OCLC Research: an update Lorcan Dempsey

OCLC Research Mission Emphasis Perceptions

Systems and interaction design Interoperability Management intelligence Metadata management Knowledge organization Content management

Systems and interaction design Interoperability Dublin Core ZING … SRU/SRW IMS OAI - PMH Visualization Support

Management intelligence Under construction Explore how to support management decisions by making better use of available data.

Interlibrary Loan Study Compare interlibrary loan borrowing patterns within a consortium –Begin with OhioLink Compare netLibrary holdings to titles borrowed through interlibrary loan

Collection Assessment Analyze and compare aggregate WorldCat holdings for libraries –ARL –Academic, non-ARL –Public –Identify titles and their intellectual levels, subjects (using conspectus), and publishers

User Behavior Study Identify how print book and eBooks are used –Focus group interviews –Individual interviews –Transaction log analysis

Metadata switch Under construction Explore a set of services which add value to metadata by leveraging OCLC expertise and cooperative processing model.

SOAP Javascript/HTTP Z39.50 RDN gateway/portal service RDN gateway/portal service RDN Gateway E-prints UK Institutional e-print archives Personal e-print archives OAI-PMH E-Prints UK Non-institutional e-print archives Subject classification service Name authority service Citation analysis service SOAP

Emerging technologies provide opportunities for new services Tools and features previously available only in integrated systems can now be provided as 'web services' “network accessible application components” “interoperable building blocks for constructing applications” “self-describing applications that can be discovered and accessed over the web by other applications” Technical definition –Web Services are a suite of protocols that define how requests and responses between software applications should be encoded & transferred over the web

Aggregation and fusion Schema transformation Names Terminology services

Aggregation and fusion OAI Theses ?? Fusion

Record enhancement

Terminology services Methods effective for print, unlikely to be the same techniques used for digital documents Need to determine role of knowledge organization (KO) resources in relation to new approaches Authority files Subject heading systems and thesauri Classification schemes

Terminology resources are currently embedded in systems & services OCLC Connexion –Provides access to several KO schemes & links among schemes Dewey, LCSH, Name authorities –Automated application tools Harvest & record creation Classification Control of names, subjects, class numbers

Need more flexible, modular knowledge organization services For example, one set of requirements: –Automatically check name and subject authorities –Automatically supply Dewey Decimal Classification numbers based on subject entries –On-demand check of subject and name authorities in non-OCLC record sources –Authorities notification service –Improve record quality/completeness

Knowledge Organization Services KO Schemes Name Authority Files DDC LCSH Classification Auto-class Number verification Captions Associated Terms Updates Authority Control Auto-assign Name/Subject validation Associated Classes Authorities notification Record Enrichment Classes Subjects Names Summaries

OCLC Web Services Demo Rare and endangered animals Rare and endangered species

Prototypes & Demonstration projects Prototype –LCCN Web Service Demo (previous slide) OCLC & Northwestern University –DDC number verification for Cataloger's Toolkit for Voyager ILS eprints-UK –OCLC will supply subject descriptions & name authorities as Web services for harvested resources

Schema transformation services Accept metadata in one schema and return metadata in another schema

Names Accept a name and return –Authoritative version of the name –Cluster of related names

Content management Under construction Make a leading contribution to the economic and engineering issues facing the digital preservation community.

Digital preservation OCLC/RLG collaboration Moving from a consensus making phase to an implementation phase Real economic and engineering issues being addressed

Economics White paper

Digital preservation.. engineering Research fellow Digital coop