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Quality Evaluation of Online Library Catalogues, Advanced Discovery Tools and Linked Data Technologies

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The Evaluation of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities

Abstract

The chapter examines the reliability and quality of traditional online public catalogues made available by libraries. It discusses the potential and limitations of online catalogues as a source of data and information about authors and monographs for research assessment. The second part addresses the emerging sector of discovery tools, which are often offered alongside digital catalogues, or as separate software tools for bibliographic search and reference work. It examines the structure, commercial interests, algorithms and delivery formats of data. Finally, the chapter discusses the changes associated with the emergent linked data technology for displaying catalogue data on the Web. The advantages offered by LOD technologies, for instance the identification of authors and interoperability with other data of different provenances, are addressed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.catalogougov.unibo.it/_docs/Definizione%20e%20principali%20criteri%20di%20valutazione%20dei%20prodotti%20della%20ricerca_08.pdf

  2. 2.

    Other notable definitions of monograph have been offered in Italy by the National Agency for the evaluation of University and research (ANVUR): VQR 2004–2010 http://www.anvur.org/attachments/article/122/vqr_d.m._n._17_del_15_07_2011_firmato.pdf; VQR 2011–2014 http://www.anvur.org/attachments/article/825/Bando%20VQR%202011-2014_secon~.pdf and SUA-RD for university research http://www.anvur.org/attachments/article/26/Linee%20Guida%20SUA_RD%20ALLEGATO%20A.pdf

  3. 3.

    http://www.ifla.org/files/assets/cataloguing/frad/frad_2013.pdf

  4. 4.

    https://catalog.loc.gov/

  5. 5.

    http://www.loc.gov/marc/authority/ecadhome.html

  6. 6.

    http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/ Starting from 2005, Casalini contributes to both Authority control projects, descriptive and semantic: Name Authority Cooperative Program (NACO), which starts in 1977, and Subject Authority Cooperative Program (SACO), launched in 1993.

  7. 7.

    The Shelf-ready Project prescribed the delivery of books along with catalographic records, Table of Contents and the LoC control number. Since 2006, Casalini has annually furnished the Library of Congress with about 4000 shelf-ready books, almost half of the acquired Italian publications, ready to be put on the shelves, already processed and provided with an anti-theft device. (Genetasio and Terravecchia 2009).

  8. 8.

    www.worldcat.org, online since 2006. WorldCat offers more than 347 million records, representing 2.3 billion items owned by libraries, in 480 languages and dialects.

  9. 9.

    http://worldcat.org/identities/

  10. 10.

    http://www.iccu.sbn.it/opencms/opencms/it/main/attivita/naz/pagina_335.html. The Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries and Bibliographic Information (ICCU) is a central institute coordinated by the General Department for libraries and cultural institutes of the Italian ministry for cultural heritage and tourism (MIBACT). It was established through Decree of the president of the republic no. 805 dated 3 December 1975, assuming the functions of the National Centre for the Union Catalogue and bibliographical information (established in 1951). ICCU coordinates and manages SBN and national and international cataloguing projects, also using new technologies. http://www.iccu.sbn.it/opencms/opencms/it/

  11. 11.

    http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/garr/garr.pdf

  12. 12.

    http://www.iccu.sbn.it/opencms/opencms/it/main/attivita/naz/pagina_335.html

  13. 13.

    http://viaf.org

  14. 14.

    It is to be noted that, by contrast, the Bibliografia Nazionale Italiana, elaborated by the Florence national central library on the basis of legal deposit by law, has been online for public access only since 30 May 2016, limited to years 2012–2014. Previously, it was accessible by purchasing a license for viewing.

  15. 15.

    http://www.casalini.it/ilibri/index.asp.

  16. 16.

    The mentioned features refer to years 2014–2016. Starting from the year 2017, Casalini Press changed the layout of the database.

  17. 17.

    http://www.isbn.org/ISBN_converter

  18. 18.

    http://www.loc.gov/marc/holdings/hd541.html

  19. 19.

    Regarding search methods see Sweet (2012), Petrucciani (1984), p. 1–12.

  20. 20.

    On the loss of professional and scientific identity of librarian instruments, see Petrucciani (2006).

  21. 21.

    This expression means a simultaneous search in multiple databases, in this regard see Wang, Mi (2012).

  22. 22.

    The survey was sponsored by the Italian Agency for the evaluation of the University and the research (ANVUR), and carried out in 2014 and 2015. See Section 4, Chapter 14 Is the diffusion of books in library holdings a reliable indicator in research assessment?, in particular Part 2.

  23. 23.

    Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He founded and directs the World Wide Consortium (W3C), the forum for technical development of the Web.

  24. 24.

    https://www.loc.gov/marc/

  25. 25.

    http://bibframe.org/

  26. 26.

    http://viaf.org/viaf/data

  27. 27.

    This is referring to the models that make up the so-called “family” of IFLA functional requirements FRBR, FRAD, FRSAD, now in the process of consolidation in the new FRBR-Library Reference Model (IFLA 2016).

  28. 28.

    The OPAC of the Swedish National Library LIBRIS is available at URL: http://libris.kb.se. Since 2008, the library displays the data as Linked data using ontologies known as Dublin Core, Bibliontology and SKOS, and is preparing to adopt RDF (Resource Description Framework) as its native format of the catalogue records. The introduction of the new version of the catalogue Libris XL expressed in the new linked data format includes both the new and the previous records, the purpose of replacing MARC 21 with a data format as close to the data model outlined in Bibframe. (Forssblad 2013). The data are published in JSON-LD (JSON for linking data, http://json-ld.org). Today, thanks to the transformation of data in RDF, in response to a question the OPAC is able to provide a list sorted according to and within the FRBR model and will be able to provide a page for each title, author and subject of the database.

  29. 29.

    http://www.sharecampus.it/1/share_catalogue_969557.html

  30. 30.

    On the issue of the scientific data in open format see Cassella (2013).

  31. 31.

    Among these VIVO is an ontology standard that connects researchers and communities using LOD, but also a data set and an open community with strong international participation that connects researchers, publications, resources for research, financing, required courses, scientific activities. The ontology is based on other known ontologies (SIOC and FOAF). The major classes of this ontology are people, organisations and information resources.

  32. 32.

    Linked data for Libraries is a project of Cornell University Library, Harvard Library Innovation Lab and Stanford to create a LOD platform to extract data from various existing silos, to improve access to and discovery of academic information in the three libraries

  33. 33.

    Linked universities is a project to connect the university library resources in LOD format involving various universities in the UK, Germany, Finland, Greece, Turkey, Czech Republic. The project aims to create and support specific vocabularies for universities for common concepts like courses, qualifications, teaching materials and sharing experience, the tools to format data of the University as linked data.

  34. 34.

    https://schema.org/

  35. 35.

    The OCLC data policy is presented in http://www.oclc.org/data.en.html. See as an example of enriched records with linked open data record in WorldCat. https://www.worldcat.org/title/information-a-very-short-introduction/oclc/743804876&referer=brief_results where you can see the RDFa encoding based on Schema.org (www.schema.org)

  36. 36.

    The purpose of the Annotation class is to “Express opinions about a resource, for example a review. Attach institution specific information, for example holdings. Contribute enhancements to a resource description, for example cover art or summary descriptions”. See BIBFRAME Annotation Model (2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Maria Teresa Biagetti

  2. Biella Public Library, Biella, Italy

    Antonella Iacono

  3. University of Basilicata, Central University Library, Potenza, Italy

    Antonella Trombone

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  1. Maria Teresa Biagetti
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  2. Antonella Iacono
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  3. Antonella Trombone
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Correspondence to Maria Teresa Biagetti .

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  1. DESTEC, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Andrea Bonaccorsi

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Biagetti, M.T., Iacono, A., Trombone, A. (2018). Quality Evaluation of Online Library Catalogues, Advanced Discovery Tools and Linked Data Technologies. In: Bonaccorsi, A. (eds) The Evaluation of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68554-0_8

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