ki-tat lam head of library systems the hong kong...

Last revised: 11 February 2009

Ki-Tat LAMHead of Library Systems

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology [email protected]

HKUST Library’s openness initiatives◦ Open Door

◦ Open Technology

◦ Open Source

◦ Open Access

SmartCAT◦ Open Catalog

Semantic SmartCAT Project◦ Towards Open Metadata (Linked Data)

2HKUST Library's initiatives for promoting system openness. K.T. Lam

Part I

Openness initiatives at HKUST Library

◦ Open Door

◦ Open Technology

◦ Open Source

◦ Open Access

HKUST Library's initiatives for promoting system openness. K.T. Lam 3

HKUST Library advocates openness.

Established Open Door Policy since the Library opened in 1991.◦ Allowing anyone in the community who has information

needs to freely enter the Library and use the materials and resources within the building.


Landmark event of openness◦ The emerge of the Internet in early 1990s is the landmark

event for opening up closed systems and platforms.

Technologies and standards contributed to these openness:◦ The Internet

◦ World Wide Web

◦ XML standard and its related technologies

◦ Web services and APIs (application programming interfaces)

The consequences:◦ Applications can be run seamlessly across networks.

◦ Digital contents are widely accessible on the networks.

◦ Drastically improves the ways by which computers communicate and interchange information.


HKUST Library initiatives:◦ The Internet and World Wide Web

1995 - When the web technology was first unveiled, the Library responded enthusiastically by developing its websiteimmediately.

1997 - Began creating web-based digital libraries databases, including the Digital Archives and Electronic Theses.

◦ XML and web services

1998 - Began experimenting the XML technologies when the XML standard was first released. For example, studied how well XML could be used to encode MARC21 bibliographic and authority records.


2000 – Tested INNOPAC’s xrecord command, to automate the real time exporting and conversion of MARC records. For example: <http://ustlib.ust.hk/record=b668534>. This approach has been extensively adopted for use in the later digital libraries projects.

2001 – Introduced native XML database system, Tamino, to form the core information infrastructure for a number of digital library applications.

2002 – Developed XML-based Name Access Control Repository to support the virtual international authority file concept, with non-Latin scripts for Chinese names.

2003 – Put up the first RSS Feeds for the newly acquired books and media resources.

2003 – Conducted a workshop on XML to share our experience to Hong Kong colleagues.

Beyond 2003 – these open technologies and standards have become the nuts and bolts of our systems.


http://ustlib.ust.hk/record=b668534

Open source is an approach to design, develop and distribute software with full access to the source codes and knowledge behind it.

Open source is NOT equivalent to Free-of-Charge. ◦ For example, Linux is an open source software, but you

need to pay annual license fee to use the Red Hat Linux. This company sells maintenance services to help out the tedious works of software patching and security updating.

◦ Another example is Koha, an open source integrated library system that you can freely download from its official site. But, if you wish, you can pay a commercial company for additional services, such as installation, hosting, training and technical support.


What can you do to the Open Source software:◦ Use it

◦ Customize it

◦ Create it

Examples of open source software we use:◦ pwebstats and AWstats (1995 and 2001 respectively, for

web server access log analysis); DSpace (2003, for institutional repository and digital archives); MRBS (2005, for library rooms booking); CLEO (2006, for library classes registration); LibStats (2006, for counters and help desk statistics; and questions and answers logging); Scriblio(2007, for next generation library catalog).

◦ Other systems tools, such as LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).


Examples of open source software customization:◦ DSpace (2003, to handle CJK searching and HKUST LDAP

authentication); MRBS (2005, adapting this room booking system to our environment); Scriblio (2007, to support CJK importing and searching; and automatic batch update).

We also create open source software◦ Available for download from the Shared Software Pool

<http://library.ust.hk/software>.

◦ For examples: JURO (2005, for journal usages reporting); Print2Mail (2005, for redirecting INNOPAC print jobs to third party applications, such as spine label printing); EAD2III (2006, for loading bibliographic data in an EAD XML file to INNOPAC); AuthFix (2008, for fixing authority records with established CJK names that were improperly encoded in tag 4XX).


http://library.ust.hk/software

Open access refers to the movements that promote free and unrestricted access to scholarly output and research literature.

The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) created the Protocol of Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).◦ Greatly enhanced open access by providing a standard

mechanism to harvest metadata of scholarly output.

HKUST Library was the early adopter of the Open Access concepts.◦ Decided to build the Institutional Repository (IR) in late

2002.

◦ Adopted and enhanced open source software DSpace and launched its IR in Feb 2003. <http://repository.ust.hk/>


http://repository.ust.hk/

◦ Features of HKUST IR:

100% open access to full-text documents.

OpenURL linking to the published version of articles.

Full-text searching via Elseviers’ Scirus.

Compliant to OAI-PMH and SRW/U (Search ad Retrieval for the Web or by URL).

◦ Created HKIR (Hong Kong Institutional Repositories) in 2006, to enable cross searching of the IRs from the Hong Kong UGC funded institutions. < http://lbapps.ust.hk/hkir/>

◦ Held an International Conference (2004) and a Workshop (2006) on IR.


http://lbapps.ust.hk/hkir/

Part II

SmartCAT - the Open Catalog


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Card Catalog

OPAC Terminal

Web OPAC

Evolution of Library Catalogs

Next-Generation Library Catalog

Traditional catalog◦ It is silo-like:

An inventory list of items held in the library.

An alphabetical list of headings.

Fails as an information discovery tool (no way out).

◦ Dissatisfaction of Web-savvy users

Accustom to Web 2.0 interfaces with dynamic content and social networking.

Expect more than just metadata.

Want information and participation.

Prefer simple search to begin with, plus incremental refinement of search results.

◦ It is time to open up your catalog.



<http://catalog.ust.hk/>

http://catalog.ust.hk/

SmartCAT <http://catalog.ust.hk/>

◦ HKUST Library’s next-generation catalog.

◦ Released November 2007.

◦ Based on the open source software called Scriblio. It is a plugin of WordPress, the popular open source blogging software.

◦ We have done substantial customization to Scriblio.

◦ Comments about Scriblio by its developer:

“it also offers something we’ve never seen in a library application before: access to a community of knowledge, programmers, and designers outside libraries. Because the core of WPopac is WordPress, and because it preserves WordPress’srich plugin API and themes structure, it already has more users, designers, developers, and administrators than all the ILS vendors combined.” – Casey Bisson<http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11133/>


http://catalog.ust.hk/

http://maisonbisson.com/blog/post/11133/

Features of SmartCAT:◦ Faceted browsing

The must-have search feature

◦ Web Mashup

Bring external content into your catalog

◦ Dynamically constructed links

Discover related information outside of the catalog

◦ Search redirection links

Redirect your search to the external sources

◦ User Comments

For social networking and knowledge sharing

◦ RSS feeds

Keep you informed


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Faceted Browsing

Step 1: Keyword search on the word “MYSQL” brings up a results set of 110 titles

Step 2: Narrow the result set by specifying Subject “Design”. Result sets reduced to 28 titles

Step 3: Further filter the result set by specifying Format “E-Resource”. Result sets reduced to 15 titles

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Cover imagefromAmazon

Holdings information from Millennium WebPAC Pro

Summary from Amazon

Mashups of web content from various websites

21

Multiple Sources of Cover Images

Locally scanned book covers from the Special Collections

Screen shots of locally held streaming videos

Mashup of covers images

22

Check-inrecord

Item records

ERMholdings

On-order information

Dynamically constructed links to external sources

Availability information

23

Search Redirection and Suggestion

Redirecting search to external sources

Search suggestion, based on INNOPAC’s name and subject authority databases

User Comments A comment on the book “White lotus”

Recent comments and the RSS Feed in the Sidebar

SmartCAT is an open catalog, because:◦ It brings in external content:

Real-time holdings, book cover images, book reviews, name/subject authority suggestions, etc.

◦ It directs users to external sources and applications:

Request items, RefWorks export, HKALL borrowing, WebBridge, Google Book Search, WorldCat, Google Scholar, etc.

◦ It provides a discussion platform for users to share opinions and talk to each other:

User comments, RSS Feed

◦ And more importantly, its bibliographic metadata and search results are openly available as Linked Data, for discovery by external semantic web software agents

An exciting project that we are currently working on (See Part III for details).


Part III

Semantic SmartCAT Project –towards Open Metadata

◦ Semantic Web

◦ Linked Data

◦ RDF

◦ RDA, the new cataloging rules


The traditional web represents information in natural language (written text), together with images and multimedia content.◦ Designed to be read, processed and acted on by human

beings and not by machines.

Why involving machines?◦ Software agents can act as human being, helping users to

locate, combine and act on the information. For examples:

They can act as librarians helping users finding information;

Classic scenario: <http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-semantic-web>

◦ Websites can easily mashup content from multiple sites if the content is semantically represented on the Web.


http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-semantic-web





The Web evolution:◦ Web 1.0 = World Wide Web of HTML documents

◦ Web 2.0 = Web 1.0 + Users participation

◦ Web 3.0 = Web 2.0 + Semantic Web + others

Adding meaning to the traditional web!

Comparison:◦ Traditional web focuses on linked documents encoded in

HTML.

◦ Semantic web is about creating a web of linked dataencoded in RDF.


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Traditional Web versus Semantic Web

A web of linked documents in HTML

Read by human beings

A web of linked data in RDF

Read by computer program

Linked Data is a term used to describe the “best practice for exposing, sharing and connecting pieces of data, information and knowledge on the Semantic Web using URI and RDF”. [extracted from: <http://linkeddata.org/>]

The Linked Data Principles◦ Use URIs as names for things

◦ Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names

◦ When someone looks up a URI, provide useful RDF information

◦ Include RDF statements that link to other URIs so that they can discover related things

<http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html>


http://linkeddata.org/

http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html

RDF (Resource Definition Framework)◦ A language for representing information about Web

resources.

◦ Particularly for representing metadata about Web resources.

◦ A W3C standard introduced since 1999.


Statement:

◦ “Sun, Zehua is the creator of the resource http://ihome.ust.hk/~lbsun/hkloan.html”

Structure:

◦ Resource (Subject): http://ihome.ust.hk/~lbsun/hkloan.html

◦ Property (Predicate): http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator

◦ Value (Object): “Sun, Zehua”

Directed graph:

RDF encoded in XML:

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http://ihome.ust.hk/~lbsun/hkloan.htmldc:creator

Sun, Zehua

Subject ObjectPredicate

A Simple RDF Example

Why bother?

“As a publisher of linked data not only are you enabling others to build cool things with your data - helping you right now - you are also helping to insulate yourself against atrophy. If your data is as open and accessible as possible - then it is relatively straight forward for your future colleagues, working on a as yet unimagined product, to use the data you are publishing right now.”

<http://derivadow.com/2008/06/03/semantic-web-why-bother/>


http://derivadow.com/2008/06/03/semantic-web-why-bother/







RDA (Resource Description and Access) is the up-coming standard of cataloging rules supposed to replace AACR2.◦ AACR2 , released 1978, was developed before the

computer era, when the time library catalog was meant to be the card catalog.

◦ Demands to revise AACR2 conceived in 1997 - envisioned as the AACR3, the third edition of AACR.

◦ Changed name to RDA in 2005, to allow for drastic changes and a break from the legacy past.

◦ Full draft released November 2008, for constituency review.

◦ To be finalized in 2009. [Note: the standard itself will not be free-of-charge; pricing scheme may involve online subscription!]


◦ RDA is having hard time to get the support from library community

Compliant about its complexity.

Query about the FRBR model.

Doubt about cost-effectiveness.

Uncertainty of future of MARC.

OCLC is very quite.

A LC working group even suggested suspending its development. [“On the Record” <http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/>]

◦ Come to the rescue:

JSC (Joint Steering Committee) of RDA did a smart move in mid 2007 to open up RDA to the non-library communities, by working with DCMI (Dublic Core Metadata Initiative), with an attempt to fit RDA in models used by other metadata communities.


http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/



◦ DCMI/RDA Task Group <http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/>

Established mid 2007, work-in-progress.

Charter: to define components of the draft standard "RDA -Resource Description and Access" as an RDF vocabulary for use in developing a Dublin Core application profile.

RDA vocabularies (for elements and values) are now available at NSDL Registry <http://metadataregistry.org/>.

◦ The works of DCMI/RDA

In effect, makes RDA readily available for use in XML, RDF, Linked Data and Semantic Web.

Unlike MARC, AACR2 and ISBD, library community is able to use tools developed outside of the library communities for its applications.

“Essential to the success of RDA as a modern, web-based metadata standard” – Karen Coyle


http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup

http://metadataregistry.org/

Goal:◦ To enable the metadata in SmartCAT as RDF Linked Data

and to make the metadata openly available on the Web for use by semantic web software agents.

Experiment:◦ January 2009 – implemented the “proof-of-concept” infra-

structure on SmartCAT:

Each bibliographic record has its unique URI, based on the permanent INNOPAC record number.

Serves metadata in RDF with compliance to Linked Data Principles.

RDF uses RDA element and value vocabularies, together with others, such as OWL.


Links personal names to OCLC’s VIAF (Virtual International Authority File).

Links subjects to OCLC’s Terminology Services for LCSH.

Both these OCLC web services are SRW/U based, and are not Linked Data in nature. [We could have linked to lcsh.info, the LCSH linked data site by Ed Summers. But, too bad, it was forced to be shut down in December 2008!].


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View linked data with OpenLink RDF Browser

RDF of this book<http://catalog.ust.hk/catalog/bib/b363632/rdf>

Permanent URL

RDF Linked Data of aSmartCATrecord

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Expression

Work

Manifestation

Author

Subject

RDF of the book in XML, with RDA vocabularies<http://catalog.ust.hk/catalog/bib/b363632/rdf>

41

Relationship of M1 (Manifestation) with others

rdf:type

rda:publishersName

rda:dateOfPublication

M1

Wrinkles in time

rda:titleProper

W. Morrow

1993

ISBN-10:0688123309

rdf:typeE1

frbr:embodiment

frbr:Expression

frbr:Manifestation

rda:identifierForTheManifestation

42

Relationship of E1 (Expression) with others

M1

rdf:type

rda:contentType

E1

frbr:embodiment

eng

frbr:Expression

rdvct:1020

W1

frbr:realization

frbr:Work

rdf:type

rdf:type

frbr:Manifestation

skos:prefLabel

text

rda:languageOfExpression

43

rdf:type

E1

frbr:Expression

W1

frbr:realization

frbr:Workrdf:type

rda:preferredTitleForTheWork

Winkles in time

dcterms:subject

S1

rdfs:labelCosmology

rdf:typefrbr:Subject

rdarole:author

P1 rda:preferredNameForThePerson

Smoot, George

rdf:type

frbr:Person

P1

rda:preferredNameForThePerson

Davidson, Keay

rdf:type frbr:Person

rdarole:author

owl:sameAs

viaf:LC|n 94027724

owl:sameAs

viaf:LC|n 93046571

Relationship of W1 (Work) with others

To do list:◦ Load authority records from INNOPAC to SmartCAT.

◦ Build SPARQL endpoints for bibliographic and authority metadata.

◦ Map MARC21 to RDA vocabularies, in effect, FRBRising the bibliographic records on SmartCAT.

◦ etc.


HKUST Library advocates system openness. In addition to the physical open door policy, we also support movements in open access, open source, open catalog and open metadata.

In light of the recent consortium effort known as Open Library Environment, which calls for a redesign of the integrated library system for more flexibility and interoperability, it is anticipated that library services will increasingly be open, allowing library users to work seamlessly in a digital environment that is socially connected, with readily available services and resources.


ki-tat lam head of library systems the hong kong...

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