A Future for the Library Catalogue T Hickey
A Future for the Library Catalogue T. Hickey ACRL/DVC Bryn Mawr 3 November 2006
OCLC Research § § § § Research for both • OCLC services • Membership Metadata management Knowledge organization Content management Interoperability Systems & interaction design ~30 employees
Reports § Melvyl Recommender Project (CDL) • http: //www. cdlib. org/inside/projects/melvyl_recommend er/report_docs/Mellon_final. pdf § Changing Nature of the Catalog and its Integration… • http: //www. loc. gov/catdir/calhoun-report-final. pdf § Future of Cataloging at Indiana University • http: //www. iub. edu/~libtserv/pub/Future_of_Cataloging _White_Paper. pdf § Martha Yee: Beyond the OPAC: future directions for webbased catalogues • http: //www. nla. gov. au/lis/stndrds/grps/acoc/papers 200 6. html
Influences § § § § FRBR Faceting Google, Yahoo, etc. Digital content Ranking Consortia Connectivity Remote users
Basic Approach § Go to the users • Bring data to the user • Make it as inviting as possible • Invite their participation § Use the data we have • Classification • Controlled vocabularies • Controlled names • FRBR • Usage data
OCLC’s Role § Largest consortia, largest catalog • 72 million records, growing at 12 million/year • 1. 1 billion holdings • http: //www. oclc. org/worldcat/grow. htm § Open World. Cat § Relationships with Web indexers § Authority control § Data mining
General Observations § § § Grouping and ranking are critical Simpler is better Faster is better Faceting needs to be visible Authority control is important Local is not as important as it was
OCLC Research § Data mining • World. Cat Identities • Audience level § Authority control • VIAF • Heading control § FRBR • Algorithm • x. ISBN § Live search § Fiction. Finder
World. Cat Identities § Create a page for each person in World. Cat • Name(s) • Works by and about • Subjects • Dates • Fiction/non-fiction • Roles • Co-authors § Add links • Wikipedia • Authority files
Approach § Borrow from • Fiction. Finder • Red. Light. Green • FRBR • VIAF • People. Australia • Wikipedia § Pages are ‘static’ • Easier to do complicated analysis • Some parts may be editable • Use cover art in lieu of photos
Statistics § § § 80 million (nominally) controlled headings 18 million different identities in World. Cat 2 million with at least five citations 12 million with only one citation 400, 000 identities with non-Latin script forms
Plans, etc. § § § Make World. Cat Identities public this year Revised version of Fiction. Finder soon Improve authority control Extend authority control Improve FRBR matching
Do We Need It? § Just have Google harvest everything • Our experience with Google • Fielded searching • Reliable searching § Possibility of user-supplied metadata § Cost of good metadata § Cost of non-existent metadata
Conclusions § Shift to remote users forces new approaches § Online availability – trend towards centralization § More flexibility in implementations § Patrons are better served § Less emphasis on physical collections
Thom Hickey hickey@oclc. org
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