Heather Sherman - BDS The 2020 NAG Quality of Shelf Ready Metadata report and Jisc’s work on Plan M both highlighted that the monograph metadata supply chain is costly, inefficient, and not fit for purpose. To address this, BDS consulted with the entire monograph supply chain – publishers, suppliers, purchasing consortia, system providers and libraries to create a radically new service - the BDS Academic Library Licence. The Breakout session will explore how BDS and libraries such as Imperial College have partnered on a cost-effective, completely hands-off solution for the creation, curation, supply and sharing of high quality records that realises the aims of Jisc’s Plan M and brings about much needed change to the metadata marketplace which is resulting in service improvements and cost savings.

1. BDS – Your metadata partner
Streamlining monograph metadata supply
with BDS
Heather Sherman
DIRECTOR OF ACADEMIC LIBRARY OPERATIONS
heather.sherman@bdslive.com

2. BDS – Your metadata partner
Who are BDS?
• Bibliographic Data Services Ltd
• Established in 1995
• Privately owned by the original co-founders Lesley Whyte and Eric Green
• Based in Dumfries, South-West Scotland
• Employ over 60 staff
• Proud to be a Real Living Wage employer

3. BDS – Your metadata partner
https://www.crichton.co.uk/

4. BDS – Your metadata partner
Why BDS?
• Metadata is the core of our business
• Supply metadata for
o Libraries
o University libraries via stock suppliers for over 25 years
o Every Public Library in UK and Ireland
o Creator of British Library Cataloguing in Publication data since 1995
o Publishers
o Bookshops
o Home entertainment
o Web retailers
• Significantly more cost-effective solution than internal operations
• “

5. BDS – Your metadata partner
2020 NAG Quality of Shelf Ready metadata report &
Jisc Remodeling UK Data Marketplace
Quality of metadata
• Libraries spend considerable amounts of money on acquiring metadata, often not fit for purpose
• Librarians spend a great deal of effort correcting bibliographic metadata that they have purchased
Metadata infrastructure
• Many channels through which metadata is made available, none is viewed as entirely fit for purpose
• The landscape is messy, metadata flows from player to player, often being stripped of prior intellectual
input

6. BDS – Your metadata partner
Jisc Plan M
• Fair & sustainable ‘pay to share’ bib data ecosystem
• Deliver ‘fit-for-purpose’ records as early as possible
• Streamline workflows for libraries and suppliers
• Reduce duplication of effort across the community
• Cut down the number of places from which libraries source their records
• Infrastructure allows easy acquisition & re-sharing of quality records
• Metadata for ‘routine acquisition’ is regarded as a solved issue

7. BDS – Your metadata partner
Andrew Knight, Acquisitions and Content Services Manager
Aims for the ALL
Develop a workflow centered around quality assurance not quality control
1. Improving the overall quality to reduce the number of manual interventions
2. Ensuring consistency of records to the same standard without the need for checking
3. Broadening coverage to import as many records as possible via that route
4. Integrating the way metadata is obtained so it fitted into existing process

8. BDS – Your metadata partner
Karen Carden, Resources & Systems Manager
Aims for the ALL
1. The release of cataloguing resources for more specialist material
2. Reduction in the number of places we go to for metadata
3. Reduction in conversations with suppliers
4. Obtaining consistent, good quality metadata to reduce the amount of editing and batch updating
5. Achieve efficiencies and integration with our LMS, Koha

9. BDS – Your metadata partner
What is the ALL?
• Creation, curation, supply, sharing & reuse of records
• Created in close consultation with libraries, stock suppliers, system suppliers, publishers & SUPC
• Meets the specific requirements & buying patterns of UK academic libraries
• Seamless, hands-off delivery of customised MARC records that integrates with existing workflows
• Facilitates direct delivery
• Frees up expert staff for high value projects, e.g.
o Diversity, Equality, Inclusivity initiatives
o Cataloguing Special Collections
o Research Data Management
o Reading Lists

10. BDS – Your metadata partner
Use of BDS records
• For normal library purposes
• To add your library holdings to a union catalogue
• Made available to other libraries via z39.50 / API
• Contributed to agreed library sector database & knowledgebases
o Alma Community Zone
o Base
o OCLC WorldCat
o Jisc NBK Compare, Jisc NBK Discover

11. BDS – Your metadata partner
Coverage
New additions to stock
• English language print, ebook or open access titles published after 1st January 2010
• Published anywhere in the world, not just the UK
• Older, or non-English language titles, where BDS already hold a full record
Existing holdings
• Access to the BDS database of over 11 million book in hand & CIP records for upgrading existing holdings
and ebook package records

12. BDS – Your metadata partner
Standards
• Detailed specifications created with SUPC and NAG
• Records meet SUPC ‘essential / essential when applicable’ metadata requirements
• ebook records meet NISO Metadata Recommended Practice
• BDS metadata adheres to all current international cataloguing and classification standards
✓ RDA
✓ UTF8
✓ NACO authority control for contributors
✓ Classification
• Dewey Decimal
• Library of Congress
• NLM
✓ Subject Headings
• Library of Congress
• MESH

13. BDS – Your metadata partner
How does the ALL work?
Publishers
provide digital
copies
Titles held in BDS
digital repository
Access to over
810,000 titles
Frontlist & backlist
Digital, print & OA
Catalogue records
created /
upgraded
High quality, book
in hand records
Proactive creation
of records for key
titles
Library system /
supplier provide
order ISBNs
Vendor neutral
records supplied
to supportive
stock suppliers
Customised
records provided
to libraries
Existing book in
hand records
provided
immediately
Records needing
upgrading
provided within 2
working days
Integrates with
shelf ready

14. BDS – Your metadata partner
Automated workflow
• Used by every ALL library
• Vendor and format neutral
• Request & delivery of high-quality customised records for new additions to stock
• No staff intervention after initial setup
• Works with or without shelf ready

15. BDS – Your metadata partner
Automated workflow
Purchase order is
created and sent to
supplier
Automated daily
report sends order
details to BDS
BDS process the
report and provide
book in hand
MARC records*
Library system
fetches the records
and imports into
the LMS
*Notification of records provided, records to be upgraded & out of scope ISBNs sent to library

16. BDS – Your metadata partner
Foundations for linked data
• BDS records provide a solid foundation for implementing linked data
oStandardised, high quality, book in hand records
oCorrect MARC encoding
oUse of industry standard authorities for people and subjects
oExtensive use of controlled vocabularies
• BDS & Legal Deposit libraries are the only UK ISNI Registration Agencies
• Creating services for libraries to make the transition to linked data easier
oCross-walks between ISNI and other PIDs, e.g. NACO and ORCID
oInvestigating options for adding ISNIs retrospectively

17. BDS – Your metadata partner
Linked Data – FAST Headings
• Subject system designed for linked data applications
• Supports modernisation/decolonisation
• Backwardly compatible with LCSH
• FAST Authority file links to other services such as
oLCSH Authorities
oVirtual International Authority File
oWikipedia
• BDS moving to FAST in 2023, headings will be added to records, including BL CIP
FAST
Faceted Application of
Subject Terminology

18. BDS – Your metadata partner
Sustainability
ALL helps libraries implement a Green Supply Chain
• Centralizing cataloguing activities rather than dispersing across many institutions
• Creating a record once, then reusing
• Using digital surrogates for book in hand records
• Efficiently creating metadata
“Productivity levels were benchmarked against three leading
Institutions in the production of English-language metadata.
In each case BDS was found to be significantly more productive.”
BDO LLP

19. BDS – Your metadata partner
Jisc Plan M
✓Fair & sustainable ‘pay to share’ bib data ecosystem
✓Deliver ‘fit-for-purpose’ records as early as possible
✓Streamline workflows for libraries and suppliers
✓Reduce duplication of effort across the community
✓Cut down the number of places from which libraries source their records
✓Infrastructure allows easy acquisition & re-sharing of quality records
✓Metadata for ‘routine acquisition’ is regarded as a solved issue

20. BDS – Your metadata partner
Karen Carden, Resources & Systems Manager
Is the ALL delivering?
The payback is consistency of the records and the reduction in the number of places we go to for records
BDS is smoothing out workflows, previous problems resulted from dealing with multiple players
Receive accurate records ahead of publication that slot into our workflow

21. BDS – Your metadata partner
Andrew Knight, Acquisitions & Content Services Manager
Is the ALL delivering?
The records are better, and the quality is guaranteed. We do not check or amend them.
BDS supply 90% of our metadata, we easily have the capacity to catalogue any remaining titles in-house.
The cost is roughly the same per record as before.
Even if the ALL cost a bit more, it would be worth the investment to ensure users can find the resources they
need. Otherwise, it’s money and effort completely wasted.

22. BDS – Your metadata partner
Chris Banks, Director of Library Services
“We are now seeing a number of benefits, including value for money compared with our previous
supplier, an integration with our shelf-ready service – something not available via our previous
supplier, a better end user experience as shelf-ready stock can now be sent directly to the relevant
campus library without first having to come to our Central Library for checking and onward
distribution, and high quality records. Through BDS we have access to their comprehensive
database of records”

23. BDS – Your metadata partner
Questions?
Heather Sherman
DIRECTOR OF ACADEMIC LIBRARY OPERATIONS
heather.sherman@bdslive.com