IDENTIFIERS THROUGH THE AGES Ed Jones 2012 ALA annual conference.

IDENTIFIERS THROUGH THE AGESEd Jones

2012 ALA annual conference <Anaheim, CA>

In the beginning

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

—Genesis 2:19 (KJV)

Statement of the problem / solution

JULIET. What’s in a name? That which we call a roseby any other name would smell as sweet.So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,retain that dear perfection which he oweswithout that title. Romeo, doff thy name;and for that name, which is no part of thee,take an identifier.

Our own definition (ICP)

Identifier — A number, code, word, phrase, logo, device, etc., that is associated with an entity, and serves to differentiate that entity from other entities within the domain in which the identifier is assigned.

[Source: FRAD]

Outline

•The past (IDENTIFY)•The more recent past (IDENTIFY and FIND)

•The present (the WHOLE SHEBANG)•The future (?)

In the beginning… (Cutter)

IDENTIFY

• 1876: number from an authoritative bibliography (rule 20) [AACR2 1.7B15]• Hain no. 16128. [number of a description in Hain’s Reportorium

bibliographicum]

• 1904: publisher’s number for printed music (rule 367) [AACR2 5.7B19 / RDA 2.15.2]• No. 1616. [publisher’s number for a miniature score (Int. Music Co.)

of Stravinsky’s Histoire du soldat]

MARC

IDENTIFY and FIND (mainly for back-office operations)

• 010: LC card number• 015: National bibliography number• 020: ISBN• 025: PL480

MARC-S

IDENTIFY and FIND(mainly for A&I services)

• 022: ISSN• 030: CODEN

And the identifiers were fruitful and multiplied…

IDENTIFY and FIND (Stop me before I identify again!)

• 024: Other standard identifier.• 1st indicator:

• 0 = ISRC (International Standard Recording Code)• 1 = UPC (Uniform Product Code)• 2 = ISMN (International Standard Music Number)• 3 = EAN (International Article Number)• 4 = SICI (Standard Item and Contribution Identifier)• 7 = Whatever… (see source in $2)

Today (the online world)

FIND, IDENTIFY, SELECT, OBTAIN (FRBR Nirvana)

• Identifiers that actually do stuff

856 (electronic location and access)•Uses of 856:

• Link to information about the resource or its author (table of contents, publisher’s description, biography)

• Link to related stuff (e.g., supplementary online material)

• Link to the resource itself

LibX (web browser plug-in)• Input (detected on web page):

• ISBN• DOI

• Output (icon and/or link): • Library catalog search argument (ISBN)• OpenURL link resolver search argument (DOI)

LibX example (1)

LibX example (2)

LibX example (3)

Google Books APIs• Input (extracted from MARC record):

• ISBN• LCCN• OCLCNUM

• Output (icon and link): • Google Books page• Embedded viewer

Google Books API example (1)

Google Books API example (2)

Google Books API example (3)

A curiosity (pause)

Despite the fact that online catalogs have routinely provided user access to catalog records via identifiers (ISBN/ISSN) from the beginning, no cataloging code prior to RDA made provision for identifiers as access points

But what of the future?

“Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.”

—Wittgenstein, Abschnitt 7, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

The semantic web

What follows will work if we have a rigorous network of identifiers and a robust semantic web

RDA identifiers and the semantic web• RDA 2.15 Identifier for the manifestation

• Granularity:• http://rdvocab.info/Elements/identifierForTheManifestation (RDA)• http://purl.org/ontology/bibo/isbn (Bibliographic Ontology)

• Relationships between equivalents• ISBN (2-01-321947-4)• EAN (978-2-01-321947-1)• GTIN-14 (0-978-2-01-321947-1)

Example of a semantic web cataloging environment• Context:

• Search also via equivalent identifiers: EAN, GTIN-14• Return data from defined trusted datasets• Select data from defined element-by-element hierarchy of preferred

datasets

• Input: ISBN 3-596-51226-3

Trusted datasets (example)• LC catalog• BNB (British National Bibliography)• BnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France)• DNB (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek)• [etc.]

Element-by-element preferences• For descriptive elements, prefer dataset from country of

origin• For authorized access points, prefer dataset from one’s

own country (test in VIAF against access point from country of origin)• Retrieve related authority data

• For subject elements, prefer dataset from one’s own country and extract at work level (if none, use surrogate like DDC to generate terms)

Example

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832. [Werther] Die Leiden des jungen Werthers : In der Fassung von 1774 : Roman / Johann Wolfgang Goethe. — 1., neue Ausg. — Frankfurt am Main : Fischer Taschenbuch, 2012. 208 p. ; 144 mm x 92 mm. — (Fischer Klassik ; 51226)

ISBN 978-3-596-51226-3PT1974.A1Young men—Psychology—FictionUnrequited love—FictionDespair—Fiction Loss (Psychology)—Fiction

Role of cataloger in this future• Original cataloging in rare circumstances• Set and tweak criteria for extracting metadata from

diverse sources• Review and troubleshoot automatically-generated

cataloging

• Requirements:• Thorough understanding of cataloging• Thorough understanding of linked data and how it works

• May work for a national library or metadata vendor or as an independent contractor on special projects

Alternate future…• Intelligent agents, acting for the user, gather relevant

metadata from the various datasets, in response to a user query

• Based on the user’s content rights, preferences, etc., appropriate copies of the desired objects are automatically accessed, reserved, or purchased

• The local catalog consists of • identifiers (for reliable linking from/to the remote datasets)• local management data (holdings, location, preservation, etc.)

• Save the time of the reader (S. R. Ranganathan)

Thank you• [email protected]

• M.A. Numminen sings Wittgenstein• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGksgZKecKE