"Z39.2/MARC are no longer fit for the purpose"
The Library of Congress(LC) released for dissemination, sharing, and feedback the initial plan for a new Bibliographic Framework that will serve the library community and related communities well into the fuure.
LC developed the plan in collaboration with librarians, standards experts, and technologists based on the outcome of the LC Working Group of the Future of Bibliographic Control:
Recognizing that Z39.2/MARC are no longer fit for the purpose, work with the library and other interested communities to specify and implement a carrier for bibliographic information that is capable of representing the full range of data of interest to libraries, and of facilitating the exchange of such data both within the library community and with related communities.*
Grant for consultative groups & development and prototyping activities
The Library of Congress will be developing a grant application over the next few months to support this initiative. The two-year grant will provide funding for the Library of Congress to organize consultative groups (national and international) and to support development and prototyping activities. Some of the supported activities will be: developing models and scenarios for interaction within the information community, assembling and reviewing ontologies currently used or under development, developing domain ontologies for the description of resources and related data in scope, organizing prototypes and reference implementations.
Approach: Linked data & RDF
The new bibliographic framework project will be focused on the Web environment, Linked Data principles and mechanisms, and the Resource Description Framework (RDF) as a basic data model. The protocols and ideas behind Linked Data are natural exchange mechanisms for the Web that have found substantial resonance even beyond the cultural heritage sector. Likewise, it is expected that the use of RDF and other W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) developments will enable the integration of library data and other cultural heritage data on the Web for more expansive user access to information.
Share your thoughts
You can post your thoughts on the plan to the
Bibliographic Transition listserv. All comments will be publicly available for everybody to read. It is in this spirit of openness and transparency that LC would like to proceed with the development of a bibliographic framework for the 21st century.
Links
Plan New Bibliographic Framework
Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Website
Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Listserv
Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control Website
Picture: Carol M. Highsmith, main reading room
of the Library of Congress in the Thomas Jefferson Building
*On the Record: Report of the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control, January 9, 2008, p.24
