Spelling it all out:FRAD, ISNI, RDA, VIAF automation and the future of authority control
Alan Danskin
Metadata & Bibliographic Standards Coordinator
British Library
A. Rose, by any other name: a workshop on authority control
CILIP HQ, Ridgmount St., London Friday 23rd October, 2009
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Overview
Challenge Scope Scalability Automation
The solution?
–Interparty, FRAD, RDA, MARC 21,
–EAC, FO:AF; ISNI, VIAF, Names 2
Conclusions
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Functions of the catalogue
“The catalogue should be an efficient instrument for ascertaining…which works by a particular author are in the library.”
Statement of Principles, Paris, 1961
“The catalogue should be an effective and efficient instrument that enables a user …to find sets of resources representing all resources associated with a given person, family, or corporate body”
Statement of International Cataloguing Principles, 2009
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Scope of authority control
Which names do we control? Names of authors and some contributors of published books Composers of sheet music Names of corporate bodies responsible for official publications Names associated with resources catalogued since 1981 Names associated with audio or audio visual resources, where possible
Which names do we exclude? Names of authors of journal articles or chapters of published books Contributors whose names fall towards the end of the alphabet or whose
contribution we regard as insignificant Names associated with archival or manuscript material Names derived from older catalogues Names associated with most Web Resources Names in the content management system / institutional repository
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Publication and research
“The only major exceptions to the dominance of the journal article are the continuing high status attached to monographs and edited volumes in the humanities, and to practice-based outputs in the arts. Yet even in the humanities, journal articles are now by far the largest publication format by volume;”
“In computer science, for example, the pace of change means that conferences are particularly important, and these may attract higher prestige than journal articles…Repositories have achieved less traction in the humanities and social sciences than in many science and engineering subjects. “
Communicating knowledge: How & why UK researchers publish & disseminate their findings / Research Information Network and JISC. 17 September 2009http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/communicatingknowledgereport.aspx
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The problem
There is a gap between ambition and delivery
Only some names on some types of resources are controlled
User expectations are changing
Silos: Libraries / Archives / Repositories / Museums National practices Institutional practices Variance over time
Is partial authority control acceptable to users?
If not, will it be acceptable to administrators?
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UK “published” output 2009-09
2008-9 Resources v Authorities
0 400,000 800,000 1,200,000
UK WebDomain (Est.)
ETOC Articles
UK LegalDeposit
UKRepositories
BL/NACO
Total LC/NACO
Ty
pe
Number
Authorities
Resources
213404
1525662
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Workflows
Current workflows are not scalable
Retrospective
Cataloguer driven
Decision making Is A. Rose PhD the same person as Dr. Alex Rose,
University of London? What other information is available? Is it sufficient to match or disambiguate the identities? Is there a website / contact details?
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Rethinking the process
Capture information about the person, family or corporate body at the time the resource is created
Devolve responsibility to authors, publishers, researchers and academics
Libraries and bibliographic agencies focus on quality control, complex relationships and conflict resolution.
Capture information in a way that is machine intelligible. Identification of entities not disambiguation of headings
100 10. $aLuckombe, Philip,$dd. 1803
046 ## $g1803100 10. $aLuckombe, Philip,$dd. 1803
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Automation
Identification ISNI
Contextual information FRAD, RDA, MARC 21
Matching VIAF, Names
Linking Controlled vocabularies
Confidence
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Models
Interparty - http://www.interparty.org/ EU Project 2002-2003 Public identities not persons Linking not merging Authority – i.e. who makes the assertion
FRAD Functional Requirements for Authority Data Extension of FRBR model to authority data Separation of names from the person, family or corporate
body Recognition of different rules
http://www.ifla.org/publications/ifla-series-on-bibliographic-control-34
I nterParty
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The nature of Public I dentities
Person
Public Identity
Public Identity
Relationships between real persons and
public identities
out of scope
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choice of access points
form of headings
references
FRBR relationships
attributes of FRAD entities
FRAD relationships
access points are controlled
RDA will replace AACR2
RDA is based on the FRBR and FRAD Models
AACR2 does not cover authority control
RDA does, but doesn’t use the term authority control
http://www.rda-jsc.org/
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ISNI: International Standard Name Identifier
ISNI 1422 4586 3573 0476
Registration Metadata
http://www.isni.org/
Draft ISO Standard (ISO 27729)
A “bridge “
Identification of Public Identities Natural Persons Legal Persons Fictional Characters Groups Incorporated entities
Libraries, rights management, book trade, publishers, media content industries
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VIAF: The Virtual International Authority File
Match & Link Authority Files Reduce costs Increase utility Retrospective alignment of bibliographic data
Prototype http://viaf.org/
Linked Data
http://outgoing.typepad.com/outgoing/2009/09/viaf-as-linked-data.html
OCLC
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Egypt)
National Library of the Czech Republic
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
National Library of Israel
Library of Congress/NACO
National Library of Sweden
Vatican Library
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Names
Funded by JISC Repositories and preservation programme Led by MIMAS British Library is a partner
National Names Service
Phase 1 – prototype Data model based on FRAD Mappings from MARC 21; ISAAR CPF; SWAP; NLM DTD
Phase 2 – Develop national names service Author submission Institutional Repositories UKPMC Intute
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It’s not just about libraries…
FO:AF Friend of a Friend Social networking metadata Granularity of parts of a name
http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/
EAC-CPF: Encoded Archival Context – Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families Communication standard for exchange of authority records ISAAR (CPF) Draft Standard
http://eac.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/
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Conclusion
Controlling names remains important in the context of linked data and the Semantic Web
Identification and collocation of variants is more important than establishing a preferred form
Current techniques are not scalable
Automation and participation are the way forward
Web services for identification
No simple solution
Exension of the collaborative model
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Links and references
<EAC-CPF>Encoded Archival Context: Corporate Bodies, Persons, and Families http://eac.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/
FO:AF (Friend of a Friend)http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/
Functional Requirements for Authority Data: a conceptual modelhttp://www.ifla.org/publications/ifla-series-on-bibliographic-control-34
International Standard Names Identifier (ISNI)http://www.isni.org/
Interparty Project http://www.interparty.org/
Communicating knowledge: how & why UK researchers publish & disseminate their findingshttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/communicatingknowledgereport.aspx
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Links and references
The knowledge network: British Library annual report & accounts, 2008/09http://www.bl.uk/about/annual/2008to2009/index.html
Library of Congress Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Directorate Report of Fiscal Year 2008 (Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 2008) http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/aba08.pdf
Names Projecthttp://names.mimas.ac.uk/
Statement of International Cataloguing Principleshttp://www.ifla.org/publications/statement-of-international-cataloguing-principles
RDA: Resource Description & Accesshttp://www.rda-jsc.org/
United Kingdom Repositories: table of record totalshttp://www.nostuff.org/ircount/table.php?frequency=monthly&country=uk
Virtual International Authority File: VIAFhttp://viaf.org/