Presentation to Oregon State staff and librarians during a visit in July 2011. Topic focuses on changes in the library environment and what needs to shift in our conversations about those changes.

1. Focusing Our Eyes andAttention

2.  Part 1: Changing the Conversation
 Looking the crisis in the face
 Are the old battles worth fighting?
 Part 2: Expanding the Conversation Beyond
Our Silo
 Where our attention should be moving
 Part 3:What’s up (or not) with Library
Standards?
 Where’s the leadership?The participation?
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 2

3. After we empty
the card catalog …
We hear that there’s a
crisis in libraries, but
we still haven’t
realized how
pervasive it is
Reality: we’ve gotten
rid of the cards, now
we need to get rid of
the catalog.
If we don’t, we may
lose our institutional
support, our mission,
and our way …
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 3

4. Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 4
“As librarians, we pride ourselves on operating outside of
the commercial marketplace. However, whether we like it or
not, we are working in an information environment the
dynamics of which are very much like those of a free
market, except the the currency spent by our “customers” is
not money, but time and attention. …We may believe, for
example, that our carefully-crafted catalog records provide
excellent value in return for the time and energy required to
use them—and we may be right. But if our patrons doubt
that the catalog will return good value in exchange for the
time and energy required to use it, then whatever value the
catalog may actually contain becomes irrelevant.”
RickAnderson, The Crisis in Research Librarianship,
Journal of Academic Librarianship, July 2011

5. Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 5
“Wikipedia is founded on the belief (largely correct,
as it turns out) that crowds both can and will provide
high-quality content and metadata to the world at
no charge. For our part, in research libraries we still
tend to treat books as if they are primarily tools for
linear reading, and metadata records as artisanal
products. We still build collections that are fenced
off from the larger information world and encourage
our patrons, against all reason, to begin their
information searches within the confines of our
artificially limited collections.”
RickAnderson, The Crisis in Research Librarianship,
Journal of Academic Librarianship, July 2011

6. Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 6
“We must look with cold and hard-headed
rationality at our current practices and ask
ourselves not what value they offer, but rather
what value our patrons believe they offer. If what
we offer our patrons is not perceived as valuable
by them, then we have two choices: change their
minds, or redirect our resources. The former is
virtually impossible; the latter is enormously
painful. But the latter is possible, and if we do
not undertake such a redirection ourselves, it will
almost certainly be undertaken for us.”
RickAnderson, The Crisis in Research Librarianship,
Journal of Academic Librarianship, July 2011

7. Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 7
“In the big picture, very little will change:
libraries will need to be in the data
business to help people find things. In the
close-up view, everything is changing--
the materials and players are different,
the machines are different, and the
technologies can do things that were
hard to imagine even 20 years ago.”
Eric Hellman
http://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/2011/07/library-data-why-bother.html

8. Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 8
“Promise of linked data offers many benefits
across sectors, across ‘memory institutions’.
But the institutions involved will need to face
cultural change to achieve this. ‘Curators’ in any
context (libraries, archives, museums) are used
to their ‘vested authority’ – and we need to
both recognize this at the same time as ‘letting
go’ – from the library point of view no-one can
afford to stand on the sidelines – we need to
get in there and experiment.”
Eric Hellman,
http://www.meanboyfriend.com/overdue_ideas/2011/07/linked-data-
and-libraries-keynote/

9. The Old Battles are
largely irrelevant …
OCLC’s assertion of
‘ownership’ over MARC
data inWorldCat has
been overtaken by the
Linked Open Data
movement.
Bulletin: MARC is really
dead this time.
W3C Linked Library
Data Incubator Group
poised to issue report,
signaling strong interest
by SemWeb in library
data.
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 9

10.  May 2011: release of JISC Discovery Open
Metadata Principles
http://discovery.ac.uk/businesscase/principles/
 July 2011: British Library announces Linked
Open Data access to the British National
Bibliography http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/datafree.html
 And in fact, if ‘records’ are no longer what we
share, there is no longer a reasonable way to
claim rights over metadata.
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 10

11. “The group will explore how existing building blocks of
librarianship, such as metadata models, metadata schemas,
standards and protocols for building interoperability and library
systems and networked environments, encourage libraries to
bring their content, and generally re-orient their approaches to
data interoperability towards theWeb, also reaching to other
communities. It will also envision these communities as a
potential major provider of authoritative datasets (persons,
topics...) for the Linked DataWeb. As these evolutions raise a
need for a shared standardization effort within the library
community around (Semantic)Web standards, the group will
refine the knowledge of this need, express requirements for
standards and guidelines, and propose a way forward for the
library community to contribute to furtherWeb standardization
actions.”
-- http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 11

12. “Spontaneous comments from participants in the US RDA
Test show that a broad cross-section of the community
feels budgetary pressures but nevertheless considers it
necessary to replace MARC 21 in order to reap the full
benefit of new and emerging content standards. The
Library now seeks to evaluate how its resources for the
creation and exchange of metadata are currently being
used and how they should be directed in an era of
diminishing budgets and heightened expectations in the
broader library community.”
http://www.loc.gov/marc/transition/news/framework-051311.html
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 12

13. Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 13
The Standards Landscape

14.  Goals of the New Bibliographic Framework:
 Consider benefits of evolving a new format for
metadata
 Experiment with SemWeb and Linked Data
 Foster maximum re-use of library data on theWeb
 Enable users to better navigate relationships between
entities
 Explore approaches to displaying metadata
 Identify risks of action and inaction
 Develop plan for bringing library metadata into new
bibliographic systems
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 14

15.  LITA surveyed its membership about their
thinking about standards
 Some findings:
 NISO/ISO has traditionally been LITA’s focus in
the standards world—that is likely to broaden
 ISO is increasingly seen as problematic because of
their business model
 Many web standards coming out ofW3C, but
most librarians are neither aware or participating
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 15

16. • The LITA survey confirms that lack of participation
by librarians has to do with:
▪ Lack of institutional support (time, money)
▪ Pervasive feelings of lack of competence
 The changes in the environment challenge us all to
reconsider how we relate to standards
▪ Who do we think should be in charge of building them?
▪ If the Usual Suspects are not prepared to lead, who will?
▪ What is our responsibility as individuals?
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 16

17. Top Down vs. Bottom
Up?
Where standards
are developed and
who supports them
are critical to their
success …
A case study is the
RDAVocabularies.
Is this an anomaly
or the precursor of
things to come?
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 17
Flickr photo by freebird4

18. A Brief History
It all started in
London, the last day
of April 2007 …
Participating:
Joint Committee for
the Development of
RDA (JSC)
Dublin Core Metadata
Initiative
Sponsor:ALA
Publishing, on behalf
of the RDA Publishers
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/1118

19.  The participants agreed that DCMI and the
JSC should work together to:
 Develop an RDA ElementVocabulary
 Expose RDAValueVocabularies
 Develop an RDA Application Profile, based on
FRBR and FRAD
 The first two are largely complete; the third is
started
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 19

20.  Used the SemanticWeb as our “mental model”
 Focused on creating a “bridge” between XML and
RDF to support innovation in the library
community as a whole, not just those at the cutting
edge or the trailing edge
 IFLA has followed suit using the Open Metadata
Registry to add the ‘official’ FRBR entities, FRAD,
and ISBD
 This provides exciting opportunities to relate all
the vocabularies together
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 20

21.  Efforts by theTG to start building the
vocabularies went largely unnoticed for years
 No feedback from JSC, very little from others in
the library community
 JSC-sponsored sessions addressed only the rules,
never mentioned the vocabularies
 Attempts to get support from NISO were
unsuccessful
▪ Some important funding came from the British Library
and Siderean Software
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 21

22.  The ‘generalized’ RDA properties may be the
real RDA vocabulary
 The ‘bounded’ properties should be seen as the first
pass at an Application Profile
 Extensions can be built more usefully from the
generalized properties
 Mapping will be cleaner using the generalized
properties (since most properties mapped to or
mapped from will not be based on FRBR)
 Generalized properties are much more acceptable to
non-library implementers (not often using FRBR)
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 22

23.  Relating theVocabularies to the RDA rules
 Conversations with ALA Publishing around
integrating with the RDAToolkit should provide
some answers
 The governance model for both have yet to be
defined
 LC’s Metadata Framework discussions will
include the RDAVocabularies
 Keep an eye on that process!
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 23

24.  JSC is reviewing the vocabulary work, starting
with the value vocabularies
 Some are now complete; announcements
pending
 Discussions about classes and elements just
beginning
 Hoping for completion by the end of 2011
 TG published in DLib Magazine about the
work: http://dlib.org/dlib/january10/hillmann/01hillmann.html
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 24

25. Extending RDA
Vocabularies
RDAVocabularies
weren’t built for a
library silo.
The technical
infrastructure is
optimized for
extension beyond
those elements and
vocabularies specified
by the JSC.
This capability
positions the RDA
Vocabularies for the
future.
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 25Flickr photo by zizzybaloobah

26.  The inclusion of generalized properties
provides a path for extension of RDA into
specialized library communities and non-
library communities
 They may have a different notion of how FRBR
‘aggregates’; for example, a colorized version of a
film may be viewed as a separate work
 They may not wish to use FRBR at all
 They may have additional properties to include,
that have a relationship to the RDA properties
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 26

27. RDA:adaptedAs
RDA:adaptedAsARadioScript
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 27

28. RDA:adaptedAs
RDA:adaptedAsARadioScript
KidLit:adaptedAsAPictureBook
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 28

29. RDA:adaptedAs
RDA:adaptedAsARadioScript
KidLit:adaptedAsAPictureBook
KidLit:adaptedAsAChapterBook
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 29

30.  Legislative Metadata Project (for Library of
Congress, contracting with Cornell Legal
Information Institute)
 Analysis of needs for metadata
 Building an event-based model and forward-
looking strategy
 Using a Singapore Framework-inspired process,
statement-based focus, functional needs for data
(extensions, no shoehorns)
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 30

31.  A shift from ‘top-down’ to ‘bottom up’
standards development
 Large, slow-moving organizations no longer
driving the processes
 Requires some reconsideration of what
‘standards’ are, how they are ‘vetted’ and
characterized
 Process needs more participation from libraries
and librarians
▪ The publishers are already there …
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 31

32.  The LOD-LAM Effect
 ‘Linked Open Data-Libraries, Archives and
Museums’
 After decades of separate standards
development, these groups are coming together
and recognizing their common needs and
challenges
 This is far more possible in an environment no
longer focused on the big players or silo-ed
standards
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 32

33.  Open Data starting to drive innovation
 No real business models yet
▪ Some efforts based on work at research centers, others
not so easy to characterize
 Starting to get very competitive
 Data licensing not yet dead but starting to look
perfunctory
 Moving fast, hard to keep track!
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 33

35. Predictions
As differences in
focus and
expectation
become more
mainstream, we
WILL change how
we see our data.
The loss of that
‘library silo’ will help
us see ourselves as
important providers
of data to other
services.
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 35

36.  Our big investment is (and has always been)
in our data, not our systems
 Over many changes in format of materials,
we’ve always struggled to keep our focus on
the content that endures, regardless of
presentation format
 We are in a great position to have influence
on how the future develops, but we can’t be
afraid to change, or afraid to fail
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 36

37. Thank you!
Questions?
Contact info:
metadata.maven
@gmail.com
Metadata
Matters:
http://managemet
adata.com/blog
Oregon StateVisit, 7/28/11 37