Spelling it all out: FRAD, ISNI, RDA, VIAF automation and the future of authority control

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Spelling it all outFRAD, ISNI, RDA, VIAF
automation and the future of authority control

• Alan Danskin
• Metadata Bibliographic Standards Coordinator
• British Library

CILIP HQ, Ridgmount St., London Friday 23rd
October, 2009
A. Rose, by any other name a workshop on
authority control
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Overview

• Challenge
• Scope
• Scalability
• Automation
• The solution?
• Interparty, FRAD, RDA, MARC 21,
• EAC, FOAF ISNI, VIAF, Names 2
• Conclusions

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Functions of the catalogue

• The catalogue should be an efficient instrument
  for ascertainingwhich works by a particular
  author are in the library.
• Statement of Principles, Paris, 1961
• The catalogue should be an effective and
  efficient instrument that enables a user to find
  sets of resources representing all resources
  associated with a given person, family, or
  corporate body
• Statement of International Cataloguing
  Principles, 2009

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Scope of authority control

• Which names do we control?
• Names of authors and some contributors of
  published books
• Composers of sheet music
• Names of corporate bodies responsible for
  official publications
• Names associated with resources catalogued since
  1981
• Names associated with audio or audio visual
  resources, where possible
• Which names do we exclude?
• Names of authors of journal articles or chapters
  of published books
• Contributors whose names fall towards the end of
  the alphabet or whose contribution we regard as
  insignificant
• Names associated with archival or manuscript
  material
• Names derived from older catalogues
• Names associated with most Web Resources
• Names in the content management system /
  institutional repository

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Publication and research
Communicating knowledge How why UK
researchers publish disseminate their findings
/ Research Information Network and JISC. 17
September 2009 http//www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/
documents/communicatingknowledgereport.aspx

• The only major exceptions to the dominance of
  the journal article are the continuing high
  status attached to monographs and edited volumes
  in the humanities, and to practice-based outputs
  in the arts. Yet even in the humanities, journal
  articles are now by far the largest publication
  format by volume
• In computer science, for example, the pace of
  change means that conferences are particularly
  important, and these may attract higher prestige
  than journal articlesRepositories have achieved
  less traction in the humanities and social
  sciences than in many science and engineering
  subjects.

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The problem

• There is a gap between ambition and delivery
• Only some names on some types of resources are
  controlled
• User expectations are changing
• Silos
• Libraries / Archives / Repositories / Museums
• National practices
• Institutional practices
• Variance over time
• Is partial authority control acceptable to users?
  
• If not, will it be acceptable to administrators?

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UK published output 2009-09
213404 1525662
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Workflows

• Current workflows are not scalable
• Retrospective
• Cataloguer driven
• Decision making
• Is A. Rose PhD the same person as Dr. Alex Rose,
  University of London?
• What other information is available?
• Is it sufficient to match or disambiguate the
  identities?
• Is there a website / contact details?

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Rethinking the process

• Capture information about the person, family or
  corporate body at the time the resource is
  created
• Devolve responsibility to authors, publishers,
  researchers and academics
• Libraries and bibliographic agencies focus on
  quality control, complex relationships and
  conflict resolution.
• Capture information in a way that is machine
  intelligible.
• Identification of entities not disambiguation of
  headings

100 10. aLuckombe, Philip,dd. 1803 046
g1803 100 10. aLuckombe, Philip,dd. 1803
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Automation

• Identification
• ISNI
• Contextual information
• FRAD, RDA, MARC 21
• Matching
• VIAF, Names
• Linking
• Controlled vocabularies
• Confidence

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Models

• Interparty - http//www.interparty.org/
• EU Project 2002-2003
• Public identities not persons
• Linking not merging
• Authority i.e. who makes the assertion
• FRAD Functional Requirements for Authority Data
• Extension of FRBR model to authority data
• Separation of names from the person, family or
  corporate body
• Recognition of different rules

http//www.ifla.org/publications/ifla-series-on-bi
bliographic-control-34
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RDA will replace AACR2 RDA is based on the FRBR
and FRAD Models

• choice of access points
• form of headings
• references

• FRBR relationships
• attributes of FRAD entities
• FRAD relationships
• access points are controlled

AACR2 does not cover authority control RDA does,
but doesnt use the term authority
control http//www.rda-jsc.org/
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ISNI International Standard Name Identifier

• http//www.isni.org/
• Draft ISO Standard (ISO 27729)
• A bridge
• Identification of Public Identities
• Natural Persons
• Legal Persons
• Fictional Characters
• Groups
• Incorporated entities
• Libraries, rights management, book trade,
  publishers, media content industries

• ISNI 1422 4586 3573 0476
• Registration Metadata

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VIAF The Virtual International Authority File

• OCLC Bibliothèque nationale de France
  Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Egypt) National Library
  of the Czech Republic Deutsche
  Nationalbibliothek National Library of Israel
  Library of Congress/NACO National Library of
  Sweden Vatican Library

• Match Link Authority Files
• Reduce costs
• Increase utility
• Retrospective alignment of bibliographic data

Prototype http//viaf.org/ Linked
Data http//outgoing.typepad.com/outgoing/2009/09/
viaf-as-linked-data.html
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VIAF The Virtual International Authority File

• OCLC Bibliothèque nationale de France
  Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Egypt) National Library
  of the Czech Republic Deutsche
  Nationalbibliothek National Library of Israel
  Library of Congress/NACO National Library of
  Sweden Vatican Library

• Match Link Authority Files
• Reduce costs
• Increase utility
• Retrospective alignment of bibliographic data

Prototype http//viaf.org/ Linked
Data http//outgoing.typepad.com/outgoing/2009/09/
viaf-as-linked-data.html
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Names

• Funded by JISC Repositories and preservation
  programme
• Led by MIMAS
• British Library is a partner
• National Names Service
• Phase 1 prototype
• Data model based on FRAD
• Mappings from MARC 21 ISAAR CPF SWAP NLM DTD
• Phase 2 Develop national names service
• Author submission
• Institutional Repositories
• UKPMC
• Intute

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Its not just about libraries

• FOAF Friend of a Friend
• Social networking metadata
• Granularity of parts of a name
• http//xmlns.com/foaf/spec/
• EAC-CPF Encoded Archival Context Corporate
  Bodies, Persons, and Families
• Communication standard for exchange of authority
  records
• ISAAR (CPF)
• Draft Standard
• http//eac.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/

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Conclusion

• Controlling names remains important in the
  context of linked data and the Semantic Web
• Identification and collocation of variants is
  more important than establishing a preferred form
• Current techniques are not scalable
• Automation and participation are the way forward
• Web services for identification
• No simple solution
• Exension of the collaborative model

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Links and references

• ltEAC-CPFgt
• Encoded Archival Context Corporate Bodies,
  Persons, and Families
• http//eac.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/
• FOAF (Friend of a Friend)
• http//xmlns.com/foaf/spec/
• Functional Requirements for Authority Data a
  conceptual model
• http//www.ifla.org/publications/ifla-series-on-bi
  bliographic-control-34
• International Standard Names Identifier (ISNI)
• http//www.isni.org/
• Interparty Project
• http//www.interparty.org/
• Communicating knowledge how why UK researchers
  publish disseminate their findings
• http//www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/commu
  nicatingknowledgereport.aspx

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Links and references

• The knowledge network British Library annual
  report accounts, 2008/09
• http//www.bl.uk/about/annual/2008to2009/index.htm
  l
• Library of Congress Acquisitions and
  Bibliographic Access Directorate
• Report of Fiscal Year 2008 (Fiscal Year Ended
  September 30, 2008)
• http//www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/aba08.pdf
• Names Project
• http//names.mimas.ac.uk/
• Statement of International Cataloguing Principles
• http//www.ifla.org/publications/statement-of-inte
  rnational-cataloguing-principles
• RDA Resource Description Access
• http//www.rda-jsc.org/
• United Kingdom Repositories table of record
  totals
• http//www.nostuff.org/ircount/table.php?frequency
  monthlycountryuk
• Virtual International Authority File VIAF
• http//viaf.org/