Author: Richard Wallis

BIBFRAME Dilemmas for Libraries: Challenges and Opportunities

Posted on by Richard Wallis

I recently attended the 2024 BIBFRAME Workshop in Europe (BFWE), hosted by the National Library of Finland in Helsinki. It was an excellent conference in a great city! Having attended several BFWEs over the years, it’s gratifying to witness the continued progress toward making BIBFRAME the de facto standard for linked data in bibliographic metadata. BIBFRAME was developed and is maintained by the Library of Congress to eventually replace the flat record-based metadata format utilised by the vast majority of libraries – MARC (a standard in use since 1968). This year, Sally McCallum from the Library of Congress shared significant …

Bibliographic Records in a Knowledge Graph of Shared Systems

Posted on by Richard Wallis

My recent presentations at SWIB23 (YouTube), and the Bibframe Workshop in Europe, attracted many questions; regarding the how, what, and most importantly the why, of the unique cloud-based Linked Data Management & Discovery System (LDMS) we developed, in partnership with metaphacts and Kewmann, in a two year project for the National Library Board of Singapore (NLB). Several of the answers were technical in nature. However, somewhat surprisingly they were mostly grounded in what could best be described as business needs, such as: Let me explore those a little… ✤ Seamless Knowledge Graph integration of records stored, and managed in separate …

From MARC to BIBFRAME and Schema.org in a Knowledge Graph

Posted on by Richard Wallis

The MARC ingestion pipeline is one of four pipelines that keep the Knowledge Graph, underpinning the LDMS, synchronised with additions, updates, and deletions from the many source systems that NLB curate and host.

Library Metadata Evolution: The Final Mile

Posted on by Richard Wallis

When Schema.org arrived on the scene I thought we might have arrived at the point where library metadata  could finally blossom; adding value outside of library systems to help library curated resources become first class citizens, and hence results, in the global web we all inhabit.  But as yet it has not happened.

Something For Archives in Schema.org

Posted on by Richard Wallis

The recent release of the Schema.org vocabulary (version 3.5) includes new types and properties, proposed by the W3C Schema Architypes Community Group, specifically target at facilitating the web sharing of archives data to aid discovery. When the Group, which I have the privilege to chair, approached the challenge of building a proposal to make Schema.org useful for archives, it was identified that the vocabulary could be already used to describe the things & collections that you find in archives.  What was missing was the ability to identify the archive holding organisation, and the fact that an item is being held …

Bibframe – Schema.org – Chocolate Teapots

Posted on by Richard Wallis

In a session at the IFLA WLIC in Kuala Lumpur – my core theme being that there is a need to use two [linked data] vocabularies when describing library resources — Bibframe for cataloguing and [linked] metadata interchange — Schema.org for sharing on the web for discovery.

The Three Linked Data Choices for Libraries

Posted on by Richard Wallis

We are [finally] on the cusp of establishing a de facto Linked Data approach for libraries and their system suppliers – not there yet but getting there.

We have a choice between BIBFRAME 2.0, Schema.org, Linky MARC and doing nothing.