Category Archives: architecture

The concept of a work in the catalog web

Posted on September 17, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

My previous post showed four examples of web-based catalogs that describe books and other library resources in a FRBR-like manner. They’re oriented around “works” (like Shakespeare’s Hamlet) that are embodied in multiple editions (like the hundreds or thousands of publications … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, data, discovery, formats, metadata, online books, sharing | 1 Comment

Making discovery smarter with open data

Posted on May 6, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’ve just made a significant data enhancement to subject browsing on The Online Books Page.  It improves the concept-oriented browsing of my catalog of online books via subject maps, where users explore a subject along multiple dimensions from a starting … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, discovery, online books, open access, sharing, subjects | 3 Comments

Implementing interoperability between library discovery tools and the ILS

Posted on March 9, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

Last June I gave a presentation in a NISO webinar about the work a number of colleagues and I did for the Digital Library Federation to recommend standard interfaces for Integrated Library Systems (the systems that keep track of our … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, discovery | 1 Comment

Concepts in catalogs: Where the data comes from

Posted on January 15, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’ve now made a few posts about concept-oriented catalogs, describing the basic idea, showing some examples, and talking about the kinds of context they should provide for users.  As I mentioned in my first post, concepts in such catalogs are … Continue reading →

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Content and context in concept-oriented catalogs

Posted on January 7, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

2010 has been designated the year of cataloging research by the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services.  So it’s a good time for me to continue my series on concept-oriented catalogs.  Before I talk about specific ways to implement … Continue reading →

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Some concepts and their catalogs

Posted on December 10, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

This is the second of a series of think-aloud posts on what I’m calling “concept-oriented catalogs”; catalogs that, as Lorcan Dempsey aptly describes them, go “beyond the bibliographic record”.  This post will present examples of concept-oriented catalogs, describe the concepts … Continue reading →

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Understanding concept-oriented catalogs

Posted on December 4, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’ve recently been thinking a fair bit about the future of library catalogs, particularly after reading Diane Hillmann’s review of the recent Library of Congress-commissioned Study of the North American MARC Records Marketplace.  Hillmann laments that the study tries to … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, discovery, libraries, metadata | 5 Comments

Why should reuse be hard?

Posted on August 31, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

By far the most widely cited paper with my name on it is a 1995 paper on architectural mismatch.  The journal version of the paper was subtitled “Why reuse is so hard”.  It was a paper about failure, rather than … Continue reading →

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Learn more about ILS discovery interfaces

Posted on June 10, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’m presenting today at a NISO webinar on interoperability, giving an overview of the work I did with a Digital Library Federation task group to produce recommendations for standard APIs for ILS’s supporting information discovery applications. I’ll include a link … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, discovery, libraries | Comments Off on Learn more about ILS discovery interfaces

Will OCLC move to a service-oriented business model for bibliographic data?

Posted on May 15, 2009 by John Mark Ockerbloom

As you may recall, there’s been a fair bit of criticism (including some of my own) against OCLC’s proposed records use policy, which asserts OCLC’s rights over libraries’ cataloging in ways that would make it very difficult for libraries and … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, libraries, metadata, open access, sharing | 3 Comments