The document discusses the changing landscape for libraries and catalog data as more information is available online. It notes that library patrons now prefer searching online over using physical library resources. The way catalog data is consumed has also changed, with users preferring keyword searches over structured browsing. The document argues that library catalog data needs to be opened up and made available in formats more suitable for online discovery and reuse by both patrons and external developers. It provides examples of how data like ISBNs could be exposed as structured JSON to enable new uses. Finally, it suggests libraries should take a pragmatic approach and focus on making their data flexible and reusable, rather than adhering strictly to legacy standards.

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Text to data
MashCat 2012
Ed Chamberlain

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Me
 Librarian (systems)
 Data ‘munger’
 Data consumer?

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The way it used to be …
 Control over record
consumption
 Control over record
environment
 Control over technology

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Competition …
No longer the single authority for content and description
Commercial, social and academic discovery mechanisms
Explosion of digital content
 Illusion of ‘all on the web’

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Fit for purpose?
 Studies into Google Generation /
‘Generation Y’ 1
 Cambridge Arcadia IRIS report 2009 2
 Preference for search engine over
catalogue
 Online over in-building
 Trust tutors and peers over Librarian
1) ”The Google generation: the information behaviour of the researcher
of the future”
 Still respect the library ‘brand’ Aslib Proceedings, V60, issue 4 10.1108/00012530810887953
2) Arcadia IRIS Project report -
http://arcadiaproject.lib.cam.ac.uk/docs/Report_IRIS_final.pdf

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Improve catalogues
 Keyword based discovery
services
 New ways to exploit old data
 Relevancy ranking
 Rich faceting
 Greater linking
 Search is the new browse
 Repositories and archives
 Is the OPAC dead?

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Different but the same?
Catalogue data is now:
 Consumed as keywords
(not left anchored access
points)
 Faceted (not browsed)
 Supplemented
 Transformed
 Merged
 Amalgamated

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Prepare for the future …
 „Use case you‟ve not yet thought of‟
 „Consumer as producer‟
 „Pro-Am‟
 „Free from silo‟
 Developers as well as readers
 Preference for data over text

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Our local catalogues
Research group website
Wikipedia
Web start-ups
National /
international
aggregations
Joe Public Library data
Search engines Other
Booksellers libraries
Teenage software
developer / hacker

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Libraries have a lot to offer
 Bibliographic data linked to
many aspects of successful
teaching and research
 Citation lists – measure output
 Shared bibliography – core of
research group work
 Reading lists – backbone of
undergraduate teaching
 High quality data needed for re-
use
 Not all possible whilst data
resides in the library ‘silo’

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 'Open metadata creates the opportunity for
enhancing impact through the release of
descriptive data about library, archival and
museum resources. It allows such data to be
made freely available and innovatively
reused to serve researchers, teachers,
students, service providers and the wider
community in the UK and internationally.'
http://discovery.ac.uk

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Open data releases …

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But …
 Is Marc21 the right format for developers (or libraries?)
 Is it easy to convert into something more palatable?

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What can we do with an ISBN?
 Build Union catalogues
 Find existing or alternative records (copy catalogue)
 Find related works (XISBN, ISBNThing)
 Match and mash with resources on the web:
 Images
 Reviews
 Citations and references

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020 - ISBN
What cataloguer record users What data consumers want:
want:
 Accuracy – Accuracy
 Contextualization – Contextualization
 Access point
– Access point
 Something legible to read
– Reusability
– Granularity

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So …
 Take ISBN from an 020$a
 my $isbn = $record->field('020')->as_string("a");
 0123456789(pbk)
 (pbk) ?
 Is it the same as (.pbk) I noticed earlier?
 I‟m a developer – I can solve this …
 Regex /^[0-9]+$/ - just gets numbers …
 Oh hang on, don‟t some ISBNS end in X?
 And all that information on hardback /paperback is lost …

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Non Marc …
 <identifier type=“isbn” relation=“hardback”>0123456789x</isbn>
 identifier: {"id": "0123456789", "type": "isbn”, “rel”:”hardback”}
 <http://data.lib.cam.ac.uk/id/entry/cambrdgedb_100045>
<http://purl.org/dc/terms/identifier >"urn:isbn:2853990060"
.<http://data.lib.cam.ac.uk/id/type/46657eb180382684090fda2b56
70335d> <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#type>
http://purl.org/ontology/bibo/Book.

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Advantages
 Self describing (if you read English)
 Granular
 Data NOT text for display (although this can be easily
generated)

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$100 …
• 1001_ |a Greenwood, James, |d 1832-1929.
• Greenwood, James, 1832-1929.
"author" : [
{
"birthDate" : "1832",
"firstname" : " James",
"deathDate" : "1929",
"name" : "Greenwood, James",
"lastname" : "Greenwood"
}
]

21. my @exportAuthors=();
my @authors =();
+ my $eachAuthor ='';
if ($record->field('100')) {
@authors = $record->field('100');
foreach $eachAuthor(@authors) {
my %exportAuthor =();
my $authorFull = trim($eachAuthor->subfield('a'));
$exportAuthor{'name'} = $authorFull;
my @parsed_author=split(/,/, $authorFull);
$exportAuthor{'lastname'} = $parsed_author[0];
$exportAuthor{'firstname'} = $parsed_author[1];
my $dates = $eachAuthor->subfield('d');
my ($birthDate,$deathDate);
# The glorious 100$d disassembled ...
if ($dates) {
#first of all, get rid of ca. and fl. which aren't real birth or death dates
if ($dates=~/fl.|ca./){
#do nothing
}
#otherwise, if date contains a hyphen, assume range
#but fix also works for unterminated dates?
elsif ($dates=~/-/) {
my @dates=split(/-/,$dates);
$exportAuthor{'birthDate'} = trim($dates[0]);
if ($dates[1]) {
$exportAuthor{'deathDate'} = trim($dates[1]);
}
#No Hyphen - assume single date - look for definitive birth event with a 'd' ...
} elsif ($dates=~/b./) {
$exportAuthor{'birthDate'} = trim($dates[0]);
# - look for definitive death event with a 'd' ...
} elsif ($dates=~/d./) {
$exportAuthor{'deathDate'} = trim($dates[0]);
# Final assumption for authors with recorded dates but with single date no hyphen. Assume its a birthdate?
} else {
$exportAuthor{'birthDate'} = trim($dates[0]);
}
# produce output for dates ...
}
# Assemble author object
push(@exportAuthors,%exportAuthor);
# End author loop
}
# Add list of authors to export object
$exportRecord{'author'} = @exportAuthors;
}

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How is this being solved?
 Fix it at the source:
 RDA
 Marc transition initiative
 Other initiatives – BL, OCLC linked data releases
 Onyx
 Mods

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Pragmatism: the end of big
standards
 Adoption of one new standard (or several) for its own sake is
pointless
 Fit in around changing needs of libraries and systems
 Data needs to be flexible and re-purposable
 No standard to „rule them all‟ in the post Marc21 world

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If we do nothing?