OCLC MEMBERS COUNCIL
Kevin Furniss
For this issue, both the February and May 2005 OCLC Members Council meetings have been combined into one report. Following are the topics and issues of interest to OLAC members:
From February 2005--
Topic 1 : Issues in OAI Harvesting
Glenn Patton gave a presentation on OCLC's experiences in working with harvested metadata, mostly from CONTENTdm , describing issues that OCLC and some of the other repositories are discovering. The chief issue is metadata inconsistency. For CONTENTdm metadata, the issue is differing results arising from working with either simple or qualified Dublin Core metadata. Problems in converting Dublin Core to MARC can surface if a group has not fully planned what they want to get out of the metadata. Glenn showed some sample records to illustrate widely varying results for different metadata values.
Education and consulting in digital projects is another issue that frequently arises. The current emphasis is on traditional consulting to help groups ensure that they meet their metadata objectives. Cornell has developed an internal consulting model that is working well. There are also several best practices guides, including the recently updated Western States Metadata Guidelines, the VRA Cataloging Cultural Objects guidelines, and the Descriptive Metadata Guidelines for Cultural Collections guidelines from RLG.
Other issues include:
- Duplicate records that result when bringing in metadata from a number of institutions. Should these records be de-duped?
- "Granularity" issues--is the object being described as a whole or in parts? This is similar to issues that arise with series records.
- Linking issues--does the link point to the object itself, or to an intermediary object?
- Issues surrounding access and rights to access
Glenn opened the floor for discussion, asking what OCLC should do--and what are some potential roles for RSPs?" Ed Weissman from Cornell explained how Cornell has established a digital consulting service that offers grants to help faculty make collections accessible. The grants support technology, digitization, and metadata services. They also offer consulting on metadata creation, ensuring that these objects are able to be accessed and maintained over time. The program is staffed with 4.5 FTE, who take the lead on the functional aspects and requirements for the projects. Cornell is 1.5 years into the program, and is nearing completion on the first round of faculty material.
Cornell also has a large amount of items that were digitized prior to this program, and they are struggling to provide access to these, and determining if they can add OAI as a front end. Cornell's goal is to make all future collections harvestable through OAI. He noted that the library is not creating all the metadata, but is consulting to ensure its ability to be harvested.
Topic 2 : Terminologies Web Services Concept
Taylor Surface, Director, Digital Collections Services, provided a demonstration of a Terminologies Web Service, a way to make controlled vocabularies and thesauri easily accessible for the cataloging process. Taylor used the Connexion browser to harvest metadata for an e-book, and then searched Guidelines on Subject Access to Individual Works of Fiction, Drama, etc. (GSAFD) from the MS Office 2003 Research pane. After locating the appropriate genre term for the title, he copied and pasted it into the Connexion record MARC text area. Taylor explained that the OCLC Office of Research made the GSAFD accessible via the MS Office 2003 Research pane and that additional thesauri are planned. OCLC will be conducting a pilot in March through May and is looking for volunteers. The pilot requires use of Connexion browser and MS Office 2003. In the summer of 2005 the pilot will be expanded to CONTENTdm . In a limited discussion period, people had various questions and comments, such as: how other thesauri could be made accessible from the Research pane; whether they could access Dewey in a similar manner; and expressed a need to have an automated process to assign controlled subject terms to existing files of metadata.
Topic 3: e-Content in WorldCat : Impact on Cataloging Efficiency
Continuing from the previous day's topic on Issues in OAI Harvesting, the group discussed implications for cataloging. Reiterating Issue 1 in the Significant Issues document, a key success factor would be to have filters in place for appropriate narrowing of searches. The presentation of results would also be important as long as it helps the user understand what he or she is retrieving. FRBR may be of assistance in this regard. The group also questioned if parallel records for different schema might be allowed and how these "duplicate" records might impact cataloging workflows. The ideal would be to have a single record with the option of displaying it in a variety of metadata formats.
From May 2005--
Topic 1: Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
Marty Withrow, OCLC's Director of Cataloging Development, discussed Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, describing its commercial uses and benefits with respect to library processes. He posited an RFID Cataloging Model where OCLC could become involved early in the publication process, providing OCLC numbers to publishers so that RFID tags containing OCLC numbers could be inserted into library materials at the point of publication. The metadata for these materials would also go into WorldCat , so that when libraries receive the materials, cataloging would merely be a process of sending the OCLC number to set holdings and return the metadata for the local catalog. Marty also mentioned some current barriers to RFID technology, including costs of tags and readers, acceptance by publishers/materials vendors, standards, and privacy concerns. Committee questions included whether anything is "printed" on the tag in case the reader is not working (A: not at this time) and what the quality of the metadata would be at the point of publication (A: the metadata would need to be enhanced over time and could use a BibNotification process to deliver the updated record to libraries).
Next, Marty outlined a possible way to allow cataloging through Open WorldCat. Using prototype screens, he demonstrated how a cataloging selection could be added to a record that is located through the "Find in a Library" Open WorldCat option, then prompting for authorization and passwords. The committee indicated that another access point to cataloging was a good idea, especially for small libraries. Another indicated that it might be of interest for individuals wanting to catalog their personal collections. Since Marty's example showed cover art for the title, one committee member expressed an interest in being able to download cover art and reviews as part of the cataloging process. Another commented that OCLC needs to make the catalog more "Amazon-like". A final comment from another member was that their library would rather link to the evaluative metadata rather than store it.
Topic 2: User and Collection Analyses
Several interesting recent or in-process OCLC Office of Research projects were reviewed. For further details about these projects and for descriptions of other topics addressed at these meetings, see <www.oclc.org/memberscouncil>, choose a meeting date and click on "Minutes".
Respectfully submitted,
Kevin Furniss
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Last updated: November 14, 2005
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