# Presentation: 053807

## Structures and Standards for Our Bibliographic Future

- Diane I. Hillmann
- Research Librarian
- Cornell University Library

## Some General Questions

- Are we now talking less about ‘standards compliance’ and more about ‘standards interoperability?’
- Have we moved from thinking we’re operating within a ‘library standards’ environment to operating within a larger standards world?

## The Past

- Libraries have a long history of building and working within standards
- Libraries also have a remarkable history of sharing data using consensus exchange standards and protocols
- Our past success and our history has lately become a straitjacket--preventing us from responding to changes in our environment

## Today, and Tomorrow ...

- Two imperatives:
- 1. Learn to operate in a broader web-based arena, using standards and protocols developed for sharing information on the Web, not just between libraries
- 2. Expose to others the legacy data and vocabularies we’ve developed as a community, to assist us and others to manage and share information

## An Important Start ...

- RDA/DCMI Data Model Meeting, 30Apr.-1May2007--produced agreement to work together to:
- Develop an RDA Element Vocabulary
- Expose RDA Value Vocabularies
- Develop an RDA Application Profile, based on FRBR and FRAD

## An RDA Element Vocabulary

- Separates elements (attributes/properties) from the instructions for application
- Provides definitions, relationships between elements and sub-elements that can be exposed to humans and machines
- Will explicitly include FRBR and its entities as defined relationships

## What Would an RDA-EV Include?

- Element names, e.g.: Title proper
- URIs--persistent and unambiguous references to the term and its structure
- Definitions--ensuring semantic understanding
- Relationships--providing a blueprint for processing and inference
- History of term changes

## Why is This Important?

- Formal representation will break down the ‘silo’ around library data, making it understandable by others--whether human or machine
- FRBR relationships can be incorporated explicitly, providing needed clarity in expressing and exploring bibliographic relationships
- Within such a structure, extensibility becomes far easier

## RDA Value Vocabularies

- RDA (like AACR2 and MARC21) is loaded with controlled vocabularies
- Controlled vocabularies need to be formally expressed to be effectively used, reused, and extended (as the major legacy vocabularies already are in some respects)
- Recent RDA/ONIX joint effort a step in the right direction
- An example: _[RDA Carrier Vocabulary](http://sandbox.metadataregistry.org/vocabulary/show/id/44.html)_

## Value Vocabularies

- Example registration, containing:
- Description of entire vocabulary as a collection of concepts
- URI for the vocabulary itself
- Links to Concepts, History, Versions
- Links to XML schema and RDF encoding

## Human Readable Concepts

- Uses traditional thesaural structure encoded in SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organisation System)
- Each concept contains:
- URI representing the entire concept and its properties
- Familiar thesaural properties (BT, NT, RT, Scope note, etc.)

## An RDA Application Profile

- Provides documentation of community understanding and intent:  What is being described? What are the key relationships?
- Documents obligations and constraints for RDA instance metadata
- Provides guidance for semantic crosswalks, specifications, tools/applications and encodings
- Serves as primary documentation for decisions and criteria by which a specific set of metadata was created
- Specifies appropriate controlled vocabularies and syntax encoding schemes

## Why is This Important?

- An Application Profile using the RDA Element Vocabulary provides a sound basic structure for re-thinking library applications
- Specialized communities can express their needs using a related AP, reusing as much as they wish of the RDA Element Vocabulary
- Particular community needs for extension can be accommodated within a common structure and understood and re-used by others

## Effects on RDA?

- Allows emerging structure to be more easily used to test data assumptions and instructional clarity
- Allows specialized usage to evolve within an interoperable framework
- Does not tie RDA to any specific encoding
- Does not constrain the historic complexity of traditional library data

## What’s in it for DCMI?

- DC community work on Application Profiles frustrated by lack of formally declared properties suitable for reuse
- RDA will provide the Semantic Web community with a plethora of stable, well-tested, and generally applicable element properties and value vocabularies
- More general participation in development of DC Abstract Model-compliant Application Profiles

## Moving Forward

- Task Force being established under the aegis of DCMI (co-chaired by Gordon Dunsire and Diane Hillmann)
- Funding being sought to support timely effort towards completion of goals
- Important issues still on the table, but the participants are continuing to work towards resolution

## Legacy Vocabularies

- Legacy vocabularies (LCSH, Name Authorities, LC Classification, etc.) currently difficult to use outside MARC-based applications
- Lack URIs
- Not always well structured for web application (particularly true of LCSH)
- No formal representation available for tools or applications developed outside traditional libraries

## Why Are They Still Unavailable?

- Represent a library *community* resource, managed by LC but built with significant investment by other libraries
- Current restrictions on re-use based on Congressional mandates for “cost-recovery” by LC
- Calls for change at least since the Bicentennial Conference in 2000
- Solving this problem must be a higher priority for LC on behalf of the library community

## Can They be Repurposed?

- These vocabularies should be “Webified” for easier use by all
- URIs essential for use within web-based applications
- “Webification” particularly important for use in newly emerging catalogs and other discovery mechanisms
- See article by Corey Harper and Barbara Tillett in upcoming CCQ: _[“](http://hdl.handle.net/1794/3269)__[Library of Congress controlled vocabularies and their application to the Semantic Web”](http://hdl.handle.net/1794/3269)_

## Thank you

- Questions?
- Diane I. Hillmann
- Cornell University Library
- dih1@cornell.edu