1. Developing catalogues for customers (not cataloguers) Gordon Dunsire Presented at Branch/Group Day, CILIP in Scotland 5 th Annual Conference, 13 th June 2007, Peebles, Scotland

2. Overview  Recent international developments will lead to significant improvements for the users of catalogue services  This presentation describes two specific initiatives: FRBR and RDA  And discusses some of the benefits they will bring to library customers

3. FRBR  Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records  Eff-are-bee-are  Fur-burr  Verb: fur-burr-eyes (FRBRise): to make a catalogue compliant with FRBR  Developed for IFLA from 1992 to 1997  Common understanding of the aims and purpose of bibliographic metadata  User-centric

4. User tasks  Find an information resource  Matching the user’s search criteria  Identify a resource  Confirming it meets the user’s criteria  Distinguishing similar resources  Select a resource  Meeting the user’s needs  Obtain a resource  Accessing the information in the resource

5. What metadata supports these tasks?  Find  Title, author, subject, etc.  Identify  Title, edition, date, abstract, notes, etc.  Select  Language, format, etc.  Obtain  Electronic location, access conditions, etc.

6. Organising the metadata (1)  Metadata for a single resource fall(s) into 4 logical groups  Item  Metadata about a specific copy of the information resource; e.g. location, access  Manifestation  Metadata about a specific format of the resource; e.g. physical characteristics, edition

7. Organising the metadata (2)  Expression  Metadata about a specific presentation of the resource; e.g. form of content, title, language  Work  Metadata about the intellectual or artistic concept of the resource; e.g. subject, title, audience

8. Metadata relationships Work Expression 1 Manifestation 1.1 Item 1.1.1 Expression 2 Manifestation 2.1Manifestation 2.2 Item 2.1.1Item 2.2.1Item 2.2.2 Is realised through Is embodied in Is exemplified by Symphony no.1 LSO recording DVD-A Copy on shelf

9. Improving the user experience (1)  The hierarchical structure allows the catalogue user to more easily navigate metadata  Especially when there are a lot of expressions, such as translations and audio-books, and manifestations, such as multiple editions, recorded in the catalogue  Because the higher up the tree, the fewer the records to display  Ideally, just one Work to begin with  Then a few Expressions of the Work  Then a few more Manifestations (for each Expression)  Then all the Items (copies)

10. Improving the user experience (2)  Interfaces can give the user the choice to expand or contract the catalogue display to different levels  Just Works  Works and their Expressions  Works, Expressions, and their Manifestations  Everything in the collection, including multiple Items  The display of duplicate information is reduced  Only one title is displayed no matter how many Expressions or Manifestations use it

11. Example: OCLC FictionFinder  OCLC research project  Metadata for fiction resources taken from WorldCat...

14. OCLC FictionFinder ... Results of initial search are Work titles  “Full” record for Work identifies all languages (Expressions) and editions and formats (Manifestations) and copies held in member libraries (Items)

17. From here to there  Existing MARC records can be displayed in FRBRised catalogues  Hierarchical displays can be automatically created from rich metadata  Varying degrees of success, but almost always an improvement  Other metadata formats (e.g. Dublin Core) probably not detailed enough  Further development required  And, as always, Garbage in – Garbage out

18. RDA  Resource Description and Access  A new standard for creating bibliographic metadata  Based on the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules  In development since 1841 (Panizzi’s rules for the British Museum)  And FRBR and other more modern stuff

19. User-centred features of RDA (1)  Improves the FRBRizability of catalogues  Covers all types of user  Those who need to find, identify, select, obtain, use, manage and organize information  Covers all media  Print-based, digital; textual, visual, etc.  Equal, even treatment gives more control to the user in finding and choosing the most appropriate resources

20. User-centred features of RDA (2)  Clearly distinguishes content from carrier  E.g. Moving pictures on DVD; text on CD-ROM  Helpful for users with special needs  E.g. restrict search to non-visual resources  Multinational  Anglo-centricity (and cataloguer-eccentricity) removed  Abbreviations and acronyms avoided  Latinisms removed  Farewell s.n., s.l., et al.  [Still arguing about square brackets!]

21. User-centred features of RDA (3)  Independent of technical metadata formats  Can be used with MARC, DC (Dublin Core)  And a whole bunch of other acronyms  Gives user familiar metadata regardless of what system is used  Designed for the digital environment  RDA will be published as an online product  So could be incorporated in user help facilities

22. Good/Bad news  Library catalogues may (just) become user- friendly  A (true) complement to Google  RDA won’t be published until early 2009  And it will take some time to implement  RDA re-professionalises cataloguing  And is easier to use by para-cataloguers  Many cataloguers like RDA …  … but by no means all  No deaths have been reported, so far

23. Thank you  FRBR  http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.htm http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.htm  RDA, via CILIP-BL Committee on AACR  http://www.slainte.org.uk/aacr/index.htm http://www.slainte.org.uk/aacr/index.htm  More stuff in SLAINTE digital library  http://slic1.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/ipac20/ipac.jsp?/profile=slainte http://slic1.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/ipac20/ipac.jsp?/profile=slainte  OCLC FictionFinder  http://fictionfinder.oclc.org/ http://fictionfinder.oclc.org/  Me  g.dunsire@strath.ac.uk g.dunsire@strath.ac.uk