The European Digital Library project has been working since September 2006 on creating a portal to gather digital collection from National Libraries around Europe, including Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain and Sweden. Europeana, as the site has been named, will be part of the will include material from the European Library (without being part of it) providing access to a multitude of digital objects from across Europe.

Desde septiembre del 2006 el proyecto de la Biblioteca Digital Europea ha estado trabajando en la creación de un portal para reunir las colecciones digitales de las bibliotecas nacionales de toda Europa, incluyendo a Bélgica, Grecia, Irlanda, Islandia, Liechtenstein, Luxemburgo, Noruega, España y Suecia. Europeana, como el sitio ha sido nombrado, incluirá material de la Biblioteca Europea (sin ser parte de ella) y dará acceso a una multitud de objetos digitales de toda Europa.

Currently Europeana is in beta form, and is being demoed to gather input on how to make if as effective as possible before release. The site aims at offering users the possibility of searching content in a multitude of languages and will allow comparisons of related material across different countries.

Actualmente Europeana se encuentra en fase beta, y se están haciendo demos para obtener la opinión sobre cómo hacer el sitio lo más eficaz posible antes de su lanzamiento. El sitio tiene como objetivo ofrecer a los usuarios la posibilidad de buscar el contenido en una multitud de lenguas y permitirán establecer comparaciones de material relacionado en los distintos países.

Hosting for the site will be done by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands. Europeana aims for a November 2008 release, hosting about 2 million items including book, photographs, maps, audio files, and archival records from libraries, archives, and museums throughout Europe.

Hosting para el sitio se hará por la Koninklijke Bibliotheek, la Biblioteca Nacional de los Países Bajos. Europeana apunta a un lanzamiento para noviembre del 2008, albergando cerca de 2 millones de artículos incluyendo libros, fotografías, mapas, archivos de audio, y documentos de archivos procedentes de bibliotecas, archivos y museos de toda Europa.

You can read the press release for Europeana here. You can view the site demo here.

Puedes leer el comunicado de prensa a Europeana aquí. Puede ver la demo del sitio aquí.

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Yesterday The Harvard Crimson published an Op-Ed by Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library, who has set the groundwork to create an Office for Scholarly Communication which will manage an open access repository hosting the works of Harvard’s faculty of arts and science (FAS). This project will be established to make these publications available to the entire world, and not just those who can afford the expensive journals in which they are often published. Articles will be available through the university’s OPAC Hollis.

The project’s goal is two fold. First it aims at sharing Harvard’s wealth of information, and second it hopes to make a statement against the high prices of many academic journals. Darnton has only recently taken on the job of university librarian, but promises large moves towards accessibility and openness. Actually this effort to make all faculty publications freely accessible comes on the heels of other projects at Harvard making more and more of their collections available to everyone. Currently the university participates in the Harvard-Google project which will make monographs in the public domain actually available to the public. Their Open Collection Program is working hard to digitize many of the treasures housed at their various libraries and making them available to everyone.

This new initiative to make faculty’s publications available to the world for free establishes an automatic “op-in” stance, requiring faculty who don’t want to participate to fill out a waiver. In terms of copyright, the project would make faculty share copyright with the university library which would allow the library to publish the material, but it would still allow faculty to publish their work in other venues which allow for non-exclusive copyright. This set up should not hinder or devaluate publications by faculty members, and Darnton explains that for those participating in the project, they will benefit from having the full weight of the institution behind them.

You can read the Op-Ed in the Harvard Crimson here, or an article on the subject from Library Journal here. The university’s Open Access policy is here.

05.21.08 – The Harvard Law School has also joined this initiative, making them the first law school to adopts such a commitment towards open access. You can read more about this here.

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I started out being hesitant to go down the road that is making OPACs and other library related tools look more like Google, Amazon.com and the like, but the more I learn about what these new tools can achieve the more I’m growing to like them. One of the latest examples of these new initiatives is The Commons, the Library of Congress‘ (LOC) Flickr page. The collections’ subtitle perfectly summarizes this project, “Your opportunity to contribute to describing the world’s public photos collections.”

LOC has started out by making two collections available on Flickr, the first titled 1930s-40s in Color, and the second one is News in the 1910s. The idea behind this project is to make these collections available to much larger groups of people that those who can actually visit the LOC. Second the fact that users can add tags to these photos as they please means that they have more accessible than they had previously been. Library of Congress Subject Headings are very useful to people who know how to use them, but can be rather frustrating to those who don’t. For example LOC uses “cookery” while cataloging cookbooks. How many of us would have guesses this to begin with? Being this the case, having user provided tags in everyday language and spelling can help make material more accessible. The user provided tags on Flickr are doing just this for these two collections.

Both collections hold material for which that LOC has determined to have “no known copyright restrictions.” LOC defines this label in two ways; Material for which copyright has not been renewed, or material from the late 19th and 20th century for which there is no evidence of a copyright holder. (You can read more about LOCs copyright standards here.)

Image info here.

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During the same Hot Topics Discussion mentioned below I also heard a presentation about the implementation and use of LibraryThing at a public library by Kate Sheehan, Coordinator of Library Automation at the Danbury Public Library. Sheehan described how the library has integrated LibraryThing, a site which allows users to create bibliographies, plus rate and reviews books. The idea is that this added content will provide library users with more context when it comes to deciding what to check out next.

Similar to the recommendations on Amazon.com, LibraryThing allows users to see what other users have been reading, and if they liked it or no. The advantage of this system is that actual human beings (as opposed to algorithms) are providing the context and making connections. If you ever bought something on Amazon.com for a friend on a subject that does not interest you, the site will forever continue suggesting things on this subject. By contrast users of LibraryThing can actually help you choose related material that might interest you.

Sheehan also described this partnership as an addition that can make the OPAC “fun.” She found that she and others at the library could know be found “browsing” the catalog and spending long periods of time doing so. One interesting review can open up hundreds of possibilities and before long your list of “to read books” could make you wish you had more time to read.

In terms of implementations Sheehan said its been amazingly easy and the process was completed in a very short amount of time. Once up an running, each month the library provides LibraryThing with a list of all new additions by ISBN, which LibraryThing will then provide information for. Once a year the library gathers information on weeded books and LibraryThing is again notified of these changes.

The library’s catalog has not become part of LibraryThing, instead it gathers information available at the site. When opening the record of a particular book, in addition to the expected information you will also find suggestions for similar books, and a tag cloud of related subjects. Clicking on one of these tags will take you to more suggestions of material tagged with this category, as well as related categories. Here is an example of one of these records.

One issues that particularly caught my attention is that the Danbury library patrons are not necessarily the ones providing the rating and reviews (unless they happen to have an account with LibraryThing). I wonder how different these reviews and tag clouds might turn out if it were only the patrons providing input.

Kate Sheehan is the author behind the Loose Cannon Librarian blog.

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During ALA Midwinter I attended a Hot Topics Discussion Group titled “Tag You’re It: A revolution in patron-library interaction”. The first presenter was Jennifer Sweda, cataloging librarian at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, who talked about PennTags, the ongoing project in social tagging in their library catalog.

PennTags is a social bookmaking tool developed at UPenn which allows that university’s community to contribute to the library catalog by adding their own tags and comments. The system is integrated and works along side the information regularly found in a bibliographic record (bib. record). Tags added by patrons do not exclude traditional subject headings (usually LCSH – Library of Congress Subject Headings) added by a cataloger, but can serve as a complement to LCSH and may provide a more complex classification to the material.

When I say complex I mean to say that they can add several layers of nuance that LCSH cannot achieve because of their purpose. LCSH began in the USA’s Library of Congress whose main purpose is to make material in the Library of Congress accessible to Congress and others involved in government. They cannot pass judgment in how material is classified, and their strength lies in classifying material from the USA, as opposed to material about the rest of the world. LCSH also do not cover every single subject needed for thorough classification, new subject headings can be added to LCSH but it requires time, and a critical mass of material on the subject. According to the rules of classification a book or other material being cataloged must be at least 20% on a particular subject before a LCSH can be added on the subject, thus other subjects only briefly mentioned will not be noted in the bib. record.

LCSH are excellent at classifying material for their main user group, but for material falling outside these parameters it makes sense to explore other options. PennTags allows patrons to add their own tags to material in the catalog which can help complement the LCSH classification. The system allows users to highlight small aspects of a work, add new terminology that has not yet been added to the LCSH system and they can “pass judgment” on the material.

Being able to highlight small aspects of a material can help someone find an obscure note in a book that the subjects headings did not note because it is discussed in less than 20 % of the book. New terms such as “Third World Feminism” can be added to provide nuance to a bib. record, instead of just using “Feminism” or “Women”. Users can also note whether material is “high brow” or “low brow,” a passing of judgment that LCSH cannot provide.

PennTags allows users to view all the material which has been tagged by a particular user whose judgment they like, or who is also working with material of interest (here’s an example by a user known as dkelly). Tags provided by the university community can also add richness to bib. records in subject areas on which librarians might not know much about. This can also help when cataloging grey literature, which often falls through the cataloging cracks. Users can also use the system to create “projects”; here they can aggregate information on a subject of interest and classify it to their likes. An example of these projects is wellske‘s project on “1935-1945 Films, Philadelphia Film History“.

Currently PennTags is in Beta version and has only been released to a handful of users in the community. Releasing the Perl based script to the Open Source community has also been discussed. It was mentioned that the system is still too new to put out in the world, but also that the point of open source is not only to release script for the benefits of others, but also to benefit from additions the community can provide. Being the case those involved with PennTags wondered how this script to be used collaboratively with other academic institutions so that patrons in either place could benefit from additions done elsewhere.

You can take a look at PennTags here. Unless you are part of the UPenn community you won’t be able to add tags to their library catalog, but in case you are interested, instructions on how to do so can be found here.

Durante ALA Midwinter asistí a un Grupo de Discusión sobre Temas de actualidad titulado “Tag You’re It: Una revolución en el patrón de interacción de la biblioteca”. La primera ponente fue Jennifer Sweda, bibliotecaria de catalogación en la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Pennsylvania quien habló sobre PennTags, el proyecto en desarrollo por medio del cual se agregan etiquetas el catálogo de la biblioteca.

PennTags es una herramienta desarrollada en UPenn que permite que la comunidad universitaria contribuya al catálogo de la biblioteca añadiendo etiquetas y comentarios a los registros bibliotecarios. El sistema está integrado y funciona junto a la información que se encuentran normalmente en un registro bibliográfico. Las Etiquetas añadido por los usuarios no excluyen la clasificación tradicionales agregada al material (por lo general LCSH – Library of Congress Subject Headings) añadidos por el catalogador, pero puede servir como complemento a LCSH y puede proporcionar una clasificación más compleja para el material.

Cuando digo complejo quiero decir que pueden añadir varias capas de matiz al registro agregando acceso donde el sistema de LCSH lo alcanza a llegar por su diseño. LCSH se inició en la Biblioteca del Congreso (LOC) de EE.UU., y su propósito principal es hacer que el material en la Biblioteca del Congreso sea accesible al Congreso y otras personas involucradas en el gobierno. Los bibliotecarios en la LOC no pueden juzgar el material al clasificarlo, y su fuerza radica en la clasificación de material de los EE.UU., en lugar de material sobre el resto del mundo. LCSH también no cubren todos los temas necesarios para lograr su clasificación a fondo, además, aunque es posible agregar nuevas entradas al sistema, esto siempre toma tiempo, y requiere una masa crítica de material sobre el tema a tratar. De acuerdo con las normas de clasificación de un libro u otro material, un tema debe ocupar por lo menos 20% del texto antes de poder agregar una entrada LCSH, lo que quiere decir que cada libros puede cubrir muchos otros temas que no se reflejarían en el registro bibliográfico.

LCSH son excelentes en la clasificación de materiales para su grupo de usuarios principales, pero para el material que cae fuera de estos parámetros tiene sentido explorar otras opciones. PennTags permite a los usuarios añadir sus propias etiquetas al material en el catálogo de tal manera de que este podrá ayudar a complementar la clasificación de LCSH. El sistema permite a los usuarios resaltar múltiples aspectos de una obra al agregar nueva terminología que aún no se ha añadido al sistema LCSH y por medio del cual se puede “juzgar” el material.

La capacidad de resaltar estos aspectos del material puede ayudar a alguien a encontrar una nota obscura en un libro que no aparece en el titulo, ni en la clasificación, ya que se trata en menos del 20% del libro. Los nuevos términos tales como “Third World Feminism” pueden ser añadidos para matizar un registro bibliográfico, en lugar de usar “feminismo” o “Mujeres”. Los usuarios también pueden observar si el material es algo “culto” o “inculto,” aspecto que el LCSH no puede proporcionar.

PennTags permite a los usuarios visualizar todo el material que ha sido etiquetado por un usuario particular cuyo juicio les gusta o que también está trabajando con material de interés (en este caso es un ejemplo de un usuario conocido como dkelly). Etiquetas proporcionada por la comunidad universitaria también puede agregar a la riqueza de registro bibliográfico en áreas en las que los bibliotecarios no tienen mucho conocimiento. Esto también puede ayudar en la catalogación de literatura gris, que a menudo se pierde por las rendijas de la clasificación. Los usuarios también pueden utilizar el sistema para crear “proyectos”, aquí se pueden agregar información sobre un tema de interés y clasificar a sus gustos. Un ejemplo de estos proyectos es el proyecto de wellske sobre “1935-1945 Films, Philadelphia Film History“.

Actualmente PennTags se encuentra en versión Beta y sólo se ha entregado un puñado de usuarios en la comunidad. Diseminación del código basado en Perl a la comunidad del Código Abierto se ha discutido. Se mencionó que el sistema es aún demasiado nuevo para ser diseminado por el mundo, pero también que el punto de código abierto no es sólo para diseminación del código para beneficios de los demás, sino también para beneficiarse de las adiciones que la comunidad puede ofrecer. Siendo este el caso los involucrados con PennTags se preguntaron cómo este código podría ser utilizado en colaboración con otras instituciones académicas para que los usuarios en cualquier lugar puedan beneficiarse de las adiciones hecho en otras partes.

Puedes echar un vistazo a PennTags aquí. A menos que seas parte de la comunidad UPenn usted no será capaz de añadir etiquetas a su catálogo de la biblioteca, pero en caso de estar interesados, las instrucciones de cómo hacerlo se pueden encontrar aquí.

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Not too long ago OCLC rolled out a new OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) of sorts. This new tool known as WorldCat Local offers a three tiered display of cataloged search records, first from the local library, then the local consortia, and finally from the whole WorldCat. Including material continuously added to WorldCat.org, this new tool allows access to books, periodicals, individual articles, government reports, medical scholarship and educational material.

This three tiered approach will greatly increase the material that libraries can make available to their patrons. Now a patron can technically access holdings for the material they want, literally, from all participating libraries in the country. They can then easily request this material through interlibrary lending (ILL), usually for free.

For libraries this new tool will provide a personalized interface, it will allow for integration of WorldCat Local with their circulation records, and will permit inclusion of licensed full-text collections. Three major OPAC vendors (Innovative Interfaces, SirsiDynix and Ex Libris Voyager) are also being worked with to make WorldCat Local interoperable with their systems. Once this merger is achieved, the systems will allow for integration of services like ILL, and accessing certain online resources. In the future WorldCat Local hopes to also integrate a number of social networking services.

In an era where libraries and librarians grapple with new users who are more comfortable seeking information on Google than through an OPAC, and given that the traditional OPAC mainly retrieves books, a system like this one that can present a simple interface and that can aggregate information from so many different sources and in a variety of formats can really begin a trend of seamless and thorough searching.

The initial test runs included four universities, four public, two high school libraries, one state and one museum library. In the future libraries wanting to use WorldCat Local must have their holdings cataloged in WorldCat. The University of Washington was one of the institutions that first pilot-tested WorldCat Local, they have since made it their official OPAC. You can take a look at it through the library’s main page.

You can read an article on this from InfoToday.

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At the same lecture that I attended earlier this week I learned about the Cook Memorial Library in Tamworth, NH. This small public library has done away with their old static website and have replaced it with a WPopac. A WPopac is something created by Casey Bisson by tweaking WordPress to become an OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog). We got to see the insides of this library’s website and it looks exactly like the insides of this very blog you are reading.

En la misma conferencia que asistí a principios de la semana me escuche varias cosas interesantes sobre la biblioteca Cook Memorial en Tamworth, NH. Esta pequeña biblioteca pública ha eliminado su antigua página web estática y la reemplazó con un WPopac. Un WPopac es algo creado por Casey Bisson, modificando el software de blogs WordPress, convirtiéndolo en un OPAC (Catálogo de Acceso Público en Línea). Bisson nos mostro el interior de este catalogo y se ve exactamente igual que el interior de este blog que está leyendo.

The fascinating concept here is what can be created for free with the Opensource tools that are already available to us. Currently the Cook Memorial Library’s site provides you with just one search box that gives you relevant returns from all of their site, not just the OPAC. The fact that the search box cover the entire site means that if you search for local poet Marnie Cobbs, you will find out not only that the library carries her book titled “The Quiet Rage”, but also that she will be appearing at the library on May 8th. This set up also allows content on the web to be accessible through Google searches and the like.

El lo fascinante es ver lo que se puede crear usando software Opensource, de uso completamente gratis, y disponibles para nosotros. En la actualidad, el sitio web Biblioteca Memorial Cook le proporciona un solo cuadro de búsqueda que le devolverá resultados relevantes de todo su sitio web, no sólo del catalogo. El hecho de que el cuadro de búsqueda logra cubrir todo el sitio web quiere decir que una búsqueda de la poeta Marnie Cobbs le proporcionara no sólo el libro en la biblioteca titulado “The Silente Rage”, pero también le dará información sobre su evento en la biblioteca el 8 de mayo. Esto también permite crear contenidos en el sitio que será accesible a través de búsquedas en Google y otros buscadores.

Like any blog, the site allows collaboration by anyone who wants to contribute their two cents towards what is happening with the library. In relation to this, we heard the story of a man who is home-bound and therefore could not access the library, but now with this interactive site, he is able to participate by posting comments and starting discussions. In this sense the library is no longer just serving their immediate neighbors, but virtually anyone using the web.

Al igual que cualquier blog, el sitio permite la colaboración de cualquier persona que quiera contribuir con lo que está ocurriendo con la biblioteca. En relación con esto, hemos escuchado la historia de un hombre que se no puede salir de su casa y por tanto no puede ir a la biblioteca, pero ahora con este sitio interactivo puede participar enviando comentarios y participando en debates en la página de la biblioteca. En este sentido la biblioteca ya no solo provee servicios a los vecinos inmediatos, sino que incluye prácticamente cualquier usuario de la web.

You can learn more about this project and how it came about at maisonbisson. Bisson is also behind the Beyond Brown Paper project which is also based on WordPress.

Puede obtener más información sobre este proyecto y la forma en que se produjo en maisonbisson. Bisson también está detrás del proyecto “Beyond Brown Paper”, que está también basado en WordPress.

11.14.07 – The Plymouth State University Lamson Library’s OPAC runs on WPopac, now known as Scriblio. You can access the site here.

11.14.07 – El catalogo de la biblioteca de la Universidad Estatal de Plymouth Lamson también está basado en WPopac, ahora conocido como Scriblio. Puede acceder al sitio aquí.

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Earlier this week I attended a lecture that addressed social tagging and its use to libraries. Today more and more libraries and archives are trying to make themselves more visible by creating engaging websites, starting blogs and posting photographs on Flickr. While many of these are started to attract people to the library, it was fascinating to see the information that is coming out of these open spaces.

A principios de esta semana asistí a una charla sobre el uso social de los “tags” y su uso a las bibliotecas. Hoy en día más y más las bibliotecas y los archivos están tratando de ser más visible mediante la creación de sitios web atractivos, el uso de blogs y al publicar fotografías en Flickr. Aunque muchos de estos proyectos empezaron para atraer gente a la biblioteca, es fascinante ver la información que está saliendo de estos espacios abiertos.

Take for example the Beyond Brown Paper site. This is a project based out of Plymouth State University, and it aims to digitize and preserve a photography collection about the paper mills that used to function in the area. The collection contains about 11,000 photographs that are gradually making their way on to their site. The fascinating thing is that the site allows for comments and collaboration, and this has brought new information to the project. Locals who used to work at these mills have seen some of the photographs, and through their comments have started to fill in the information gaps.

Tomemos por ejemplo el sitio de Beyond Brown Paper. Este es un proyecto con sede en Plymouth State University, y su objetivo es digitalizar y preservar una colección de fotografías sobre las fábricas de papel que alguna vez funcionaron en esa área. La colección contiene alrededor de 11.000 fotografías que poco a poco se están subiendo al sitio. Lo fascinante es que el sitio permite comentarios y colaboración y esto ha traído nueva información a este proyecto. La gente local que trabajaban en estas fábricas se han reconocido en algunas de las fotografías y a través de sus comentarios han comenzado a llenar los vacíos de información.

Item # 718 is an image of two men working on some equipment. The subject headings that were initially allocated are “Tightening, Securing lid on digester, Wrenches, Digester, and Burgess Mill.” In early March someone posted a comment giving us more information on what the digester does. Later in the month someone else identified one of the men in the photograph.

El objeto # 718 es una imagen de dos hombres que trabajan con una maquinaria. Las etiquetas que originalmente fueron asignadas son “apretar, asegurando la tapa del digestor, llaves, digestor, y Burgess Mill”. Al principio de marzo alguien envió un comentario que nos da más información sobre lo que es el digestor. El próximo mes alguien más identificado uno de los hombres en la fotografía.

In cataloging, usually the more information we provide the better since it provides more access points to the item. But librarians, archivers and the like don’t know everything, so it’s fascinating that we can get help from the people who lived and experienced the history and documents we are trying to help manage. And while there can be a concern of people volunteering inaccurate information, I think the risk isn’t a serious one. Besides we can always acknowledge where the information came from.

En la catalogación entre mas información se proporcione, mejor, ya que así el objeto tendrá más puntos de acceso. Pero los bibliotecarios, archivadores y demás profesionales del campo no lo sabemos todo así que es fascinante que se pueda obtener ayuda de la gente que ha vivido esta historia y conoce de primera mano los objetos que estamos tratando de identificar. Y mientras aunque de pronto exista alguno pequeño riesgo de que la gente proporcione información incorrecta creo que el riesgo no es grave. Además siempre podemos reconocer de dónde proviene la información.

A similar case was seen on flickr. Here someone posted their pictures of vacation in Newfoundland, which included a close up of a Humpback Whale’s tail. Another person who knew about whales was later able to identify this particular whale as one that scientist had been following under the “name” of HWC#2943, last seen in 1984!

Un caso similar fue visto en Flickr. Aquí alguien publicó fotos de sus vacaciones en Terranova, las cuales incluían un primer plano de la cola de una ballena jorobada. Otra persona que sabía acerca de las ballenas más tarde fue capaz de identificar a esta ballena particular como la ballena que un grupo de científicos había estado siguiendo bajo el nombre de HWC # 2943, y vista por última vez en 1984!

You can learn more about this project and how it came about at maisonbisson. Bisson is also behind the Cook Memorial Library project which is also based on WordPress.

Usted puede aprender más sobre este proyecto y cómo se produjo en maisonbisson. Bisson también está detrás del proyecto Cook Memorial Library, que también está basado en WordPress.

- Photograph used with permission-

- Fotografía utilizada con permiso -

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There is a good amount of discussion in the library world that revolve around how and if we want to make library services more like Google or Amazon.com. The belief is that library users today want information to be available very quickly and without much effort, and that recommendations such as those used in Amazon.com might help patrons. Well Primo®, created by Ex Libris seems to have made these thoughts in to reality.

The North Carolina State University Libraries have already implemented this system. The search page on their OPAC is very simple, giving you the option to search for words, or a phrase, and then qualify these searches. A search for “Garcia Marquez”, “Anywhere” will give you an amazing amount of information. It gives you specific titles both by and about Garcia Marquez. It shows you the different call number ranges under which you can find material mentioning Garcia Marquez as author or subject; it gives you results by genre, format, region, time period, and languages, all on the same page. The possibilities seem to be endless.

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