
>
> I'm having trouble with the FRBR Group 1 entities as classes. I see them
> instead as relationships, and vocab.org does seem to treat them as
> relationships, not as 'things.' I see a distinct difference between a person
> entity and a work entity, because there is no thing that is a work. I see
> work as a relationship between two bibliographic statements. (This is vague
> in my mind, so I won't be surprised if it doesn't make sense) As an
> example, if I have a group of bibliographic properties, say an author and a
> title, and I say:
>
> Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann --> expresses --> Der Zauberberg, by Thomas
> Mann
>
> then I have created an 'expression to work' relationship, and so Der
> Zauberberg is a Work. If I do this, I don't need an explicit Work title. If
> I have a badly created Manifestation that has on its title page: Magic
> Mountian, I can do:
>
> Magic Mountian, published by x in y --> manifests --> Magic Mountain, by
> Thomas Mann --> expresses --> Der Zauberberg, by Thomas Mann
>
> In this way, I don't have to declare different title elements with different
> domains/ranges (which is essentially what RDA does in an awkward way) to
> connect them to the FRBR Group 1 classes, and the FRBR properties become
> more usable because you don't have to declare your bibliographic properties
> in terms of the FRBR classes. Now, IF you can use any properties, say,
> dcterms:title, with the FRBR properties, like "manifests" then the whole
> thing is solved. I think it works that wa

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Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Karen Coyle]

Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
I'm curious why you think that doesn't work?  Isn't "place of 
publication" a characteristic of a particular manifestation? While, 
"title", according to traditional library practices where you take it 
from the title page, is also a characteristic of a particular 
manifestation, is it not? ("uniform title" is _usually_ a 
characteristic of a work, unless we get into music cataloging and some 
other 'edge' cases. Our traditional practices -- which aren't actually 
changed that much by RDA, are rather confusing.)


Well, I was responding to Ross' statement that bibo and FRBR could be 
used in combination, depending on whether one was at that moment 
describing 'bibliographic things' or 'work things'. bibo doesn't have a 
uniform title, so the question is: can you use a bibo title and say that 
it is a work title? I thought that Ross was indicating something of that 
nature -- that you could have a FRBR 'work thing' with bibo properties. 
I'm trying to understand how that works since Work is a class. Don't you 
have to indicate the domain and range of a property in its definition?


RDA tries to solve this by creating different properties for every 
concept+FRBR entity: title of the work (Work), title proper 
(Manifestation). [I don't understand why expressions don't have 
titles a translation is an expression, after all.]


I am confused about what one would do about the fact that RDA defines 
attributes a bit different than FRBR itself does. It's not too 
surprising -- FRBR is really just a draft, hardly tested in the world. 
When RDA tried to make it a bit more concrete, it's not surprising 
that they found they had to make changes to make it workable. Not sure 
what to do about that in the grand scheme of things, if RDA and FRBR 
both end up registering different vocabularies. I guess we'll just 
have two different vocabularies though, which isn't too shocking I guess.


I'm not sure there's anything to do, but I do know that the developers 
of RDA feel very strongly that in RDA they have 'implemented' FRBR, so 
we have to find a way to integrate FRBR and RDA in the registered RDA 
vocabulary. I agree that there's no problem with having RDA and FRBR as 
two different vocabularies, it's the effort of bringing them together 
that boggles me. I feel like it leaves a lot of loose ends. I'd be happy 
to see FRBR revised, or to have it re-defined without the attributes, 
thus allowing metadata developers to use the bibliographic relationship 
properties with any set of descriptive elements.


I'm having trouble with the FRBR Group 1 entities as classes. I see them 
instead as relationships, and vocab.org does seem to treat them as 
relationships, not as 'things.' I see a distinct difference between a 
person entity and a work entity, because there is no thing that is a 
work. I see work as a relationship between two bibliographic statements. 
(This is vague in my mind, so I won't be surprised if it doesn't make 
sense) As an example, if I have a group of bibliographic properties, 
say an author and a title, and I say:


Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann --> expresses --> Der Zauberberg, by 
Thomas Mann


then I have created an 'expression to work' relationship, and so Der 
Zauberberg is a Work. If I do this, I don't need an explicit Work title. 
If I have a badly created Manifestation that has on its title page: 
Magic Mountian, I can do:


Magic Mountian, published by x in y --> manifests --> Magic Mountain, by 
Thomas Mann --> expresses --> Der Zauberberg, by Thomas Mann


In this way, I don't have to declare different title elements with 
different domains/ranges (which is essentially what RDA does in an 
awkward way) to connect them to the FRBR Group 1 classes, and the FRBR 
properties become more usable because you don't have to declare your 
bibliographic properties in terms of the FRBR classes. Now, IF you can 
use any properties, say, dcterms:title, with the FRBR properties, like 
"manifests" then the whole thing is solved. I think it works that way, 
but that is definitely NOT what RDA has done; it has incorporated the 
domain (FRBR class) in the bibliographic properties. I think that what I 
describe above in my examples works; and if it does, then the problem is 
with RDA.


In the end, it's the relationship between properties and classes in FRBR 
and RDA that is giving me a headache, and the headache mainly has to do 
with FRBR group 1. I think this is my bete noir, and so I will now go 
read something soothing and let my blood pressure drop a bit.


kc

--
---
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Jonathan Rochkind]

Karen Coyle wrote:
Sorry, spoke/wrote too soon. FRBR at vocab.org isn't using the FRBR 
attributes either. And it does have the entities as classes. I'm still 
not sure how one can model a relationship between RDA or bibo properties 
and FRBR Group 1 entities and their properties. RDA tries to assign 
descriptive properties (like 'title' and 'place of publication') to 
particular FRBR Group 1 entities, which I think doesn't work.


  
I'm curious why you think that doesn't work?  Isn't "place of 
publication" a characteristic of a particular manifestation? While, 
"title", according to traditional library practices where you take it 
from the title page, is also a characteristic of a particular 
manifestation, is it not? ("uniform title" is _usually_ a characteristic 
of a work, unless we get into music cataloging and some other 'edge' 
cases. Our traditional practices -- which aren't actually changed that 
much by RDA, are rather confusing.)


I am confused about what one would do about the fact that RDA defines 
attributes a bit different than FRBR itself does. It's not too 
surprising -- FRBR is really just a draft, hardly tested in the world. 
When RDA tried to make it a bit more concrete, it's not surprising that 
they found they had to make changes to make it workable. Not sure what 
to do about that in the grand scheme of things, if RDA and FRBR both end 
up registering different vocabularies. I guess we'll just have two 
different vocabularies though, which isn't too shocking I guess.


Jonathan






OK, I'm off to think about this some more. With some BIG pieces of paper.

kc


Karen Coyle wrote:
  

Ross Singer wrote:


Right, but that's how it would work.  If these resources were modeled
in RDF, they'd have URIs.  What you would do is to say 'bibliographic
things' you'd use bibo attributes with the URI.  To say work grouping
things you'd use FRBR/FRAR attributes with the URI.

So as long as they're using the same URIs, they're describing the 
same thing.



  
  
OK, Now I think I see where we're missing each other. Right now, IFLA 
is not thinking about registering (or creating identifiers for) the 
FRBR "attributes," just the entities and relationships.  I'm not sure 
that the attributes make the cut... and they aren't the same as the 
properties that RDA has defined. RDA properties have been assigned to 
particular FRBR entities (Groups 1 and 2 only, since RDA didn't do 
Group 3) in the RDA documentation, but there isn't complete agreement 
within the cataloging community as to which properties go with which 
FRBR Group 1 entities. So what RDA online is experimenting with is 
applying the FRBR entities as classes to RDA properties in an 
application profile that brings together RDA 'data elements' 
(properties in RDF) and FRBR entities (classes in RDF). (I haven't 
seen the result yet in the http://metadataregistry.org so I'm unclear 
on how the FRBR relationships will be used. I think they've been 
registered as properties.)


I'm not at all sure what will happen with the FRBR attributes that are 
in the FRBR document, but they seem to have been rejected by the JSC 
in the RDA process. Nor can I figure out what's going to happen when 
the FRAD draft is made official. FRAD essentially includes all of FRBR 
plus some other properties and relationships.


Now bibo has many attributes that might be the same as RDA attributes, 
or that could at least have some meaning within the FRBR defined 
classes. FRBR entities could be used with bibo, if the idea for RDA in 
the http://metadataregistry.org works, by creating an application 
profile for bibo + FRBR classes.


kc





  

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Karen Coyle]

Sorry, spoke/wrote too soon. FRBR at vocab.org isn't using the FRBR 
attributes either. And it does have the entities as classes. I'm still 
not sure how one can model a relationship between RDA or bibo properties 
and FRBR Group 1 entities and their properties. RDA tries to assign 
descriptive properties (like 'title' and 'place of publication') to 
particular FRBR Group 1 entities, which I think doesn't work.


OK, I'm off to think about this some more. With some BIG pieces of paper.

kc


Karen Coyle wrote:

Ross Singer wrote:

Right, but that's how it would work.  If these resources were modeled
in RDF, they'd have URIs.  What you would do is to say 'bibliographic
things' you'd use bibo attributes with the URI.  To say work grouping
things you'd use FRBR/FRAR attributes with the URI.

So as long as they're using the same URIs, they're describing the 
same thing.



  
OK, Now I think I see where we're missing each other. Right now, IFLA 
is not thinking about registering (or creating identifiers for) the 
FRBR "attributes," just the entities and relationships.  I'm not sure 
that the attributes make the cut... and they aren't the same as the 
properties that RDA has defined. RDA properties have been assigned to 
particular FRBR entities (Groups 1 and 2 only, since RDA didn't do 
Group 3) in the RDA documentation, but there isn't complete agreement 
within the cataloging community as to which properties go with which 
FRBR Group 1 entities. So what RDA online is experimenting with is 
applying the FRBR entities as classes to RDA properties in an 
application profile that brings together RDA 'data elements' 
(properties in RDF) and FRBR entities (classes in RDF). (I haven't 
seen the result yet in the http://metadataregistry.org so I'm unclear 
on how the FRBR relationships will be used. I think they've been 
registered as properties.)


I'm not at all sure what will happen with the FRBR attributes that are 
in the FRBR document, but they seem to have been rejected by the JSC 
in the RDA process. Nor can I figure out what's going to happen when 
the FRAD draft is made official. FRAD essentially includes all of FRBR 
plus some other properties and relationships.


Now bibo has many attributes that might be the same as RDA attributes, 
or that could at least have some meaning within the FRBR defined 
classes. FRBR entities could be used with bibo, if the idea for RDA in 
the http://metadataregistry.org works, by creating an application 
profile for bibo + FRBR classes.


kc




--
---
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Karen Coyle]

Ross Singer wrote:

Right, but that's how it would work.  If these resources were modeled
in RDF, they'd have URIs.  What you would do is to say 'bibliographic
things' you'd use bibo attributes with the URI.  To say work grouping
things you'd use FRBR/FRAR attributes with the URI.

So as long as they're using the same URIs, they're describing the same thing.


  
OK, Now I think I see where we're missing each other. Right now, IFLA is 
not thinking about registering (or creating identifiers for) the FRBR 
"attributes," just the entities and relationships.  I'm not sure that 
the attributes make the cut... and they aren't the same as the 
properties that RDA has defined. RDA properties have been assigned to 
particular FRBR entities (Groups 1 and 2 only, since RDA didn't do Group 
3) in the RDA documentation, but there isn't complete agreement within 
the cataloging community as to which properties go with which FRBR Group 
1 entities. So what RDA online is experimenting with is applying the 
FRBR entities as classes to RDA properties in an application profile 
that brings together RDA 'data elements' (properties in RDF) and FRBR 
entities (classes in RDF). (I haven't seen the result yet in the 
http://metadataregistry.org so I'm unclear on how the FRBR relationships 
will be used. I think they've been registered as properties.)


I'm not at all sure what will happen with the FRBR attributes that are 
in the FRBR document, but they seem to have been rejected by the JSC in 
the RDA process. Nor can I figure out what's going to happen when the 
FRAD draft is made official. FRAD essentially includes all of FRBR plus 
some other properties and relationships.


Now bibo has many attributes that might be the same as RDA attributes, 
or that could at least have some meaning within the FRBR defined 
classes. FRBR entities could be used with bibo, if the idea for RDA in 
the http://metadataregistry.org works, by creating an application 
profile for bibo + FRBR classes.


kc

--
---
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Ross Singer]

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 3:42 PM, Karen Coyle  wrote:

> Still looks pretty limited to me. What academics cite isn't a full
> bibliographic universe. No music, no films, no way to do realia. And citing
> isn't the same as bibliographic description. Don't get me wrong, I think
> it's very complete as a citation format, I just don't think it meets other
> needs. The right tool for the job... and all that.

But again, that's where RDF comes in, they even address the other
ontologies to defer to:
http://wiki.bibliontology.com/index.php/Development_Brainstorming#Possible_ontologies_to_Reuse


> Somehow, though, they have to work together, at least where they are
> describing the same thing.

Right, but that's how it would work.  If these resources were modeled
in RDF, they'd have URIs.  What you would do is to say 'bibliographic
things' you'd use bibo attributes with the URI.  To say work grouping
things you'd use FRBR/FRAR attributes with the URI.

So as long as they're using the same URIs, they're describing the same thing.

-Ross.

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[stuart yeates]

The TEI format does a decent job of representing  bibliographic 
information. The TEI approach is to treat all instances of bibliographic 
reference as similarly as possible. So the title page of a work, the 
reference markers in the text and the references at the end of the work 
are all described in the same conceptual framework.


http://www.tei-c.org/release/doc/tei-p5-doc/html/CO.html#COBI

The TEI is modular, so you can declare whether you're commingling 
bibliographic tags with part-of-speech, manuscript description and other 
kinds of tags.


cheers
stuart


Cloutman, David wrote:

I'm open to seeing new approaches to the ILS in general. A related
question I had the other day, speaking of MARC, is what would an
alternative bibliographic data format look like if it was designed with
the intent for opening access to the data our ILS systems to developers
in a more informal manner? I was thinking of an XML format that a
developer could work with without formal training, the basics of which
could be learned in an hour, and could reasonably represent the
essential fields of the 90% of records that are most likely to be viewed
by a public library patron. In my mind, such a format would allow
creators of community-based web sites to pull data from their local
library, and repurpose it without having to learn a lot of arcane
formats (e.g. MARC) or esoteric protocols (e.g. Z39.50). The sacrifice,
of course, would be loosing some of the richness MARC allows, but I
think in many common situations the really complex records are not what
patrons are interested in. You may want to consider prototyping this in
your application. I see such an effort to be vital in making our systems
relevant in future computing environments, and I am skeptical that a
simple, workable solution would come out the initial efforts of a
standardization committee.

Just my 2 cents.

- David

---
David Cloutman 
Electronic Services Librarian
Marin County Free Library 


-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of
Peter Schlumpf
Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 8:40 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different


Greetings!

I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years.  And
libraries too.  Some of you may know me.  I am the Avanti guy.  I am,
perhaps, the first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in
1999, though there is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did. I
was there when all this stuff was coming together.

Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen.  There's Koha.
There's Evergreen.  They are good things.  I have also seen first hand
how libraries get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their
crappy software.  I believe free software is the answer to that.  I have
neglected Avanti for years, but now I am ready to return to it.

I want to get back to simple things.  Imagine if there were no Marc
records.  Minimal layers of abstraction.  No politics.  No vendors.  No
SQL straightjacket.  What would an ILS look like without those things?
Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears.

I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do.
I am getting busy.

Peter Schlumpf

Email Disclaimer: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/nav/misc/EmailDisclaimer.cfm



--
Stuart Yeates
http://www.nzetc.org/   New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/ Institutional Repository

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Karen Coyle]

Ross Singer wrote:

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Karen Coyle  wrote:
  

My problem with bibo is that it's strongly oriented toward academic journal
articles... I would like to see a comparison to MARC, if anyone has done
that, which might give us an idea of what isn't there. For example, I don't
see the various work/work, work/expression relationships. But it has great
detail in some areas, like time intervals and access rights.



Well, I'm not sure I agree with the assessment that it's geared
towards academic journals... there's been a lot of work towards all
kinds of citations, esp. court cases and whatnot.  See the examples:

http://wiki.bibliontology.com/index.php/Examples
  


Still looks pretty limited to me. What academics cite isn't a full 
bibliographic universe. No music, no films, no way to do realia. And 
citing isn't the same as bibliographic description. Don't get me wrong, 
I think it's very complete as a citation format, I just don't think it 
meets other needs. The right tool for the job... and all that.



As far as not including FRBR, BIBO doesn't have to, because the FRBR
vocabs: http://vocab.org/frbr/core.html and
http://vocab.org/frbr/extended.html already do.  This way BIBO can
focus on describing citations, FRBR can focus on
work/expression/manifestion/item relationships and other vocabularies
can focus on other attributes (size, location, circ status, whatever).
  


Somehow, though, they have to work together, at least where they are 
describing the same thing. I think the interaction between things like 
FRBR/Work and citation is interesting and complex. The RDA Online effort 
is working to allow you to assign particular data elements to FRBR 
entities through application profiles -- thus you can have a 'work 
title' which may be different to the 'manifestation title.' No one uses 
these differences in citations, but then again we haven't yet used them 
in library catalogs -- both citations and current library cataloging 
limit themselves to describing manifestations. However, if you are 
writing a literary criticism of "Moby Dick" you probably aren't only 
referring to a particular manifestation, but to the work as a whole. 
Right now, citation standards don't address this.


Also note that IFLA is registering the FRBR vocabulary in the 
metadataregistry.org registry. I suspect it will look different to the 
one at vocab.org, although I haven't looked at the IFLA trial version in 
comparison to the one at vocab.org. Presumably FRAD will also be 
registered by IFLA in the same way.


kc


This is part of the flexibility of RDF, the ability to pick and choose
among schemas to describe resources however you need to.

-Ross.


  



--
---
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Jonathan Rochkind]

Joe Hourcle wrote:


Perhaps a slightly different perspective on looking at requirements:

What should be easier to do, but is a pain currently?


  


My answers to that won't point to a more simplified data structure I 
think some are hoping for.


1. For a serial title, identify if a particular issue of that serial is 
held, and where.

2. Group alternate editions of the same work.
3. Identify the form/genre of an item

There are more. This is what immediately comes to mind. Most of these 
issues are issues of metadata control, and not trivial to solve.

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Karen Coyle]

Cloutman, David wrote:

I'm open to seeing new approaches to the ILS in general. A related
question I had the other day, speaking of MARC, is what would an
alternative bibliographic data format look like if it was designed with
the intent for opening access to the data our ILS systems to developers
in a more informal manner? I was thinking of an XML format that a
developer could work with without formal training, 


Well, speaking of 'without formal training' -- I posted this to the Open 
Library technology list, but using the OL, which is triple-based and 
open access, I was able to create a simple demo Pipe of how you could 
determine the earliest date of publication of a book (with an interest 
in looking at potential copyright status). Caveat is that the API I'm is 
still pretty stubby, so it only retrieves on exact title (this will be 
fixed sometime in the future).


The pipe is here:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=216efa8c3b04764ca77ad181b1cc66e4

kc


the basics of which
could be learned in an hour, and could reasonably represent the
essential fields of the 90% of records that are most likely to be viewed
by a public library patron. In my mind, such a format would allow
creators of community-based web sites to pull data from their local
library, and repurpose it without having to learn a lot of arcane
formats (e.g. MARC) or esoteric protocols (e.g. Z39.50). The sacrifice,
of course, would be loosing some of the richness MARC allows, but I
think in many common situations the really complex records are not what
patrons are interested in. You may want to consider prototyping this in
your application. I see such an effort to be vital in making our systems
relevant in future computing environments, and I am skeptical that a
simple, workable solution would come out the initial efforts of a
standardization committee.

Just my 2 cents.

- David

---
David Cloutman 
Electronic Services Librarian
Marin County Free Library 


-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of
Peter Schlumpf
Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 8:40 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different


Greetings!

I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years.  And
libraries too.  Some of you may know me.  I am the Avanti guy.  I am,
perhaps, the first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in
1999, though there is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did. I
was there when all this stuff was coming together.

Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen.  There's Koha.
There's Evergreen.  They are good things.  I have also seen first hand
how libraries get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their
crappy software.  I believe free software is the answer to that.  I have
neglected Avanti for years, but now I am ready to return to it.

I want to get back to simple things.  Imagine if there were no Marc
records.  Minimal layers of abstraction.  No politics.  No vendors.  No
SQL straightjacket.  What would an ILS look like without those things?
Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears.

I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do.
I am getting busy.

Peter Schlumpf

Email Disclaimer: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/nav/misc/EmailDisclaimer.cfm


  



--
---
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Tom Keays]

It is designed as a container for citations. Articles are one such
example, but that well-understood format is not BIBO's main focus.
They've been going after the tough ones, including legal cases,
conference presentations, letters, etc. Oh, yeah, books, book
chapters, quotations. For a partial list, see
http://wiki.bibliontology.com/index.php/Examples


On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Karen Coyle  wrote:
> My problem with bibo is that it's strongly oriented toward academic journal
> articles... I would like to see a comparison to MARC, if anyone has done
> that, which might give us an idea of what isn't there. For example, I don't
> see the various work/work, work/expression relationships. But it has great
> detail in some areas, like time intervals and access rights.
>
> kc
>
> Tom Keays wrote:
>>
>> The linked open data crowd might suggest:
>>
>> Bibliographic Ontology Specification (aka bibo)
>> http://bibliontology.com/
>> Abstract: The Bibliographic Ontology Specification provides main
>> concepts and properties for describing citations and bibliographic
>> references (i.e. quotes, books, articles, etc) on the Semantic Web.
>>
>> A lot of work has gone into this to make it work with a wide variety
>> of possible use cases. It acknowledges FRBR, but doesn't require it.
>> The Swedish national library uses a tiny fraction of BIBO, along with
>> DC and other RDF vocabularies. BIBO as a whole is much more granular
>> than MARC, but whether that makes it more or less suited as a library
>> format probably depends on who you are.
>>
>> Tom
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Peter Schlumpf 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Greetings!
>>>
>>> I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years.  And libraries
>>> too.  Some of you may know me.  I am the Avanti guy.  I am, perhaps, the
>>> first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in 1999, though there
>>> is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did. I was there when all
>>> this stuff was coming together.
>>>
>>> Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen.  There's Koha.
>>>  There's Evergreen.  They are good things.  I have also seen first hand how
>>> libraries get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their crappy
>>> software.  I believe free software is the answer to that.  I have neglected
>>> Avanti for years, but now I am ready to return to it.
>>>
>>> I want to get back to simple things.  Imagine if there were no Marc
>>> records.  Minimal layers of abstraction.  No politics.  No vendors.  No SQL
>>> straightjacket.  What would an ILS look like without those things?
>>>  Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears.
>>>
>>> I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do.
>>>  I am getting busy.
>>>
>>> Peter Schlumpf
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> ---
> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
> kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
> ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
> fx.: 510-848-3913
> mo.: 510-435-8234
> 
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Alex Dolski]

I think Dublin Core XML is an excellent attempt at what you're talking 
about if you want to consider it a bibliographic data format, which I 
guess could be one of its many uses.


I know that a large percentage of the data in our MARC records is not 
being used for finding/gathering or even display, so in that case, what 
good is it? There is a lot of richness in those records, but it's so 
all-over-the-place that whatever value it might have had gets killed by 
all the inconsistency. In my experience, good, consistent metadata that 
captures the essence of an object is more useful than highly-detailed, 
inconsistent metadata (which all highly-detailed metadata tends to be) 
in a fine-grained element set.


I think there may be a cultural element to this as well, in that IR 
people think of metadata in terms of its utility for IR purposes (at 
which DC tends to be extremely practical) and catalogers think of it as 
a thorough-as-possible description of an object (at which DC is quite 
inadequate).


Alex


Cloutman, David wrote:

I'm open to seeing new approaches to the ILS in general. A related
question I had the other day, speaking of MARC, is what would an
alternative bibliographic data format look like if it was designed with
the intent for opening access to the data our ILS systems to developers
in a more informal manner? I was thinking of an XML format that a
developer could work with without formal training, the basics of which
could be learned in an hour, and could reasonably represent the
essential fields of the 90% of records that are most likely to be viewed
by a public library patron. In my mind, such a format would allow
creators of community-based web sites to pull data from their local
library, and repurpose it without having to learn a lot of arcane
formats (e.g. MARC) or esoteric protocols (e.g. Z39.50). The sacrifice,
of course, would be loosing some of the richness MARC allows, but I
think in many common situations the really complex records are not what
patrons are interested in. You may want to consider prototyping this in
your application. I see such an effort to be vital in making our systems
relevant in future computing environments, and I am skeptical that a
simple, workable solution would come out the initial efforts of a
standardization committee.

Just my 2 cents.

- David

---
David Cloutman 
Electronic Services Librarian
Marin County Free Library 


-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of
Peter Schlumpf
Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 8:40 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different


Greetings!

I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years.  And
libraries too.  Some of you may know me.  I am the Avanti guy.  I am,
perhaps, the first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in
1999, though there is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did. I
was there when all this stuff was coming together.

Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen.  There's Koha.
There's Evergreen.  They are good things.  I have also seen first hand
how libraries get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their
crappy software.  I believe free software is the answer to that.  I have
neglected Avanti for years, but now I am ready to return to it.

I want to get back to simple things.  Imagine if there were no Marc
records.  Minimal layers of abstraction.  No politics.  No vendors.  No
SQL straightjacket.  What would an ILS look like without those things?
Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears.

I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do.
I am getting busy.

Peter Schlumpf

Email Disclaimer: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/nav/misc/EmailDisclaimer.cfm
  


--
Alex A. Dolski
Web & Digitization Application Developer
Lied Library, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Box 457041
Las Vegas, NV 89154-7041
(702) 895-2225 (phone) / (702) 895-2280 (fax)

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Ross Singer]

On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 2:17 PM, Karen Coyle  wrote:
> My problem with bibo is that it's strongly oriented toward academic journal
> articles... I would like to see a comparison to MARC, if anyone has done
> that, which might give us an idea of what isn't there. For example, I don't
> see the various work/work, work/expression relationships. But it has great
> detail in some areas, like time intervals and access rights.

Well, I'm not sure I agree with the assessment that it's geared
towards academic journals... there's been a lot of work towards all
kinds of citations, esp. court cases and whatnot.  See the examples:

http://wiki.bibliontology.com/index.php/Examples

As far as not including FRBR, BIBO doesn't have to, because the FRBR
vocabs: http://vocab.org/frbr/core.html and
http://vocab.org/frbr/extended.html already do.  This way BIBO can
focus on describing citations, FRBR can focus on
work/expression/manifestion/item relationships and other vocabularies
can focus on other attributes (size, location, circ status, whatever).

This is part of the flexibility of RDF, the ability to pick and choose
among schemas to describe resources however you need to.

-Ross.

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Han, Yan]

Well, the future of ILS is to use general computing standards without
making library's own. 

Essentially, from a computing theory view, a graph is the way to present
all the info (i.e. a graph can represent a tree, or a line. When you
look at MARC, it is a linear computing model.) Graph is powerful, but
graph theory can be difficult and extremely complex. Some of them are NP
hard problem. 

I think that RDF based standards (DC? Or something else or maybe no need
for just one metadata standard )can be used to maximize
interoperability, allow further information discovery and at the same
time provide suitable description for different type of materials. 

Yan  

-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of
Karen Coyle
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 10:49 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

Cloutman, David wrote:
> I'm open to seeing new approaches to the ILS in general. A related
> question I had the other day, speaking of MARC, is what would an
> alternative bibliographic data format look like if it was designed
with
> the intent for opening access to the data our ILS systems to
developers
> in a more informal manner? I was thinking of an XML format that a
> developer could work with without formal training, 

Well, speaking of 'without formal training' -- I posted this to the Open

Library technology list, but using the OL, which is triple-based and 
open access, I was able to create a simple demo Pipe of how you could 
determine the earliest date of publication of a book (with an interest 
in looking at potential copyright status). Caveat is that the API I'm is

still pretty stubby, so it only retrieves on exact title (this will be 
fixed sometime in the future).

The pipe is here:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=216efa8c3b04764ca77ad181b1cc6
6e4

kc

> the basics of which
> could be learned in an hour, and could reasonably represent the
> essential fields of the 90% of records that are most likely to be
viewed
> by a public library patron. In my mind, such a format would allow
> creators of community-based web sites to pull data from their local
> library, and repurpose it without having to learn a lot of arcane
> formats (e.g. MARC) or esoteric protocols (e.g. Z39.50). The
sacrifice,
> of course, would be loosing some of the richness MARC allows, but I
> think in many common situations the really complex records are not
what
> patrons are interested in. You may want to consider prototyping this
in
> your application. I see such an effort to be vital in making our
systems
> relevant in future computing environments, and I am skeptical that a
> simple, workable solution would come out the initial efforts of a
> standardization committee.
>
> Just my 2 cents.
>
> - David
>
> ---
> David Cloutman 
> Electronic Services Librarian
> Marin County Free Library 
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf
Of
> Peter Schlumpf
> Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 8:40 AM
> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different
>
>
> Greetings!
>
> I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years.  And
> libraries too.  Some of you may know me.  I am the Avanti guy.  I am,
> perhaps, the first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in
> 1999, though there is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did.
I
> was there when all this stuff was coming together.
>
> Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen.  There's Koha.
> There's Evergreen.  They are good things.  I have also seen first hand
> how libraries get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with
their
> crappy software.  I believe free software is the answer to that.  I
have
> neglected Avanti for years, but now I am ready to return to it.
>
> I want to get back to simple things.  Imagine if there were no Marc
> records.  Minimal layers of abstraction.  No politics.  No vendors.
No
> SQL straightjacket.  What would an ILS look like without those things?
> Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears.
>
> I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to
do.
> I am getting busy.
>
> Peter Schlumpf
>
> Email Disclaimer:
http://www.co.marin.ca.us/nav/misc/EmailDisclaimer.cfm
>
>
>   


-- 
---
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Karen Coyle]

My problem with bibo is that it's strongly oriented toward academic 
journal articles... I would like to see a comparison to MARC, if anyone 
has done that, which might give us an idea of what isn't there. For 
example, I don't see the various work/work, work/expression 
relationships. But it has great detail in some areas, like time 
intervals and access rights.


kc

Tom Keays wrote:

The linked open data crowd might suggest:

Bibliographic Ontology Specification (aka bibo)
http://bibliontology.com/
Abstract: The Bibliographic Ontology Specification provides main
concepts and properties for describing citations and bibliographic
references (i.e. quotes, books, articles, etc) on the Semantic Web.

A lot of work has gone into this to make it work with a wide variety
of possible use cases. It acknowledges FRBR, but doesn't require it.
The Swedish national library uses a tiny fraction of BIBO, along with
DC and other RDF vocabularies. BIBO as a whole is much more granular
than MARC, but whether that makes it more or less suited as a library
format probably depends on who you are.

Tom

On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Peter Schlumpf  wrote:
  

Greetings!

I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years.  And libraries too.  
Some of you may know me.  I am the Avanti guy.  I am, perhaps, the first person 
to try to produce an open source ILS back in 1999, though there is a David 
Duncan out there who tried before I did. I was there when all this stuff was 
coming together.

Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen.  There's Koha.  There's 
Evergreen.  They are good things.  I have also seen first hand how libraries 
get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their crappy software.  I 
believe free software is the answer to that.  I have neglected Avanti for 
years, but now I am ready to return to it.

I want to get back to simple things.  Imagine if there were no Marc records.  
Minimal layers of abstraction.  No politics.  No vendors.  No SQL 
straightjacket.  What would an ILS look like without those things?  Sometimes 
the biggest prison is between the ears.

I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do.  I am 
getting busy.

Peter Schlumpf





  



--
---
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596   skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Walker, David]

> I know that a large percentage of the data in our 
> MARC records is not being used for finding/gathering 
> or even display, so in that case, what good is it?

This is, of course, a chicken and egg thing.  The reason why a lot of MARC data 
remains inconsistent is precisely because it is not being used for finding or 
display.

Anyone who has worked with a faceted search application has seen this in 
action.  As soon as you aggregate subject headings, genre designations, etc., 
into facets you begin to see all kinds of data problems that you never noticed 
before because they are scattered among thousands of records that previously 
could only be viewed individually.

Of course, fixing bad or inconsistent data is probably an order of magnitude 
easier than adding data to records after the fact.

--Dave

==
David Walker
Library Web Services Manager
California State University
http://xerxes.calstate.edu

From: Code for Libraries [code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Alex Dolski 
[alex.dol...@unlv.edu]
Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 10:38 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

I think Dublin Core XML is an excellent attempt at what you're talking
about if you want to consider it a bibliographic data format, which I
guess could be one of its many uses.

I know that a large percentage of the data in our MARC records is not
being used for finding/gathering or even display, so in that case, what
good is it? There is a lot of richness in those records, but it's so
all-over-the-place that whatever value it might have had gets killed by
all the inconsistency. In my experience, good, consistent metadata that
captures the essence of an object is more useful than highly-detailed,
inconsistent metadata (which all highly-detailed metadata tends to be)
in a fine-grained element set.

I think there may be a cultural element to this as well, in that IR
people think of metadata in terms of its utility for IR purposes (at
which DC tends to be extremely practical) and catalogers think of it as
a thorough-as-possible description of an object (at which DC is quite
inadequate).

Alex


Cloutman, David wrote:
> I'm open to seeing new approaches to the ILS in general. A related
> question I had the other day, speaking of MARC, is what would an
> alternative bibliographic data format look like if it was designed with
> the intent for opening access to the data our ILS systems to developers
> in a more informal manner? I was thinking of an XML format that a
> developer could work with without formal training, the basics of which
> could be learned in an hour, and could reasonably represent the
> essential fields of the 90% of records that are most likely to be viewed
> by a public library patron. In my mind, such a format would allow
> creators of community-based web sites to pull data from their local
> library, and repurpose it without having to learn a lot of arcane
> formats (e.g. MARC) or esoteric protocols (e.g. Z39.50). The sacrifice,
> of course, would be loosing some of the richness MARC allows, but I
> think in many common situations the really complex records are not what
> patrons are interested in. You may want to consider prototyping this in
> your application. I see such an effort to be vital in making our systems
> relevant in future computing environments, and I am skeptical that a
> simple, workable solution would come out the initial efforts of a
> standardization committee.
>
> Just my 2 cents.
>
> - David
>
> ---
> David Cloutman 
> Electronic Services Librarian
> Marin County Free Library
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of
> Peter Schlumpf
> Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 8:40 AM
> To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different
>
>
> Greetings!
>
> I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years.  And
> libraries too.  Some of you may know me.  I am the Avanti guy.  I am,
> perhaps, the first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in
> 1999, though there is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did. I
> was there when all this stuff was coming together.
>
> Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen.  There's Koha.
> There's Evergreen.  They are good things.  I have also seen first hand
> how libraries get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their
> crappy software.  I believe free software is the answer to that.  I have
> neglected Avanti for years, but now I am ready to return to it.
>
> I want to get back to simple things.  Imagine if there were no Marc
> records.  Minimal layers of abstraction.  No politics.  No vendors.  No
> SQL straightjacket.  What would an ILS look like without those things?
> Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears.
>
> I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do.
> I am getting busy.
>
> Peter S

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Joe Hourcle]

On Mon, 6 Apr 2009, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:


Joe Hourcle wrote:


Perhaps a slightly different perspective on looking at requirements:

What should be easier to do, but is a pain currently?


My answers to that won't point to a more simplified data structure I think 
some are hoping for.


1. For a serial title, identify if a particular issue of that serial is held, 
and where.

2. Group alternate editions of the same work.
3. Identify the form/genre of an item

There are more. This is what immediately comes to mind. Most of these issues 
are issues of metadata control, and not trivial to solve.



The really sad thing is -- I agree with every one of those items, as 
they're problems that I run into with my own (non-bibliographic) data.


I've got a few others that might not be as useful in libraries:*

Identify items contained in more than one catalog:
eg, Hugo award winners that were also on the NYT best
seller's list.
Identify the lack of correlation between catalogs:
eg, Identify items in this week's NYT best sellers list
that we _don't_ have at our library.
Group (or filter) results by similar form and/or processing;
eg, All unabridged audio books in English on CD; Large
print books in Spanish in hardback; etc.
(or, as an alternative, allow users to set preferences to
select their preferred formats)


(I don't follow ILS features, so it's possible that some might be able to 
handle these, but when I've talked to folks in the past, their responses 
have seemed to suggest that I have an odd way of looking at records)


-Joe


* Examples are approximates ... I'm actually looking for records such as:

Find periods of time where there was coronal dimming before a
coronal mass ejection.

Find where there are entries in the LASCO/CME catalog that aren't
in the CACTUS catalog (and visa-versa)

Only show Level0 data if there isn't associated Level1 data for
the observation;  Only show reduced data if there's no full
resolution data;  Use SOHO/EIT data unless there's a gap of more
than 1 hr, then fill using data from the highest resultion  EUV
telescope in the sun-earth line)

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Tom Keays]

The linked open data crowd might suggest:

Bibliographic Ontology Specification (aka bibo)
http://bibliontology.com/
Abstract: The Bibliographic Ontology Specification provides main
concepts and properties for describing citations and bibliographic
references (i.e. quotes, books, articles, etc) on the Semantic Web.

A lot of work has gone into this to make it work with a wide variety
of possible use cases. It acknowledges FRBR, but doesn't require it.
The Swedish national library uses a tiny fraction of BIBO, along with
DC and other RDF vocabularies. BIBO as a whole is much more granular
than MARC, but whether that makes it more or less suited as a library
format probably depends on who you are.

Tom

On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 11:40 AM, Peter Schlumpf  wrote:
> Greetings!
>
> I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years.  And libraries 
> too.  Some of you may know me.  I am the Avanti guy.  I am, perhaps, the 
> first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in 1999, though there 
> is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did. I was there when all this 
> stuff was coming together.
>
> Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen.  There's Koha.  There's 
> Evergreen.  They are good things.  I have also seen first hand how libraries 
> get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their crappy software.  
> I believe free software is the answer to that.  I have neglected Avanti for 
> years, but now I am ready to return to it.
>
> I want to get back to simple things.  Imagine if there were no Marc records.  
> Minimal layers of abstraction.  No politics.  No vendors.  No SQL 
> straightjacket.  What would an ILS look like without those things?  Sometimes 
> the biggest prison is between the ears.
>
> I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do.  I 
> am getting busy.
>
> Peter Schlumpf
>

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Joe Hourcle]

On Sun, 5 Apr 2009, Peter Schlumpf wrote:

[trimmed]

I want to get back to simple things.  Imagine if there were no Marc 
records.  Minimal layers of abstraction.  No politics.  No vendors.  No 
SQL straightjacket.  What would an ILS look like without those things? 
Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears.


Perhaps a slightly different perspective on looking at requirements:

What should be easier to do, but is a pain currently?

-Joe

Re: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different

[Cloutman, David]

I'm open to seeing new approaches to the ILS in general. A related
question I had the other day, speaking of MARC, is what would an
alternative bibliographic data format look like if it was designed with
the intent for opening access to the data our ILS systems to developers
in a more informal manner? I was thinking of an XML format that a
developer could work with without formal training, the basics of which
could be learned in an hour, and could reasonably represent the
essential fields of the 90% of records that are most likely to be viewed
by a public library patron. In my mind, such a format would allow
creators of community-based web sites to pull data from their local
library, and repurpose it without having to learn a lot of arcane
formats (e.g. MARC) or esoteric protocols (e.g. Z39.50). The sacrifice,
of course, would be loosing some of the richness MARC allows, but I
think in many common situations the really complex records are not what
patrons are interested in. You may want to consider prototyping this in
your application. I see such an effort to be vital in making our systems
relevant in future computing environments, and I am skeptical that a
simple, workable solution would come out the initial efforts of a
standardization committee.

Just my 2 cents.

- David

---
David Cloutman 
Electronic Services Librarian
Marin County Free Library 

-Original Message-
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of
Peter Schlumpf
Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 8:40 AM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Something completely different


Greetings!

I have been lurking on (or ignoring) this forum for years.  And
libraries too.  Some of you may know me.  I am the Avanti guy.  I am,
perhaps, the first person to try to produce an open source ILS back in
1999, though there is a David Duncan out there who tried before I did. I
was there when all this stuff was coming together.

Since then I have seen a lot of good things happen.  There's Koha.
There's Evergreen.  They are good things.  I have also seen first hand
how libraries get screwed over and over by commercial vendors with their
crappy software.  I believe free software is the answer to that.  I have
neglected Avanti for years, but now I am ready to return to it.

I want to get back to simple things.  Imagine if there were no Marc
records.  Minimal layers of abstraction.  No politics.  No vendors.  No
SQL straightjacket.  What would an ILS look like without those things?
Sometimes the biggest prison is between the ears.

I am in a position to do this now, and that's what I have decided to do.
I am getting busy.

Peter Schlumpf

Email Disclaimer: http://www.co.marin.ca.us/nav/misc/EmailDisclaimer.cfm

[CODE4LIB] OpenCamp: An Open Everything Event, April 8-- Madison, WI

[Alnisa Allgood]

We're co-sponsoring, OpenCamp and I would love to see more nonprofit
organizations and libraries actively involved in open access, open
software, open government, public domain, and other 'open' issues. The
details are below.

...
OpenCamp:  An Open Everything Event
10am - 6pm, Saturday, 18 April 2009
Grainger Hall, UW Madison,
975 University Avenue,
Madison, WI 53706

Cost: Free
Invite: Open to the Public
RSVP: To Reserve Space
Web: http://madison.openeverything.us

"It's about thinking, doing and being open." On Saturday, April 18,
2009 individuals from Madison, Milwaukee, and surrounding areas will
gather at UW Madison's Grainger Hall to challenge the future. From the
economic meltdown, to access to research, to remixing content, there
is a rising tide of rebellion against the confines of the inapplicable
growth of property protection versus the freedoms to innovate.
OpenCamp is that collective voice.  OpenCamp: An Open Everything Event
is a unique opportunity that gathers people interested in using
'openness' and provides the ability to network, discussion, teach, and
learn on how to create, improve, and make more accessible— art,
education, software, government, media, neighborhoods, workplaces— the
very society we live in.

Sponsored by Open Madison Group (OMG!), Students for a Free Culture @
UW, and Madison's Nonprofit Technology Group (MadTech) aspires to take
the challenge of Barack Obama to heart, "We must use all available
technologies and methods to open up government, to create new levels
of transparency in the way business is conducted."

See Press Release: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df64pb8f_68f3z79kcj
(Google Doc)


--
..

Alnisa Allgood
Executive Director
Nonprofit Tech
t. 608.241.3616
e. aln...@nonprofit-tech.org

Re: [CODE4LIB] registering info: uris?

[Jonathan Rochkind]

Karen Coyle wrote:


The ones that really puzzle me, however, are the OpenURL info namespace 
URIs for ftp, http, https and info. This implies that EVERY 
identifier used by OpenURL needs an info URI, even if it is a URI in its 
own right. They are under "info:ofi/nam" which is called "Namespace 
reserved for registry identifiers of namespaces." There's something so 
circular about this that I just get a brain dump when I try to 
understand it. Does it make sense to anyone?
  

No, it does not make sense to anyone, as far as I can tell.

Jonathan





kc


  

[CODE4LIB] Open Library Environment (OLE) Workshop -- April 22 -- Indianapolis, IN

[McDonald, Robert H.]

There are still a few slots open for the upcoming OLE Workshop in Indianapolis.

Thanks,

Robert


OLE Workshop - Indianapolis, IN

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 10:00am - 3:00pm

Registration  - http://tiny.cc/T8Lti

The Open Library Environment Project invites you to a 1 day workshop at the 
IUPUI University Libraries in Indianapolis sponsored by the Indiana University 
System Libraries, Purdue University Libraries, and the University of Notre Dame 
Hesburgh Libraries. The purpose of this workshop is to provide a forum for 
representatives of Indiana and Midwest regional academic and research libraries 
and related institutions to discuss and provide feedback on the current state 
of the OLE Project Planning Document. The OLE Project 
(http://oleproject.org/overview/)will provide a fully vetted planning document 
for a community sourced information management system to the Andrew W. Mellon 
Foundation by June 2009 and this workshop intends to solicit feedback from peer 
libraries in the Indiana region on this plan and to seek institutions who are 
interested in becoming part of a build out component of the OLE information 
management environment.

Participation is open to any members of the research library community who work 
with current Integrated Library Systems or other workflow management systems 
for electronic resources management either on a day to day basis or from a 
higher level. OLE will be developed as an open source library environment that 
meets the needs of research libraries. While care will be taken to design an 
open and flexible system that is useful for other types of libraries, such as 
public libraries, the focus of the project in this early stage is on research 
libraries.

Due to space limitations, registration is limited to 40 participants. There is 
no cost for attendance other than your travel related expenses. Participants 
will be notified with further details.
For additional information please contact Robert H. McDonald, Associate Dean 
for Library Technologies, Indiana University Bloomington, rob...@indiana.edu.


**
Robert H. McDonald
Associate Dean for Library Technologies
Indiana University
Herman B Wells Library 234
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, IN 47405
Phone: 812-856-4834
Email: rob...@indiana.edu
Skype/GTalk: rhmcdonald
AIM/YM: rhmcdonald1