Stuart L. Weibel

1
Making Identifiers Concrete(so library places
and spaces dont have to be)

• Stuart L. Weibel
• Senior Research Scientist
• OCLC Programs and Research
• Scholar in Residence,
• University of Washington Libraries and
• the Information School

VALA 2008-02-07 2008-02-07
2
Overview

• The Library brand and Web 2.0
• Infusing bibliographic ideas into the Web (and
  vice versa?)
• Identities on the Web
• Gluing the pieces together with Identifiers
• Design criteria for identifiers
• WorldCat Identifiers good enough?
• A Glimir of the future

3
Where is the Library as a Brand?

• Perceptions of Libraries and
• Information Resources
• A Report to the OCLC Membership
• 3300 Respondents to questions on
• Library use
• Awareness and use of library electronic resources
  
• The Internet search engine, the library and the
  librarian
• Free vs. for-fee information
• The "Library" brand

4
The over-all picture

• Libraries are trusted sources of information
• But search engines are trusted about the same
• People care about the quantity and quality of
  information they find speed is less important
  (!?surprise?!)
• They do not view paid information as more
  accurate than free information
• The overwhelming branding image of libraries is
• BOOKS
• Patrons do not think of the library as an
  important source of electronic information !

5
Library Brand Equity we need a strong, visible
brand on the Web
6
Building out the library brand

• Build on the trust of our patrons
• Build on our business model Making information
  look free to end-users
• Build on the scale that libraries represent
• Presence in every community
• Global scope and reach
• Improve awareness of library resources
• Make libraries a part of the new electronic
  environments that dominate social, educational,
  and work environments

7
Social Networking Software

• It isnt new only the technical manifestation is
• Deliver library services into the emerging social
  networks
• Motivate people to participate
• Tagging
• Book Reviews
• Emergent relationships that are evident from data
  about what people buy and borrow, like and
  dislike (so called business intelligence)
• Link to the people as well

8
Social consumer environments

• Social Networking is not just for games
• Facebook
• Myspace
• Second Life
• Twitter
• All are flawed as service delivery models
• Business models are closed (or obscure) (Closed
  Gardens)
• Features are rudimentary (or overbearing)
• But they foretell a digital future in both their
  virtues and faults

9
Libraries must compare favorably with experiences
that our patrons expect

• Discovery and recommender services
• Web 2.0 social network capabilities
• Experiences of comparable commercial service
  providers
• Last-mile delivery capability
• Bookstore social experiences
• Coffee-shop salons
• People to help us navigate complicated knowledge
  space
• We are offering an experience as well as a service

10
Can Libraries compete in the social networking
space? Should they?

• The social software movement is fueled by (dollar
  denominated) entrepreneurial fervor
• Rate of innovation
• (and failure) is rapid
• Distinguish between
• trends and the trendy
• Are we babes on the
• beach?

11
The future of Library catalogs?

• Evolving towards the network level
• Collections linked to people, organizations,
  global locations, concepts, context, metadata,
  and social networking benefits
• Fit into the workflow and social lives of patrons
• Help create a scaffolding for past knowledge and
  future productivity

12
Web or Scaffolding?http//www.smart-kit.com/s29
1/what-spider-webs-can-teach-us-about-caffeines-ef
fect-on-the-brain/
13
Web is a wonderful metaphor, but perhaps
something a bit more durable?

• We want more
• Coherence and context
• Durable environments that help us preserve and
  fix resources in the context of culture
• Librarianship embedded in the emerging
  technologies of a social Web

14
FRBR Entities Librarianships contribution to a
richer resource model on the Web
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
Work Person Concept
Expression Corporate body Object
Manifestation Event
Item Place
15
And dont forget Social BibliographyUser-Generat
ed Content
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3
Work Person Concept
Expression Corporate body Object
Manifestation Event
Item Place

• Book Reviews
• Lists
• Services
• Commentary
• Other?

16
All these entities should be First Class Objects

• An information entity that has
• Persistent Identity on the Web
• Accessible by anyone or any application
• Stand alone
• Attribution (authorship)
• Clear Intellectual property rights
• Curated (dont leave it lying around untended)
• Allow the user to enter and traverse the catalog
  from any point

17
What about the people in social networking?

• Libraries have large investments in Name
  authority
• How can this be leveraged to support emerging
  identity needs?
• What is the relation to
• authentication and
• authorization?

18
(No Transcript)
19
WorldCat Identities another piece of the puzzle?
20
(No Transcript)
21
(No Transcript)
22
(No Transcript)
23
(No Transcript)
24
A complicated puzzle where ya gonna turn?

• People
• Information
• resources
• Places
• Terminologies
• User Generated Content
• FRBR (explain it to your
  patrons)

25
Hook everything together with the right sort of
identifiers

• A coherent identifier infrastructure is essential
  to establishing a rich and dynamic scaffolding of
  interconnected information resources to support
  users and uses of bibliographic data in a
  climate of changing technology and user
  expectations.
• Broad dissemination of canonical, globally-scoped
  public identifiers serves the library
  collaborative and is the single most compelling
  means of making library assets persistent and
  visible on the Web

26
Some Design Parameters for Identifiers in the
Global Library Community

• Canonical identification
• Branding
• Usability
• Granularity and the FRBR model

• Persistence
• Universal accessibility
• Global scoping
• Search Engine Optimization

27
Persistence

• Not technological, but rather, a function of the
  commitment of organizations
• Libraries and other cultural memory organizations
  do this well
• Harder to do in the digital era, but the
  community is up to the task

28
Universal access and global scoping

• Open to all public identifiers in a public Web
• Should work in Myanmar, Melbourne, and
  Minneapolis alike
• WorldCat is the first globally-scoped identifier
  architecture for library assets in which the
  global surrogate is mapped to locality
• But were not quite done

29
Search Engine Optimization and Canonical
Identifiers

• Visibility of assets in the global library is
  diluted by the multiplicity of identifiers
• Many competing identifier schemes
• Localized versions of identifiers
• Agreement on a canonical identifier
• Raises search engine ranking
• Concentrates aggregation of social content
• Simplifies supply-chain processing (the
  Amazoogles are interested
• Supports user needs in answering the question
• Is Item X the same asrelated to relevant to
  Item Y

30
Branding is an important component of URIs
(Uniform Resource Identifiers)

• Every URI is a micro-billboard branding library
  content in a crowded and largely commercial Web
  landscape
• Library branding reminds users that libraries are
  in the business of providing sustainable access
  to cultural, educational, scientific, and
  technical information products
• Citations with persistent identifiers help to
  anchor the content in the collective web-based
  memory

31
Usability of URIs

• URIs should be designed for people as well as
  machines
• URIs should be speakable
• URIs should be a short as can be managed
• URIs should have a predictable pattern that makes
  them hackable and truncatable

32
Granularity of bibliography on the WebFRBR
again.

• FRBR is a major contribution to resource
  organization on the Web, but it is a challenge to
  explain it to users

33
And along comes WorldCat

• WorldCat Mid 2006
• WorldCat identifiers approximate, for the first
  time, a globally scoped, persistent public
  identifier for library manifestations
• Globally unique (the easy part)
• Freely available to everyone
• Citable and resolvable, independent of location
  (for WorldCat participants)
• Linked to descriptive surrogates and to the
  content itself (for WorldCat members)
• Canonical almost, but not quite

34
WorldCat IDs a global manifestation identifier?
But, but, but

• Approximates Close, but not quite
• How does a WC Identifier fall short?
• Duplicates
• mistaken duplicates (even as the poor, always
  with us.)
• functional duplicates (duplicates we want for one
  reason or another)
• Citable (Yes)
• Resolvable to content (Yes, but)
• Canonical (well, sort of)

35
Duplicates

• Errors are costly to find and fix
• Duplicate detection algorithms
• What about encouraging the participation of
  librarians or even patrons?
• Institutional records have been loaded into
  WorldCat useful, but dilutes canonical
  character of WC IDs
• Non-US records
• Is the UK or Australian or New Zealand English
  language record somehow less canonical than the
  American English language record?
• Is the (German/Italian/Japanese) record somehow
  less canonical than the English language record?

36
GLIMIR Global Library Manifestation Identifier

• The library community needs a global
  manifestation identifier which is
• Global in scope
• Canonical
• Business neutral
• Provides the URL Equity necessary to support
  the library brand
• Fits comfortably within the FRBR model

37
What About Other Identifier Schemes

• Can a global community agree and adopt a
  canonical identifier in an already
  identifier-rich marketplace?
• National Bibliographic Numbers NBNs (largely
  European)
• ISSNs and ISBNs (format-limited, but established
  and valuable)
• DOIs (purpose-built to support IPR management)
• Handles (based on a belief in the failure of DNS)
• Local and regional identifiers

38
Cautious Exploration

• OCLC is launching a pilot to identify the
  functional requirements and practicalities for a
  community-based manifestation identifier
• We have solicited review from a collection of
  technical specialists in several countries and
  sectors
• Moving forward will require a careful balance of
  use cases, business issues, and community advice
  as to how we can best meet the community need in
  a neutral manner

39
What if youre not an OCLC member?

• Can the global library community coalesce around
  a naming architecture derived from WorldCat
  identifiers, even if they are not WorldCat
  participants?
• How will OCLC build and support a naming
  architecture that does not require membership?
• How will non-OCLC members request a Glimir?
• How much metadata will be necessary to
  disambiguate near matches? Who will manage it?

40
In summary

• Identifiers are key
• To fulfilling the mission of libraries in a
  digital future
• To competing on the open Web for recognition of
  our communitys brand equity
• To integrating our traditional bibliographic
  values with social networking content
• To providing services and access to the digital
  tribe our future constituency

41
Many thanks!

• http//weibel-lines.typepad.com
• http//flickr.com/photos/weibel-lines
• http//twitter.com/stuartweibel
• (yeahFacebook, too)