Tag Archives: identifiers

Authorities and identifiers in data sources #anzreg2018

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The future of authorities and identifiers in national and international data sources; pros, cons & ROI.
Panel: Lynne Billington SLNSW, Libraries Australia representative, Catherine Amey NLNZ, Jenny Klingler Monash University, Ebe Kartus UNE

Libraries Australia syndicates data to Trove; headings to WorldCat; to VIAF (not clear how much identifiers are being used here but Wikidata grabs it; ISNI sends data to VIAF and ORCID has some relationship with ISNI)… Workflow never fully developed by LA due to lack of demand. Only 3 orgs regularly sending data for ingest to ANBD. Integrated in international identifier ecosystem and investing in staff training. RDA gives opportunity to enrich records – functionality not yet implemented by library systems. Advocates with vendors to ensure data can interoperate with national/international data ecosystem.

National Library of New Zealand – including iwi names under 373. Data goes to OCLC. Follow international standards except for Ngā Upoko Tukutuku. Recognised by LoC. Available as open dataset for download. Last year pilot project to convert to Linked Data format – trying to show reo-ā-iwi as concepts on an equal level.

Monash
Used to load ABN authority records to Voyager. Later aligned with LC authority records, automated from Validator – until the program stopped working. Bought and loaded weekly updates with Gary Strawn’s programs. Migrated to Alma where these programs didn’t work so joined NACO program. NACO authorities go to LC linked data and VIAF – LC authorities are in the Alma Community Zone. Can insert this into 024 field to hopefully enable linked data.
Staffing a major issue in metadata area – lack of support in this area with many staff retiring without being replaced. Tension between NACO headings and LA record bib headings. Time intensive, and delay of 2 weeks before get into CZ.

University of New England
frustrated that we’re worried about library data instead of being part of the semantic web. MARC Will Not Die – it’s an albatross around our neck.
Have tried redefining a few things eg $0 for a standard control number of a related authority or standard identifier; $1 for a URI that identifies an entity (which appears to generally include standard identifier).
Libraries need to be part of the web, not just on the web.
Risk of focusing on what authorities we can get in CZ because this will advantage big authorities and disadvantage local authorities that are important to our community.
Can’t put a triple into a relational database. How are we really going to start working toward a linked open data environment?
need to put in identifiers wherever possible and stop fussing about punctuation
return on investment – hard to show one way or another. We don’t have a system to show proof of concept. Need to take leap of faith, hopefully in partnership with a vendor.

 

KISS Goodbye to roadblocks in scholarly infrastructure #theta2015

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KISS Goodbye to roadblocks in scholarly infrastructure (abstract)
Martin Fenner, Technical Lead, Public Library of Science (PLOS) @mfenner

“Advanced search” screen vs simple Google-style search vs Wikipedia article about Crick and Watson article which also discusses Franklin controversy. Article itself is on Nature (doi:10.1038/171737a0) and requires a login, payment, or rent. Nature eventually made it [this vital historic article!] freely available for 50th anniversary if you happen to know the right link…

Another model: can get it for free but have to sign up first and insists on knowing your affiliation, job title, etc etc. Cf logins that require only email address, nickname, password. [We really need a secure, universal, federated authentication system. I’m not sure whether or not this is an oxymoron, but we still need it.]

For reuse: often have to say what for, what format, who you’re distributing to, etc and then pay ridiculous amounts of money to the publisher to just show a figure at a conference.

http://xkcd.com/927 [Earlier discussed history of why we have so many plug/socket standards – because window of opportunity to develop standards was around the 1930s and countries weren’t really talking to each other…]

Persistent identifiers. Could argue you don’t need bibliographic info, just persistent id eg DOI, PMID, Bibcode ID. First problem is that there’s more than one. Second problem is that there’s also URLs associated with these. And then, CrossRef DOI display guidelines says always display as permanent URLs in online environment [cf the problem earlier this year when their DOI resolver went down whereas other resolvers kept working, and they said that we shouldn’t rely on a single server/permanent URL]. [Plus and also, many DOIs aren’t as permanent as they were meant to be.]

Different places refer to article with different identifiers – interoperability issues. [Does anyone map DOIs to PMIDs to Bibcodes to…?]

Rise of the stacks: Elsevier; ResearchGate; Digital Science; Academia.edu all trying to merge publishing and social sites for publishers [some coming from one angle some from another]

Cameron Neylon’s principles for open scholarly infrastructures: cover governance (stakeholder governed, transparent), sustainability (‘time-limited funds used only for time-limited activities’ [this is such a good principle!], revenue based on services not data), insurance (open data, open source). ORCID has tried to follow these principles.

Q: Given multiplicity of standards, how do we know ORCID is different.
A: ORCID is too young to say if it’s a success. Much thought went into it but of course always start out with best intentions.