Category Archives: discovery

From Wikipedia to our libraries

Posted on March 4, 2013 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’ve heard the lament in more than one library discussion over the years.  “People aren’t coming to our library like they should,” librarians have told me.  “We’ve got a rich collection, and we’ve expended lots of resources on an online … Continue reading →

Posted in citizen librarians, discovery, libraries, online books, subjects | 24 Comments

Open data’s role in transforming our bibliographic framework (Updated)

Posted on May 24, 2011 by John Mark Ockerbloom

I’ve seen a fair bit of buzz of the Library of Congress’s recent announcement of a new initiative for transforming the bibliographic framework of the library community.  The announcement notes a number of recent developments that are drivers for such … Continue reading →

Posted in discovery, metadata, open access, sharing | 7 Comments

A million books for Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

With the arrival of a new set of books from Hathi Trust onto our extended shelves, I’m happy to report that The Online Books Page now lists over 1 million books and serials that are free to read on the … Continue reading →

Posted in discovery, metadata, online books | 1 Comment

Book liberation with open data (or, how The Online Books Page just got much bigger)

Posted on October 18, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

As we begin Open Access Week, it’s worth noting the importance of open access not only to research articles, data, teaching materials, and the like, but also to books.  We are fortunate not only that millions of historic volumes are … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, discovery, metadata, online books, open access, subjects | 2 Comments

Journal liberation: A community enterprise

Posted on October 15, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

The fourth annual Open Access Week begins on Monday.  If you follow the official OAW website, you’ll be seeing a lot of information about the benefits of free access to scholarly research.  The amount of open-access material grows every day, … Continue reading →

Posted in copyright, discovery, open access, publishing, serials, sharing | Comments Off on Journal liberation: A community enterprise

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

“What do you read, my lord?” “Works, works, works”

Posted on September 8, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

There’s been a lot of talk lately in the library world about the coming age of FRBR-ized library catalogs (prompted in part by development of RDA, a cataloging standard that uses FRBR).  Exactly what such catalogs will look like, and … Continue reading →

Posted in discovery, libraries, metadata, online books | 6 Comments

As living arrows sent forth

Posted on August 31, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

It’s that time of year when offspring start to leave home and strike out on their own.  Young children may be starting kindergarten.  Older ones may be heading off to university.  And in between, children slowly gain a little more … Continue reading →

Posted in discovery, sharing | Comments Off on As living arrows sent forth

Keeping subjects up to date with open data

Posted on July 31, 2010 by John Mark Ockerbloom

In an earlier post, I discussed how I was using the open data from the Library of Congress’ Authorities and Vocabularies service to enhance subject browsing on The Online Books Page.  More recently, I’ve used the same data to make … Continue reading →

Posted in data, discovery, online books, open access, sharing, subjects | 4 Comments

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