[Check out the notes for details] Explores how WorldCat can be interrogated to reveal interesting things about a subject domain - Irish Studies. Part one looks at a move to linked data, suggesting that this will better support research enquiries. Part two provides some simple examples of how bibliographic data can support 'distant reading', literary analysis at scale. The third section looks at the collective Irish Studies collection - how Irish Studies materials are distributed across library collections.
It was presented at the American Conference for Irish Studies, 1 April 2016, University of Notre Dame.
Library futures: converging and diverging directions for public and academic ...lisld
The major influence on library futures is the changing character of their user communities. As patterns of research, learning and personal development change in a network environment so library services need to change. At the same time, libraries are focused on engaging with their communities more strongly - getting into their work and learning flows. This means that libraries are becoming more unlike each other, they are diverging as they meet the specific needs of their communities. Research libraries diverge from academic libraries, and each is different from urban public libraries, and so on.
At the same time, at a broader level libraries are experiencing similar pressures. The need to engage more strongly with their communities. The need to assess what they do. The need to configure space around experiences rather than around collections. Libraries are converging around some of these issues.
This presentation will consider the future of libraries from the point of view of convergence and divergence between types of libraries.
The facilitated collection: collections and collecting in a network environmentlisld
We often think of collections as local – whether owned or licensed. Increasingly this picture is changing in several ways. Libraries are sharing responsibility for collections. Libraries are providing access to materials they do not own, but which are available to their users (freely available digital book collections for example). Demand driven acquisitions changes the view of local collections. Institutions are also thinking about how to manage locally produced materials (research data for example) and support access across institutions. This trend is supported by changes as discovery is peeled away from local collections. This presentation discusses these trends, and collections and discovery change in a network environment.
This was a presentation at the Libraries Australia Forum, Melbourne, 2015
Open Context and Publishing to the Web of Data: Eric Kansa's LAWDI Presentationekansa
This presentation discusses how a model of “data sharing as publishing” can contribute to developing Linked Open Data resources in archaeology and the study of the ancient world. The paper gives examples from Open Context’s developing approach to data editing, documentation and quality improvement processes. The goal of these efforts is to better align the professional interests of individual researchers with the needs of the larger community to access and use high-quality data in Linked Data scenarios.
From local infrastructure to engagement - thinking about the library in the l...lisld
Libraries are rebalancing services and directions so that they are more active in the lives of their users. This presentation frames this discussion. It looks at shifts in user behaviours, collections, and spaces, and describes how OCLC Reseach is helping libraries make these transitions.
This presentation was given at the Minitex ILL Meeting in St Paul on 12 May 2015.
OCLC Research Update at ALA Chicago. June 26, 2017.OCLC
Rachel Frick, OCLC Executive Director of the OCLC Research Library Partnership, reviews some of the broad agenda items and recent publications related to the work of OCLC Research. Rachel is then joined for two presentations on specific research topics. First, Sharon Streams (OCLC Director of WebJunction) and Monika Sengul-Jones (OCLC Wikipedian-in-Residence) present on “Public Libraries and Wikipedia.” Next, Kenning Arlitsch (Dean, Montana State University Library) and Jeff Mixter (OCLC Senior Software Engineer) share their findings on “Accurate Institutional Repository Download Measurement using RAMP, the Repository Analytics and Metrics Portal.”
Collections unbound: collection directions and the RLUK collective collectionlisld
A presentation given to RLUK Members' meeting at the University of Warwick.
The library identity has been closely bound with its collection. However this is changing as research and learning behaviours evolve in a network environment. There are three interesting trends. First, atttention is shifting from a library-centric view of a locally owned collection to a user-centred view of a facilitated collection in places where the library can add value. Second, there is growing emphasis on support for creation, for the process of research, as well as for the products, the article or book. And third, we are seeing a changing perspective on the historic core, the print book collection. Increasingly, this is being seen in collective ways as institutions manage down print, or think about its management in cooperative settings, or retire collections as space is reconfigured around research and learning experiences. This presentation also provides preliminary findings for the analysis being carried out by OCLC Research of the RLUK collective collection.
Library futures: converging and diverging directions for public and academic ...lisld
The major influence on library futures is the changing character of their user communities. As patterns of research, learning and personal development change in a network environment so library services need to change. At the same time, libraries are focused on engaging with their communities more strongly - getting into their work and learning flows. This means that libraries are becoming more unlike each other, they are diverging as they meet the specific needs of their communities. Research libraries diverge from academic libraries, and each is different from urban public libraries, and so on.
At the same time, at a broader level libraries are experiencing similar pressures. The need to engage more strongly with their communities. The need to assess what they do. The need to configure space around experiences rather than around collections. Libraries are converging around some of these issues.
This presentation will consider the future of libraries from the point of view of convergence and divergence between types of libraries.
The facilitated collection: collections and collecting in a network environmentlisld
We often think of collections as local – whether owned or licensed. Increasingly this picture is changing in several ways. Libraries are sharing responsibility for collections. Libraries are providing access to materials they do not own, but which are available to their users (freely available digital book collections for example). Demand driven acquisitions changes the view of local collections. Institutions are also thinking about how to manage locally produced materials (research data for example) and support access across institutions. This trend is supported by changes as discovery is peeled away from local collections. This presentation discusses these trends, and collections and discovery change in a network environment.
This was a presentation at the Libraries Australia Forum, Melbourne, 2015
Open Context and Publishing to the Web of Data: Eric Kansa's LAWDI Presentationekansa
This presentation discusses how a model of “data sharing as publishing” can contribute to developing Linked Open Data resources in archaeology and the study of the ancient world. The paper gives examples from Open Context’s developing approach to data editing, documentation and quality improvement processes. The goal of these efforts is to better align the professional interests of individual researchers with the needs of the larger community to access and use high-quality data in Linked Data scenarios.
From local infrastructure to engagement - thinking about the library in the l...lisld
Libraries are rebalancing services and directions so that they are more active in the lives of their users. This presentation frames this discussion. It looks at shifts in user behaviours, collections, and spaces, and describes how OCLC Reseach is helping libraries make these transitions.
This presentation was given at the Minitex ILL Meeting in St Paul on 12 May 2015.
OCLC Research Update at ALA Chicago. June 26, 2017.OCLC
Rachel Frick, OCLC Executive Director of the OCLC Research Library Partnership, reviews some of the broad agenda items and recent publications related to the work of OCLC Research. Rachel is then joined for two presentations on specific research topics. First, Sharon Streams (OCLC Director of WebJunction) and Monika Sengul-Jones (OCLC Wikipedian-in-Residence) present on “Public Libraries and Wikipedia.” Next, Kenning Arlitsch (Dean, Montana State University Library) and Jeff Mixter (OCLC Senior Software Engineer) share their findings on “Accurate Institutional Repository Download Measurement using RAMP, the Repository Analytics and Metrics Portal.”
Collections unbound: collection directions and the RLUK collective collectionlisld
A presentation given to RLUK Members' meeting at the University of Warwick.
The library identity has been closely bound with its collection. However this is changing as research and learning behaviours evolve in a network environment. There are three interesting trends. First, atttention is shifting from a library-centric view of a locally owned collection to a user-centred view of a facilitated collection in places where the library can add value. Second, there is growing emphasis on support for creation, for the process of research, as well as for the products, the article or book. And third, we are seeing a changing perspective on the historic core, the print book collection. Increasingly, this is being seen in collective ways as institutions manage down print, or think about its management in cooperative settings, or retire collections as space is reconfigured around research and learning experiences. This presentation also provides preliminary findings for the analysis being carried out by OCLC Research of the RLUK collective collection.
Museum as Platform; Curator as ChampionNancy Proctor
"Museum as Platform; Curator as Champion: Learning to sing in the age of social media," a presentation by Nancy Proctor at the conference, "Event Culture: The Museum and Its Staging of Contemporary Art" organized by the Copenhagen Doctoral School of Cultural Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 7 November 2009.
Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States
Library collections and the emerging scholarly recordlisld
A high level review of collection trends followed by a summary of recent work on the evolving scholarly record.
Presented at the OCLC Research Library Partnership meeting at the University of Melbourne, 2 December 2015.
Presented at Industry Symposium, IFLA, 14 August 2008. Describes a new environment of global information services using metadata, taxonomies, and knowledge organization. Makes the case that these changes will permanently affect what it means "to catalog" materials for the purpose of connecting citizens, students and scholars to the information they need, when and where they need it.
Research in context. OCLC Research and environmental trends. Lorcan Dempseylisld
Delivered at the OCLC Symposium at the Americas Regional Councils meeting at ALA, January 2015.
Reviews several major research themes - shared space and shared print, digital information behaviors, and the evolution of the scholarly record - in terms of general environmental trends. Highlights work done by OCLC Research.
This is the first part of a two part presentation. The second part was given by my colleague Chrystie Hill.
Looking at Libraries, collections & technologylisld
**Important note - notes visible in downloaded presentation. **
An overview of research library collection trends. Presented in the context of changing demands of research and learning in a network environment. Behaviors shape technology; technology shapes behaviors. There is also some analysis of the RLUK collective collections study and a quick look at some characertistics of The Bodleian Libraries' collections.
Keynote presented at the International Association of University Libraries Conference (IATUL), 20 June 2017 in Bolzano, Italy.
Library metadata was created to describe objects and enable a reader to understand when they had the same or a different object in hand. Now linked data concepts and techniques are allowing us to recreate, merge, and link our metadata assets in new ways that better support discovery - both in our local systems and on the wider web. Tennant described this migration and the potential it has for solving key discovery problems.
Collection directions - towards collective collectionslisld
How the emergence of new research and learning workflows in digital environments is affecting library collecting and collections. Several trends are reviewed. In the light of diversifying competing requirements, the need to manage down print and develop shared print responses is discussed.
Presentation to OCLC Asia Pacific Regional Council meeting. 13 Oct. 2014.
The Library in the Life of the User: Two Collection Directionslisld
Our understanding of library collections is changing in a digital, network environment. This presentation focuses on two trends in this context. First, the inside-out library is a trend which sees libraries support the creation, management and discoverability of institutional materials: research data, expertise, preprints, and so on. Second, the facilitated collection is a trend which sees libraries increasingly organize resources around user interests, whether these resources are external, collaborative or locally acquired.
This presentation was given at 'The transformation of academic library collecting: a symposium inspired by Dan C. Hazen'. Harvard Library, 20/21 Oct. 2016
Libraries, collections, technology: presented at Pennylvania State University...lisld
Library collections are changing in a network environment. This presentation considers how collections are being reconfigured, it looks at research support services, and it explores the shift from the purchased/licensed collection to the facilitated collection.
Challenges and opportunities for academic librarieslisld
Research and learning behaviors are changing in a network environment. What challenges do Academic libraries face? What opportunities do they have? A presentation given at a symposium on the future of academic libraries at the Open University.
Digital Visitors and Residents: Project Feedbackjisc-elearning
Students and staff have been developing their own digital literacies for years and successfully integrating them into their social and professional activities. The Visitors and Residents project has been capturing these literacies by interviewing participants within four educational stages from secondary school to experienced scholars. Using the Visitors and Residents idea as a framework the project has been mapping what motivates individuals and groups to engage with the web for learning. We have been exploring the information-seeking and learning strategies that are evolving in both personal and professional contexts. In this presentation we will discuss these emerging ‘user owned’ literacies and how they might integrate with institutional approaches to developing digital literacies. We also will discuss the Visitors and Residents mapping process and how this could be utilised by projects as a tool for reflecting on existing and potential literacies and the development of services and systems.
David White, Co-manager , Technology Assisted Lifelong Learning, University of Oxford
Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, OCLC Research
The identity of the library is closely bound with its collections. In a print world, this made sense, as the central role of the library was to place materials close to the user and arrange them for effective use.
However, in a network environment this is no longer the case. Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President, Membership and Research, and Chief Strategist at the Online Computer Library Center, will discuss the following three trends that are changing the character of library collections:
The facilitated collection, where the library connects users to resources of interest to their research and learning needs, whether or not they are assembled locally.
The collective collection, where libraries begin to think about moving to shared environments to manage their collections and assuming collective responsibility for stewardship of the scholarly record.
The inside-out collection, where libraries work with other campus partners to support the creation, management and disclosure of institutional materials—research data, special collections, and so on. Here the library supports the creative enterprise of scholarship directly. Together, these trends are changing how we think about collections, libraries, and services to their users.
Together, these trends are changing how we think about collections, libraries, and services to their users.
The Thomas Lecture Series honors the outstanding work that Shirley K. Baker, former Vice Chancellor for Scholarly Resources & Dean of University Libraries, led in the areas of networked information and resource sharing.
Catholic University of America College of Library and Information Sciences LSC 747 Special Collections lecture summer 2011 at the Smithsonian Institution
Museum as Platform; Curator as ChampionNancy Proctor
"Museum as Platform; Curator as Champion: Learning to sing in the age of social media," a presentation by Nancy Proctor at the conference, "Event Culture: The Museum and Its Staging of Contemporary Art" organized by the Copenhagen Doctoral School of Cultural Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 7 November 2009.
Creative Commons License Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States
Library collections and the emerging scholarly recordlisld
A high level review of collection trends followed by a summary of recent work on the evolving scholarly record.
Presented at the OCLC Research Library Partnership meeting at the University of Melbourne, 2 December 2015.
Presented at Industry Symposium, IFLA, 14 August 2008. Describes a new environment of global information services using metadata, taxonomies, and knowledge organization. Makes the case that these changes will permanently affect what it means "to catalog" materials for the purpose of connecting citizens, students and scholars to the information they need, when and where they need it.
Research in context. OCLC Research and environmental trends. Lorcan Dempseylisld
Delivered at the OCLC Symposium at the Americas Regional Councils meeting at ALA, January 2015.
Reviews several major research themes - shared space and shared print, digital information behaviors, and the evolution of the scholarly record - in terms of general environmental trends. Highlights work done by OCLC Research.
This is the first part of a two part presentation. The second part was given by my colleague Chrystie Hill.
Looking at Libraries, collections & technologylisld
**Important note - notes visible in downloaded presentation. **
An overview of research library collection trends. Presented in the context of changing demands of research and learning in a network environment. Behaviors shape technology; technology shapes behaviors. There is also some analysis of the RLUK collective collections study and a quick look at some characertistics of The Bodleian Libraries' collections.
Keynote presented at the International Association of University Libraries Conference (IATUL), 20 June 2017 in Bolzano, Italy.
Library metadata was created to describe objects and enable a reader to understand when they had the same or a different object in hand. Now linked data concepts and techniques are allowing us to recreate, merge, and link our metadata assets in new ways that better support discovery - both in our local systems and on the wider web. Tennant described this migration and the potential it has for solving key discovery problems.
Collection directions - towards collective collectionslisld
How the emergence of new research and learning workflows in digital environments is affecting library collecting and collections. Several trends are reviewed. In the light of diversifying competing requirements, the need to manage down print and develop shared print responses is discussed.
Presentation to OCLC Asia Pacific Regional Council meeting. 13 Oct. 2014.
The Library in the Life of the User: Two Collection Directionslisld
Our understanding of library collections is changing in a digital, network environment. This presentation focuses on two trends in this context. First, the inside-out library is a trend which sees libraries support the creation, management and discoverability of institutional materials: research data, expertise, preprints, and so on. Second, the facilitated collection is a trend which sees libraries increasingly organize resources around user interests, whether these resources are external, collaborative or locally acquired.
This presentation was given at 'The transformation of academic library collecting: a symposium inspired by Dan C. Hazen'. Harvard Library, 20/21 Oct. 2016
Libraries, collections, technology: presented at Pennylvania State University...lisld
Library collections are changing in a network environment. This presentation considers how collections are being reconfigured, it looks at research support services, and it explores the shift from the purchased/licensed collection to the facilitated collection.
Challenges and opportunities for academic librarieslisld
Research and learning behaviors are changing in a network environment. What challenges do Academic libraries face? What opportunities do they have? A presentation given at a symposium on the future of academic libraries at the Open University.
Digital Visitors and Residents: Project Feedbackjisc-elearning
Students and staff have been developing their own digital literacies for years and successfully integrating them into their social and professional activities. The Visitors and Residents project has been capturing these literacies by interviewing participants within four educational stages from secondary school to experienced scholars. Using the Visitors and Residents idea as a framework the project has been mapping what motivates individuals and groups to engage with the web for learning. We have been exploring the information-seeking and learning strategies that are evolving in both personal and professional contexts. In this presentation we will discuss these emerging ‘user owned’ literacies and how they might integrate with institutional approaches to developing digital literacies. We also will discuss the Visitors and Residents mapping process and how this could be utilised by projects as a tool for reflecting on existing and potential literacies and the development of services and systems.
David White, Co-manager , Technology Assisted Lifelong Learning, University of Oxford
Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist, OCLC Research
The identity of the library is closely bound with its collections. In a print world, this made sense, as the central role of the library was to place materials close to the user and arrange them for effective use.
However, in a network environment this is no longer the case. Lorcan Dempsey, Vice President, Membership and Research, and Chief Strategist at the Online Computer Library Center, will discuss the following three trends that are changing the character of library collections:
The facilitated collection, where the library connects users to resources of interest to their research and learning needs, whether or not they are assembled locally.
The collective collection, where libraries begin to think about moving to shared environments to manage their collections and assuming collective responsibility for stewardship of the scholarly record.
The inside-out collection, where libraries work with other campus partners to support the creation, management and disclosure of institutional materials—research data, special collections, and so on. Here the library supports the creative enterprise of scholarship directly. Together, these trends are changing how we think about collections, libraries, and services to their users.
Together, these trends are changing how we think about collections, libraries, and services to their users.
The Thomas Lecture Series honors the outstanding work that Shirley K. Baker, former Vice Chancellor for Scholarly Resources & Dean of University Libraries, led in the areas of networked information and resource sharing.
Catholic University of America College of Library and Information Sciences LSC 747 Special Collections lecture summer 2011 at the Smithsonian Institution
An Introduction to the Biodiversity Heritage LibraryMartin Kalfatovic
An Introduction to the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Martin R. Kalfatovic. BHL Australian Node Meeting: National Library of Australia. 4 June 2010. Canberra, Australia.
Oh Time, Thy Pyramids! The Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Unchaining o...Martin Kalfatovic
Oh Time, Thy Pyramids! The Biodiversity Heritage Library and the Unchaining of the Universal Library(?). Martin Kalfatovic. Information Futures Institute. Berkman Center for Internet & Society. April 12, 2008. Cambridge, MA.
The Irish presence in the global published recordlisld
The global diffusion of published materials is one way in which a country projects its identity. This presentation will present some findings from a new study of Ireland’s presence in the published record, part of OCLC Research’s continuing work exploring cultural patterns and trends through library bibliographic and holdings data. It will touch on materials published in Ireland, by Irish people, and/or about Ireland. Irish materials – and by extension, Irish publishers, Irish authors, and Ireland itself – form a significant presence in the published record; this talk will trace some of their distinctive characteristics and patterns of global diffusion. The data for the study is drawn from WorldCat. The study shows that Gulliver's Travels is the most popular Irish work of literature as measured by library holdings, and that Eoin Colfer is the most popular contemporary Irish author.
Roy Tennant, Senior Program Officer, OCLC Research
As library collections shift from print materials to digital formats, and as the web enables ubiquitous and instantaneous discovery of information, library users expect to find and access materials online. It’s not enough to have pages “on the web”; library data must be “woven into the web” and integrated into the sites and services that library users frequent daily – Google, Wikipedia, social networks. When information about a library’s collection is locked up behind a specific web site (such as an OPAC), it is often exceedingly difficult for services, such as search engines, to consume that data. Information seekers need to be connected back to their local library resources from wherever they are on the web. The imperative is to make library data available in new data formats that are native to the web, exposing it to the wider web community, making it easily discoverable by other sites, services, and ultimately consumers. Roy Tennant will shed light on what linked data is and how to re-envision, expose and share library data as entities that are part of the web.
Wikipedia and Special Collections: A Special RelationshipBob Kosovsky
Presented on July 25, 2013 at the preconference of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) of the Association for Colleges and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association.
The Digital Public Library of America: An Overview and Working with the Natio...Martin Kalfatovic
The Digital Public Library of America: An Overview and Working with the National Collections. Martin R. Kalfatovic. NAGARA/CoSA Joint Conference. Santa Fe, New Mexico. 21 June 2012
Sherborn: Pilsk, Joel Richard & Kalfatovic - Unlocking the Index Animalium: F...ICZN
Smithsonian Institution Libraries received funding in 2004 to digitize Sherborn’s Index Animalium. The initial project was to digitize the pages images and re-key the data into a simple data structure. As the project evolved, a more complex database was developed to enable quality searching to retrieve species names and to search the bibliography. The OCRed, scanned Index Animalium was re-keyed to the specifications of 99.995% accuracy rate. Working off the lessons learned by MBL WHOI Library’s project for Neave’s Nomenclator Zoologicus, simple expressions were used to break apart the re-keyed text. Coinciding with the development of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (2005), it became obvious there was a need to integrate the scanned Index Animalium, BHL’s scanned taxonomic literature, and taxonomic intelligence. The challenges of working with legacy taxonomic citation, computer matching algorithms, and making connections have brought us to today’s goal of making Sherborn available as open linked data. The goal is to allow repurposing of data, partnering with others to allow machine-to-machine communications and sharing information for broad discovery and access.
When we talk about LIS education, we’re talking about providing education for a professional career in libraries, with all the traits the word ‘profession’ implies: professionalism, prolonged training, and formal education. This type of education wasn’t always the case however; it developed as the librarian profession did. In fact, the creation of library schools had a direct impact on making librarianship a professional career in the first place.
3 Years On: The Biodiversity Heritage Library. Martin R. Kalfatovic. BHL Australia Kick Off Meeting: Melbourne Museum. 1 June 2010. Melbourne, Australia.
Similar to Irish Studies - making library data work harder (20)
Rediscoverying discovery: three general exampleslisld
Presented at CNI virtual meeting, an overview of some trends in library discovery. Considers how libraries are considering how to present a more holistic experience online.
Although library collaboration is common and many libraries collaborate through many organizations, it is a relatively unexamined aspect of library work. Many descriptions exist, but little from the point of view of organization and motivation. We will present a framework for thinking about library collaboration and draw out some of the challenges successful collaborations face. We will also consider how collaboration is evolving and how trends may be accelerated. We will emphasize that collaboration is a set of strategic and tactical choices, that it is very influenced by people and politics, and that collective action poses problems.
These dynamics are very much alive in questions around collective collections. We will look at collections as an example of the consolidation vs autonomy dynamic we observe in consortia generally. We also try and provide some guidance about how a collective collections initiative would be shaped – to identify points where decisions and commitments need to be made. We consider retrospective collection coordination (digitization, resource sharing, shared print) which currently tends to be layered over relatively autonomously developed collections, optimized at the institutional level, and prospective collection development (where libraries work together to optimize at the system level through collaborative collection development, licensing and so on). We consider some different dynamics with licensed and purchased materials, as well as institutionally created materials (research outputs, …).
The powers of consortia: scaling capacity, learning, innovation and influencelisld
Libraries and related organizations group together in a variety of ways to get their work done. They consort, for example, to lobby, to negotiate and license, and to build shared infrastructure.
However, there are other aspects of collective activity that are becoming more important. In fact, I suggest that two are increasingly central to successful library activity: these are learning and innovation.
Thinking this way about consortial activity suggests four areas where libraries come together to create scale advantages: capacity, learning, innovation, influence.
Some consortial organizations span several of these, some are more specialised.
This presentation will consider consortia under these headings. It will also briefly discuss how choices about scope, scale and sourcing are important decision points for consortia when considering their mission and investments.
The network reshapes the research library collectionlisld
The library collection has been central to library identity and service, however we are now seeing major changes in how libraries help discover, curate and create collections. This is a response to evolving research and learning behaviors in a network environment. This presentation considers trends which are influencing how we think about library curatorial activities and are reshaping their collections. The first direction is the ‘inside-out library’ which is a response to the reorganization of research work by the digital environment. The second is the facilitated collections, which is a response to the reorganization of the information space by the network. The presentation discusses three ways in which we are thinking differently about collections: the inside out collection, the facilitated collection, and the collective collection.
Towards collaboration at scale: Libraries, the social and the technicallisld
Libraries are now supporting research and learning behaviors in data rich network environments. This presentation looks at some examples focusing on how an emphasis on individual systems needs to give way to a broader view of process, workflow and behaviors.
It also discusses how this environment creates a demand for collaboration at scale among libraries.
We used to think of the user in the life of the library. Now we think of the library in the life of the user. As behaviors change in a network environment, we have seen growing interest in ethnographic and user-centered design approaches. This presentation introduces this topic. It also explores changes in how we manage collections as an illustration of this shift towards thinking of the library in the life of the user.
Libraries: technology as artifact and technology in practicelisld
Research and learning workflows are increasingly enacted in data-rich network environments. New behaviors are emerging which are shaped by and in turn shape workflow and data tools and services. This means that library attention is shifting from not only providing support systems and services but to supporting those behaviors more directly as they emerge. This support may take the form of particular system or services, but will also involve consulting and advising about such things as publication venues, reputation management, profiles, research networking.
A keynote presentation given at the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities CITM and Library Deans meeting. Loyola University, Maryland.
Keynote presentation at the Lita Forum, Albuquerque. Research and learning practices are enacted in technology rich environments. New tools support digital workflows and the volume and variety of research and learning outputs are growing. Libraries are working to support these new environments and to connect their services to them.
The library and the network: scale, engagement, innovationlisld
Presented at Georgetown University Library. Discusses ongoing reconfiguration of libraries by networks. A shift from infrastructure to engagement around developing research and learning needs. Also includes some analysis of Georgetown collections in the context of Worldcat.
Keynote presentation at Montana Library Association meeting, Helena, 7 February. It looks at public and academic library directions in a network environment.
Library discovery: past, present and some futureslisld
A presentation at the NISO virtual conference on Webscale Discovery Services, 20 November 2013.
Considers some of the issues that have led to the adoption of these services, and some future directions.
Distinguishes between discovery (providing a library destination) and discoverability (making stuff discoverable elsewhere).
A presentation about aggregation and discovery issues presented to the ARL Fall Forum. It covers some issues prompted by the Share proposal. Considers metadata aggregation and the general move from 'strings to things' in general Internet services. Touches on linked data, metadata processing, user expectation. Concludes with some general issues to consider.
This is a short presentation given at the Technical Services Big Heads meeting at ALA 2013 in Chicago. It talks about four aspects of our current discovery environment.
It is based on 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at Libraries, Discovery, and the Catalog: Scale, Workflow, Attention' in Educause Review, December, 2012. http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/thirteen-ways-looking-libraries-discovery-and-catalog-scale-workflow-attention
Rightscaling, engagement, learning: reconfiguring the library for a network e...lisld
The edge of the world. Theta 2013: the Higher Education Technology Agenda. Hobart, Tasmania, 7-10 April, 2013.
The network continues to reconfigure personal and organizational relationships. Libraries face three important challenges in this environment.
1. Rightscaling infrastructure.
Libraries were predominantly ‘institution-scale’ – they provided services at the level of the institution for their local users. However, their users now look to the network for information services (e.g. Google Scholar, Wikipedia, …). And libraries now look to the network to collaborate or to externalize services (e.g. HathiTrust, cloud-based discovery or systems, shared systems infrastructure, …). In this environment the need for local infrastructure declines (e.g. extensive print collections, redundantly deployed local systems which provide necessary but not distinctive services). The scale advantage manifests itself in both impact and efficiency.
2. The shift to engagement.
Users used to build their workflows around libraries. Now the library needs to build services around user workflows, as those workflows form around network services. Libraries used to acquire and organize ‘published’ materials. Now they are engaged with the full range of creation, management and disclosure of learning and scholarly resources. Library spaces were configured around print collections; now they are configured around experiences, expertise, and specialist facilities. These are all examples of how libraries are reallocating resource and effort to engage more strongly with the learning and research lives of their users, improving the learning experience and making research more productive and research outputs more visible.
3. Institutional innovation
Innovation is important, especially to support greater engagement. But in many ways the most important form of innovation is institutional. Libraries have to develop new and routine ways of collaborating to achieve their goals. At the same time they have to negotiate internal boundaries and forge new structures within institutions. In each case, they are developing new ‘relationship architectures’. Think for example of the institutional innovation required to move to shared systems and collections in the Orbis Cascade Alliance or 2CUL for example. Or think of the innovative approach which makes new relationships within institutions (with Learning and Teaching Support, with the Office of Research, the University Press, emerging e-research infrastructure, IT, etc, for example, or with various educational or social services in a public setting). Evolving such relationships requires an enterprising approach and ensures continual learning.
A Strategic Approach: GenAI in EducationPeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
This slide is special for master students (MIBS & MIFB) in UUM. Also useful for readers who are interested in the topic of contemporary Islamic banking.
A review of the growth of the Israel Genealogy Research Association Database Collection for the last 12 months. Our collection is now passed the 3 million mark and still growing. See which archives have contributed the most. See the different types of records we have, and which years have had records added. You can also see what we have for the future.
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
Introduction to AI for Nonprofits with Tapp NetworkTechSoup
Dive into the world of AI! Experts Jon Hill and Tareq Monaur will guide you through AI's role in enhancing nonprofit websites and basic marketing strategies, making it easy to understand and apply.
Executive Directors Chat Leveraging AI for Diversity, Equity, and InclusionTechSoup
Let’s explore the intersection of technology and equity in the final session of our DEI series. Discover how AI tools, like ChatGPT, can be used to support and enhance your nonprofit's DEI initiatives. Participants will gain insights into practical AI applications and get tips for leveraging technology to advance their DEI goals.
A workshop hosted by the South African Journal of Science aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers with little or no experience in writing and publishing journal articles.
Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
for Anti-inflammatory, Antiulcer, Anticancer, Wound healing, Antidiabetic, Hepatoprotective, Cardio protective, Diuretics and
Antifertility, Toxicity studies as per OECD guidelines
Normal Labour/ Stages of Labour/ Mechanism of LabourWasim Ak
Normal labor is also termed spontaneous labor, defined as the natural physiological process through which the fetus, placenta, and membranes are expelled from the uterus through the birth canal at term (37 to 42 weeks
Normal Labour/ Stages of Labour/ Mechanism of Labour
Irish Studies - making library data work harder
1. Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC
Irish Studies: making library data work harder
American Conference for Irish Studies. University of Notre Dame, 1 April 2016
@LorcanD
2. 1. Making data work
harder
2. Distant reading –
a short interlude
3. Mapping the collective
Irish Studies collection
7. A Google blog post from 2012
describes the Knowledge
Graph that supports searching
for the things, people and
places that Google knows
about and provides
suggestions for relevant
related things.
The Graph powers the Google
Knowledge Card in search
results
The knowledge graph
12. Timothy Burke
presentation to LC WGFBC
• tools that recognize existing clusters of knowledge; if you find a book using lcsh, you
probably already know it existed. tool that recognizes the conversation the book was in.
those that were written after the book came out and have continued the conversation.
• tools that know lines of descent; chronology of publications; later readers determine
connection between texts
• tools that find unknown connections (full text search; topic maps?)
• tools that produce serendipity -- hidden connections.
• tools that inform me of authority
• tools that know about real world usage (those who bought x bought y; how many people
checked this out?)
• tools that know about the sociology of knowledge; the pedigrees of authors: who were
they trained by, how long ago; how trustworthy is this institution?
[Report: Karen Coyle, http://www.kcoyle.net/bib_futures.html#burke]
13. Things not strings (or records)
Three benefits acc to Google:
1. Find the right thing
2. Get the best summary
3. Go deeper and broader
Linked data (Tim Berners-Lee):
1. All kinds of conceptual things, they have names
now that start with HTTP.
2. If I take one of these HTTP names and I look it up
[..] I will get back some data in a standard format
which is kind of useful data that somebody might
like to know about that thing, about that event.
3. When I get back that information it's not just got
somebody's height and weight and when they
were born, it's got relationships. And when it has
relationships, whenever it expresses a
relationship then the other thing that it's related
to is given one of those names that starts with
HTTP.
14. 367 Million bibliographic records
2.3 Billion holdings set
Faceted Application of Subject Terminology
8 Facets
1.7 Million Authority records
VIAF (Virtual International Authority File)
(derived from 44 data sources, chiefly national authority files)
31 Million clusters
214.9 Million worksets
Workset with largest number of manifestations (7.9K):
Don Quixote / Miguel de Cervantes
Links from FAST, VIAF and WorldCat
Important note:
Our analysis is based on the data in
WorldCat and related resources listed here.
21. It includes all casual, sentimental, and
prejudiced value-judgments, and all the
literary chit-chat which makes the
reputations of poets boom and crash in an
imaginary stock exchange. That wealthy
investor Mr. Eliot, after dumping Milton on
the market, is now buying him again;
Donne has probably reached his peak and
will begin to taper off; Tennyson may be in
for a slight flutter but the Shelley stocks
are still bearish. This sort of thing cannot
be part of any systematic study, for a
systematic study can only progress:
whatever dithers or vacillates or reacts is
merely leisure-class gossip.
http://northropfrye-theanatomyofcriticism.blogspot.com/
Northrop
Frye
22.
23.
24. Place in literary imagination
Weight in
global library
system
inscribing Dublin in the
global cultural record
Source: Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library.
(19--?). Large scale plan of Dublin. Retrieved from
http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/9dfbe99e-f18e-55ae-e040-e00a18063f22
James Joyce 65,401
Maeve Binchy 37,804
Roddy Doyle 14,591
Benjamin Black 14,483
Tana French 12,219
Marian Keyes 10,005
Anne Enright 8,771
Edward Rutherfurd 6,453
Charles Lucas 5,933
Declan Hughes 4,400
25. *titles associated with geographic subject heading “Ireland”
fix popular
understanding
of Ireland?
Irish cultural identity in the global
library system
… most widely held authors avg. libraries per title*
Kate Thompson (1956- ) 181
Frank Delaney (1942-) 111
Karen Marie Moning (1964-) 111
Robert Fitzroy Foster (1949-) 107
Maeve Binchy (1940-2012) 97
Peter Tremayne (1943-) 88
William Trevor (1928-) 85
Morgan Llywelyn (1937-) 85
Edna O’Brien (1930-) 84
26. Bibliographic data is underused in
literary research?
Scale offers new opportunities?
29. 418,000 publications
About Ireland …
10 million global holdings
Average holdings
Ireland: 24
Scotland: 15
New Zealand: 8Image: University of Texas Libraries
https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/ireland_1808.jpg
31. Trinity College Dublin
University of Oxford
University College Dublin
Boston College
University College Cork Harvard University (HCL)
Cornell University
University of Notre Dame
New York Public Library
University of Cambridge
Largest institutional collections of
materials about Ireland
(by OCLC symbol, national libraries excluded)
32. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
James Joyce
13,652 global holdings
Kim
Rudyard Kipling
8,932 global holdings
Dubliners
James Joyce
8,457 global holdings
Angela’s Ashes
Frank McCourt
8,167 global holdings
Ulysses
James Joyce
8,078 global holdings
Oscar Wilde
Richard Ellmann
6,004 global holdings
‘Tis
Frank McCourt
5,761 global holdings
Whitethorn Woods
Maeve Binchy
5,415 global holdings
Heart and Soul
Maeve Binchy
5,125 global holdings
Most popular works about Ireland &
the Irish
Teacher Man
Frank McCourt
4,989 global holdings
34. Boston College
University of Mississippi
University of Notre Dame
New York Public Library
New York University
Brown University
Bowling Green State
University
University of Missouri,
Kansas City
University of Limerick
Minuteman Library
Network
Largest institutional collections of
musical recordings about Ireland
(by OCLC symbol, national libraries excluded)
35. Charlie
Lennon (1938-)
Works in WorldCat: 41
66%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
BOSTON COL
BROWN UNIV
UNIV OF LIMERICK
CORK CITY LIBR
UNIV OF MISSISSIPPI
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
UNIV OF NOTRE DAME
NEW YORK UNIV
C/W MARS
BIBLIOMATION, INC
Top 10 Most Comprehensive Collections
Ireland England Vendors
A measure of the market
for Irish music in libraries
36. Éamon De Valera (1882-1975)
Related Works in WorldCat: 193
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11192051
Ireland England USA
Many major cultural figures have a small
distributed unevenly across the global library system
bibliographic footprint
33%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
NATIONAL LIBR OF IRELAND
BOSTON COL
TRINITY COLL DUBLIN
BRITISH LIBR REFERENCE COLLECTIONS
BRITISH LIBR
UNIV OF LIMERICK
UNIV OF KANSAS
NEW YORK PUB LIBR
UNIV OF NOTRE DAME
HARVARD UNIV
Top 10 Most Comprehensive Collections
37. Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais (1879-1916)
Related Works in WorldCat: 249
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Patrick_Pearse.jpg
Ireland England USA
Strong concentrations of material at institutions with related
research interests or heritage connections . . .
26%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
TRINITY COLL DUBLIN
NATIONAL LIBR OF IRELAND
BOSTON COL
UNIV COL DUBLIN
UNIV OF NOTRE DAME
HARVARD UNIV
UNIV COL, CORK
BRITISH LIBR
BRITISH LIBR REFERENCE COLLECTIONS
MAYNOOTH UNIV
Top 10 Most Comprehensive Collections
38. Source: Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library. (1913). W. B. Yeats,
Dublin, January 24th, 1908. Retrieved from
http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-c494-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
… but strongest collections
are not necessarily where
one might predict.
Ireland England USA
W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)
Related Works in WorldCat: 3,137
25%
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
UNIV OF N CAROLINA, CHAPEL HILL
NEW YORK PUB LIBR
BRITISH LIBR REFERENCE…
INDIANA UNIV
BRITISH LIBR
NORTHWESTERN UNIV
EMORY UNIV
YALE UNIV LIBR
BOSTON COL
WAKE FOREST UNIV
Top 10 Most Comprehensive Collections
39. Top ten most comprehensive collections related to rebellions of 1641,
1798, 1803 and 1916 are distributed across 15 institutions and 4 countries
US:
Boston College
Claremont Colleges
Florida Atlantic U
Harvard
Library of Congress
NYPL
U Central Florida
U Illinois
U Kentucky
U New Hampshire
U Notre Dame
Yale
Canada:
Carleton U, Memorial U, U Ottawa
UK:
British Library
Cambridge U
Edinburgh U
King’s College London
National Library of Scotland
Ireland:
National Library of Ireland
Trinity College Dublin
U College Dublin
U College Cork
Mapping Library Coverage of Irish
Rebellions
41. New England repositories provide broad coverage of multiple rebellions
Boston College, Harvard, the
University of New Hampshire and Yale
have substantial coverage for several
Irish rebellions
Mapping Library Coverage of Irish
Rebellions
42. Repositories in the Midwest are centers of excellence for literature on
Emmet’s Rebellion (1803).
Notre Dame has good coverage for Easter
Rising, Emmet’s Rebellion and Rebellion of
1798; University of Illinois has good coverage
of Emmet’s Rebellion
Mapping Library Coverage of Irish
Rebellions
43. If Rebellion of 1641 is a focus, Newfoundland is the destination of choice.
Memorial University holds 46% of the published
literature on the Rebellion of 1641
Mapping Library Coverage of Irish
Rebellions
44. An Irish studies collective collection …
points to ponder
• Rareness is common: relatively small overlap across library
collections; collecting decisions not uniform.
• Only 10% of works about Ireland have more than 100 holdings
• So … scale adds scope and depth: aggregation across individual
collections creates a rich and diverse long tail.
• Unexpected local strengths vis-à-vis collective collection
uncovered and highlighted: e.g., Bowling Green/musical
recordings about Ireland
• This means … coverage requires cooperation: increasing coverage of
Irish studies materials requires increasing scale of cooperation.
• Top 10 largest collections of materials about Ireland cover only
45% of total resource
• Top 500 collections about Ireland required to cover 80% of total
resource
45. The best example of an activity
that can be done most
appropriately in a networked
context is curation
John P Wilkin …
https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/79053
46. The biblio-graph maps researcher
interests more clearly?
A case to be made …
Bibliographic data is underused in
literary research?
Scale offers new opportunities?
The best example of an activity
that can be done most
appropriately in a networked
context is curation
John P Wilkin …
Colleagues interested in
providing feedback –
get in touch with me
Prepared to made data
available
data under research
license.
Open to ‘large scale’
collaborative research
suggestions from ACIS, ….
47. Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC
Created with a lot of help from my friends at OCLC:
Thom Hickey, Brian Lavoie, Constance Malpas, Jeff Mixter, Diane Vizine-Goetz,
Bruce Washburn.
@LorcanD
Thank you …
Editor's Notes
Top – James Joyce Library, University College Dublin. I noted that I graduated with a degree in English Language and Literature from UCD.
Bottom – the Brazen Head (left) is the oldest pub in Dublin Ireland. This has inspired the Brazen Head (right) in Dublin, Ohio, where OCLC HQ is.
Finders are experimental work-based systems developed by OCLC Research. This shows works ranked by library holdings.
The Knowledge Graph that Google began promoting in 2012 is often noted as a model of the power of linked data.
Recently, as Knowledge Panels have appeared with more frequency in search engine results, they have been pointed to as exemplars of that power, with libraries, archives and museums aspiring to be reflected in those highlighted views, and with some library systems emulating that type of focus on working in the data.
Google ‘knows about’ Eva Gore-Booth.
Google ‘knows about’ Sr Patrick Dun’s Hospital and the Slade School of Fine Art.
However, Google does not ‘know about’ this famous poem about the sisters – it can find it but it does not present details about it, related things, etc.
Interesting list from Timothy Burke, Professor of History at Swarthmore, about tools he would like to see when doing research.
Google’s knowledge graph benefits compared to Tim Berners-Lee’s characteristics of linked data.
Data sources we work with in OCLC Research.
WorldCat is the best proxy we have for the print scholarly record.
EntityJS is an OCLC Research prototype for searching across, exploring, and interacting with Linked Data. Using OCLC’s linked data as a starting point, EntityJS provides a way to expand search results to discover not only bibliographic items but also entities associated with bibliographic items such as People, Places, Events, Subjects and Organizations. The application pulls data from a variety of sources such as WorldCat.org, OCLC Works, VIAF, FAST, DBpedia, Wikidata.org and GeoNames. These diverse but connected resources support an entity-oriented discovery experience, a departure from the record-oriented view common in most library systems.
EntityJS is helping us better understand what kinds of data processes and system architectures will work well for RDF Triples ... the basic subject-predicate-object relationships of Linked Data. It provides OCLC researchers with a human-friendly interface for testing discovery and navigation of Linked Data resources, and is part of a testbed for experimenting with user-contributed Linked Data.
Distant reading – reading at a scale above the individual text. Library-scale. Corpus-scale. ….
WorldCat identities provides a glancable profile of an author’s publications.
Interesting to see what this says about the author’s reception/reputation/etc.
By aggregating library holdings data, we can see the impact of individual authors in shaping our cultural understanding of ‘place’.
Rather than simply counting the publications associated with Dublin and these authors, we computed the aggregate library holdings for their works. This provides a measure of the ‘weight’ of these works and authors in the published record: thousands of libraries around the world have acquired this content.
Data based on co-occurrence of author name (VIAF ID) and Dublin geographic heading (FAST ID) in February 2016 WorldCat snapshot.
We can analyze aggregated library data to identify “important” authors based on their publication record and their relative success in gaining library shelf-share. Here, we have divided the total library holdings for each author by the number of titles (related to Ireland) that they have published. An author with just two best-selling publications will do better in a ranked list like this than a scholar who has published a dozen titles that are not widely collected. So the list is not a measure of the intrinsic merits of individual authors or titles, but a view of how successful they have been in penetrating the global library market.
In general, lists like this will favor authors whose works are widely collected by public libraries.
This is an important dimension of cultural production and the dissemination of national identity. For many readers in the US, Ireland is genuinely a fiction.
To identify materials about Ireland, the WorldCat database was scanned to identify all records that contained at least one FAST subject heading that included a string constituting a direct reference to Ireland: i.e., “Ireland” or “Irish”. Headings referencing “Northern Ireland” were filtered out. All FAST subject facets were analyzed: topical, geographic, chronological, personal names, corporate names, events, form, and genre. These headings constituted a core set of Ireland-related subject headings. Any WorldCat record containing one of these subject headings, or a Geographic Area Code of “e-ie” (Ireland), was retained. The next step was to extract all of the FAST headings in WorldCat that co-occurred with the core Ireland-related headings. These were ranked by frequency of occurrence (i.e., number of records in which each heading co-occurred with a core Ireland-related heading). All of the headings that co-occurred ten or more times with one of the core Ireland-related headings were reviewed to assess whether they were also Ireland-related. Given the list of subject headings that survived the review, a second scan of WorldCat was performed to identify all records that contained any of these headings, regardless of whether or not they co-occurred with one of the core Ireland-related headings. The resulting record set was then merged with the first record set produced by the core Ireland-related headings alone, for a total of 417,988 records.
The publications represented by these records account for more than 10 million holdings in library collections worldwide.
Similar analyses done for Scotland and New Zealand indicate that, on average, Ireland-related materials are more widely held than Scottish- or New Zealand-related materials.
This map shows the largest national concentrations of Ireland-related publications outside of Ireland, as represented by their presence in domestic library collections. The ranking is based on each country’s total holdings of the 417,988 publications identified as being about Ireland. The ranking of the ten largest concentrations correlates with a recent ranking of the most common destinations of the Irish diaspora.
The largest institutional collections of Irish-related publications (national libraries excluded). The ranking is based on each institution’s total holdings of the 417,988 publications identified as being about Ireland.
Most popular works about Ireland and the Irish, ranked by total global library holdings. Each work consists of all related publications that have been explicitly cataloged as being “about Ireland”.
Word cloud built from the most frequently-occurring subject headings associated with musical recordings about Ireland.
The largest institutional collections of Irish-related musical recordings (national libraries excluded). The ranking is based on each institution’s total holdings of the 14,922 musical recordings identified as being about Ireland.
Library data in WorldCat is mostly about decisions that have already been made – acquisitions that were made in the past. But in some cases, the concentration of holdings associated with vendors to the library community tells us something about the continued market interests in a topic.
To measure comprehensiveness, we first extract all the library holdings associated with a given author or subject identifier. We then calculate the total number of works associated with the heading, and compute the percentage of works held by individual libraries. Libraries are then ranked according to the breadth of their holdings (their “coverage”) related to the topic or author of interest.
More information on the methods behind this work is available here: http://outgoing.typepad.com/outgoing/2013/05/centers-and-coverage.html
It is important to recognize that our measure of coverage relies on the availability of a FAST or VIAF heading in the bibliographic record. For example, if a library holds works by or about De Valera that have been cataloged in such a way that his name cannot be “controlled” to a VIAF identifier, those holdings will be excluded from the ranked list.
Most libraries do not catalog their collections using FAST and VIAF identifiers; OCLC relies on machine processing routines to map local descriptors (names, subjects) to identifiers. Our “coverage” analysis is only possible because of the efforts that are made to organize and enrich the aggregated data.
Pearse studied for a time at University College Dublin and this may account in part for the library’s relatively high coverage. The strength of coverage at Trinity College Dublin and the National Library likely reflect manuscript and archival holdings in addition to published works.
It is important to recognize that institutions that appear to have similar coverage may have very different collections related to Pearse. For example, Boston College may cover a different ~25% of the literature than is available at TCD. In general, however, when we see a ‘plateau’ in coverage across multiple institutions it is an indicator that multiple libraries have acquired the same ‘core’ literature – a microform set, for example, or a series of Collected Works.
We make no attempt in this analysis to compare the covered content (titles) across different institutions. Thus the ‘quality’ of coverage may be very different from the numerical advantage of holding a greater share of the literature. One can easily imagine that libraries with relatively low coverage might have exceptionally well curated collections, with a small number of works but a large degree of coherence.
The bulk of UNC Yeats collection was acquired as a commemorative gift to the library to mark 5 millionth volume. The library’s very strong coverage was achieved in a fell swoop, and not as a deliberate curatorial effort over many years.
An inescapable artefact of this approach to computing coverage is the fact that libraries that have catalogued resources as part of a Yeats-related collection (items with Yeats provenance but which are not by or about the poet, for example) will rise to the top.
Geographic locations of the top ten collections related to four different Irish rebellions.
To produce this map, we extracted ‘coverage’ data for four different Irish rebellions using FAST event identifiers. We then compiled the top ten most comprehensive collections for each of the rebellions and plotted their locations based on the libraries physical address. Some locations will have coverage for only one of the rebellions; others will have coverage for multiple rebellions.
Beyond institutional strengths, one can see regional concentrations of excellence – here the color spectrum of the heat map indicates the average regional ‘coverage’ of the literature. The red zones have a high degree of coverage (at one or more institutions) for literature related to Irish rebellions.
This map relies on the same underlying data as the previous ‘location’ map, but it aggregates the coverage into regional averages. The red areas will have on average 40% or more of the related literature; blue areas will have only about 20%. Because the map aggregates data for four different subject areas, the averages are computed across all of the rebellions. So a region that has superior coverage of Emmet’s rebellion but relatively limited coverage of the Easter Rising, will tend to have a yellow profile.
In New England, there are several repositories that hold substantial collections related to multiple rebellions – from a practical point of view, this could be useful information for planning a research trip.
In the Midwest, there is a smaller concentration of institutions with broad coverage of the literature, but there is a shared pattern of collecting around the rebellion of 1803. This pattern is revealed by the data – whether or not there is any deliberate coordination of collecting activity at Notre Dame and the University of Illinois, we can see a convergence of library investment reflected in holdings.
Some regions have broad coverage of literature on multiple rebellions, in multiple libraries. Others have a single institution with exceptionally good coverage of a single rebellion – this is true for Memorial University, which has the best coverage of the Rebellion of 1641.