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Technically Speaking

By David Dorman
American Libraries Columnist
ddorma@ltnet.ltls.org

Library consultant for the Lincoln Trail Libraries System in Champaign, Illinois.

Column for June/July 2002

Scheming to Normalize Dublin Core

While conditions inside the beltway may never be considered normal, the folks who brought us Dublin Core and the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) protocol have finally proposed a standard XML Schema for encoding unqualified Dublin Core records for use with the OAI protocol, “Simple DC XML Schema.” (Techie warning: The contents of this page may seem like gobbledygook for those unfamiliar with interpreting XML encoded text.)

The details of how metadaticians (hey, if you’ve got a better word, let me know) encode even a very simple and basic Dublin Core record vary from place to place, hampering the ability of computer programs to interpret these records. When more than one way is used to describe something, computers tend to get confused trying to interpret what is intended. They may be computers, but they are still pretty dumb. Hence the need for very detailed specifications for encoding a semantic standard such as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set for a community of users, such as OAI Protocol users, that intend to share their metadata.

XML is like MARC: It is a way of encoding metadata that has lots of flavors in use around the world. Each XML Schema represents a single flavor, just as USMARC represents a single flavor of MARC. What USMARC does for AACR2, the Simple DC XML Schema does for unqualified Dublin Core. And just as USMARC is designed to support only AACR2, the Simple DC XML Schema is meant to support only one flavor of Dublin Core—and the simplest flavor at that—unqualified Dublin Core.

The schema is hosted on the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Web site and will be maintained by both the DCMI and the OAI Initiative. So all you folks who are readying RFPs can now ask your prospective vendors their timetable for supporting the Simple DC XML Schema. While this schema will undoubtedly be followed by additional XML schemas for encoding other flavors of Dublin Core, at present it’s the only standard DC schema game in town.

Common Sense Finally Triumphs

Beginning July 1, OCLC will stop charging libraries in the United States for adding holdings online to WorldCat and will reduce charges for batchloading holdings. While it has been evident for over a decade that the holdings records inWorldCat constitute OCLC’s primary asset, and that charging libraries for adding to the value of that asset was counterproductive, the company has moved away from such charges with glacial slowness, fearing that too swift a transition might adversely affect short-term revenue.

To offset the revenue loss expected by the upcoming elimination of the online cataloging first-time-use charge and the decrease in the charge for batchloading of OCLC-derived records, OCLC will be increasing searching, MARC export, and other database use charges. While these pricing changes will make it affordable for many additional libraries to add their holdings to WorldCat, OCLC still faces the challenge of developing positive incentives for these libraries to do so.

Currently, OCLC’s network affiliates give their members about $4 credit for each bibliographic record a library adds to WorldCat; beginning in July this amount will be modestly increased, but this credit is irrelevant to most small potential OCLC members who would rarely, if ever, add bibliographic records to the database. A logical next step would be for OCLC to begin crediting libraries for adding their holdings to WorldCat. Stay tuned—but don’t hold your breath.

E-books for Kids

“Imagine a world where a comprehensive library of international children’s literature is available to all children across the globe. Imagine a technology that can cost-effectively digitize massive amounts of information dedicated to the needs of children.”

This quote is from the mission statement of the International Children’s Digital Library, a joint operation of the Internet Archive directed by Brewster Kahle and the University of Maryland’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab. The University of Maryland will work primarily on designing a child-oriented e-content reader, while the Internet Archive will focus on the curatorial and computer hosting side of the project. The Library of Congress is working with the ICDL to identify children’s literature to be included. LC will also co-host a series of meetings this spring and summer for ICDL stakeholders. The Internet Archive, the Markle Foundation, and the National Science Foundation are providing funding.

The World’s News Online

The European Internet Network (EIN), an English-language news service covering news in all categories from around the world, announced that it had recently upped the number of news services it uses to 114. Among the news services used by the EIN service are AFX-Asia, the Associated Press, Financial Times, the New York Times, and Reuters. News is available for about 122 countries. Free trial subscriptions for libraries are available.

Contracts and Agreements

• Ex Libris—with the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, for an Aleph 500 system, MetaLib, SFX and Digitool; with the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, for an Aleph 500 system, MetaLib, and SFX to serve Suffolk College, Otley College, Norwich School of Art and Design, and the Norwich and Norfolk Hospital, and replacing a Dynix installation.
• Ebsco—with the New York Public Library, to provide Academic Search Premier, Masterfile Premier, Business Source Premier, Health Source, Clinical Reference Systems, Business Wire News, Newspaper Source, a Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, and a Religion and Philosophy Collection to the 85 branch libraries and four research libraries. The Ebsco databases replace ProQuest Direct.
• Sirsi—with the Wyoming Libraries Database, a statewide consortium of over 50 county, school district, community college, medical, and special libraries; and with the Abilene Library Consortium, a cooperative of four Texas private university libraries and one public library located in the Abilene area, both for Unicorn library-management systems to replace the consortiums’ DRA Classic systems.
• Epixtech—with Brazoria County Library System in Angleton, Texas, and with the New Castle County Community Services in New Castle, Delaware, for a Horizon system to replace a Dynix system; and with the West Memphis (Ark.) Public Library, for a Horizon system, the library’s first automation system.
• Companion Corporation—with Everton Publishers, a publisher of genealogical materials in Sandy, Utah, for the Alexandria library system to automate the company’s genealogical library.

Alliances and Acquisitions

• Ebrary has partnered with five OCLC network affiliates (the Bibliographic Center for Research, the Michigan Library Consortium, Nelinet, Palinet, Ohionet, and Wisconsin Library Services) to distribute its e-book services to the 6,000 libraries that are members of those networks. Ebrary has also partnered with Coutts Library Services to resell ebrarian services in Europe, North America, and the Middle East; iGroup to resell ebrarian in Asia; and E-libro.net to market ebrarian services to Latin American and Spanish-language libraries in the United States.
• Ingenta has acquired HERON, the largest supplier of online course packs in the U.K. higher education market.

Vendor-to-Vendor Content Links

• R. R. Bowker has partnered with OCLC to enable users of Bowker’s booksinprint.com service to locate holding libraries for records retrieved from a search by clicking on an OCLC search button adjacent to the retrieved record.
• Citations in OCLC’s FirstSearch databases now link to articles within journals in the JSTOR journal collections.
• Users of Ebsco can now access WorldCat library holdings of titles retrieved in an Ebscohost search.
• NoveList now offers users the ability to search their library’s local online catalog from within NoveList.
• RLG’s newest version of Eureka, the Web-search interface for many of RLG’s databases, fully supports OpenURL dynamic link creation.

Standards News

• TLC and Epixtech have successfully exchanged circulation data between their two systems using the National Circulation Interchange protocol, an achievement the companies claim is the industry’s first. Both companies used in-house developed open source tool kits for the exchange test.
• The Open Archives Initiative, an effort funded by the Digital Library Federation, the Coalition for Networked Information and the National Science Foundation, and supported by library-related organizations around the world, has released version 2.0 of the Open Archives Initiative protocol for Metadata Harvesting. Among the alpha testers are 12 university libraries in the United States and Europe, the British Library, LC, OCLC, UKOLN, NASA, and Ex Libris.

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