BIBFLOW and the Libhub Initiative: Leveraging our past to define our future Eric Miller, President, Zepheira Jeff Penka, Director of Channel and Product Development, Zepheira

1. BIBFLOW & The Libhub Initiative:
Leveraging our past to define our future
NISO Virtual Conference:
Can't We All Work Together?: Interoperability & Systems Integration
Eric Miller, President
Jeff Penka, Executive Director, Product and Channel Development

2. Hi, We are Eric & Jeff
• Zepheira
– Product Management
– Organizational Strategy
• OCLC
– End User and Reference Service
Portfolio Director
– Worldcat.org, FirstSearch,
QuestionPoint, Partnerships
• NISO – D2D, NetRef
• Passion
– Helping bring ideas to life
– Identifying and solving problems
through iteration
– Audience centered design
– Learning
• President and Founder of
Zepheira
• Former W3C Activity Lead for
Semantic Web
• MIT Research Scientist
• Founder and Associate Director,
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
• Senior Scientist at OCLC

3. Zepheira - Broad Experience across Industries

4. Zepheira’s Perspectives on Leadership and Practice
Libraries, Web, Data & Technology
Standards
Data and Tech
Strategies
Vocabularies
Projects Activities Large Scale Projects

5. Overview
Models for Learning and Evolving
• Setting the Stage for Opportunity
• Deliberate Adoption
– “Yeah, but how do you…”
• BIBFLOW
– Planning for the future based on current reality
• Libhub Initiative
– Library Visibility from the outside in

6. The Time is Right
Standard, adopted technologies and practices
• Lean Principles
• Middleware Concepts
• Linked Data Technologies & Practices
Emerging shared vocabularies
• BIBFRAME, schema.org
A motivated, collaborative community

7. Minimum Viable Product,
Incremental Value, and Continuous Learning

8. Middleware
Don’t need to “fix” everything at once

9. Linked Data
”a recommended best practice for exposing,
sharing, and connecting pieces of
data, information, and knowledge on the
Semantic Web using URIs and RDF."
This applies both externally on the Web and internally within systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_Data

10. Um für uns zu kommunizieren , müssen wir
auf einem gemeinsamen Vokabular zu
benutzen zustimmen.

11. Um für uns zu kommunizieren , müssen wir
auf einem gemeinsamen Vokabular zu
benutzen zustimmen.
In English, please
In order for us to communicate we need to
agree on a shared vocabulary.
Or at least a way to translate our concepts.

12. Unifying Vocabularies
• Schema.org (from the Web perspective)
– Bib Extend - W3C group – group focused on discussion and
preparation of proposals to extend schema.org for improved
representation of bibliographic information markup and sharing.
• BIBFRAME (from the Library perspective)
– Extensible replacement for MARC
– “The Initiative aims to re-envision and, in the long run,
implement a new bibliographic environment for libraries that
makes "the network" central and makes interconnectedness
commonplace.”

13. A Descriptive Blueprint
• BIBFRAME common model
– flexible, designed to
accommodate the needs of
our community.
• Recognize creative tension
between past and future
• Profiles are a blueprint for a
specific community or
entity description

15. Phases of Linked Data / BIBFRAME Adoption
http://zepheira.com/ala2014
Experimenters
Early
Implementers
Data Publishers
& Connectors
Mainstream
Workflow
Back Office
Systems
• Clarify Space
• Determine the
Need
• Define a
Foundation
• Draft
Specifications
• Test the Assumptions
• Draft Standards
• Evaluate Data, Processes, & Gaps
• Begin to work at scale
• Use other’s data
• Participate – Publish, Share,
Connect
• “Final” Standards & Best
Practices
• New businesses and
models
• “There’s Linked
Data in there!?”

16. Phases of Linked Data / BIBFRAME Adoption
http://zepheira.com/ala2014

17. B I B F LOW
http://lib.ucdavis.edu/bibflow
Converting Workflows to a
Linked Open Data (LOD) Eco System
Thanks to UC Davis Team
and Carl G Stahmer, PhD

19. Service Stakeholders
1 UC Staff Database(PPS) Access Services
2 Study Room Reservations Access Services
3 UCD Library Honor with BooksDonor
Bookplates
Administration
4 Suggestion Form AUL
5 Cancel Lists AUL
6 Change in status(Greensheets) CatMaint, Access
7 LincPlusBinding Desktop Application Content Support
Services
8 SCP(UCSD) Content Support
Services, CDL/UCSD
9 LTISend and receive Content Support
Services, LTI
10 Marcive Content Support
Services, Marcive
11 Export of UCD Local Holdings to OCLC Content Support
Services, OCLC
12 OCLC Worldcat Content Support
Services, OCLC
13 YBP Vendor, EDI orders and invoicing Content Support
Services, YBP, OCLC,
vendors
14 VDX ILL staff, library/ILL
patrons
15 Library Classes/Workshops Instructional services
16 UCD Accounting(DaFIS, Kuali, Decision
Support)
Library Accounting
17 Capital Expense Requests Library Admin
18 Library Conference Room Library Admin, IT IS,
Facilities
19 Library Directory/Personnel/Auth Library HR
20 UCD Student Accounting System
Billing(Banner)
Library patrons & circ
staff
21 Harvest OPAC Library patrons & staff
Service Stakeholders
22 Harvest OPAC Library patrons & staff
23 Web Authentication for UCD (CAS) Library patrons, Staff
24 Uconnect (AD3) Authentication Library patrons, Staff
25 Windows Domain File Shares Library staff
26 BIGSYSUC Davis Adjunct Reporting Library staff
27 Aleph Clients Library staff
28 UC Davis Ex Libras Aleph ILS Library staff
29 Local Application Database Server
Library staff
30 Travel Library staff
31 Library Incident Reports Ops & Assessment,
Access Services
32 Ecology Prof. Schoener (Ecology)
33 Subject/Course/Topic Guides Research Support
34 Health Sciences E-Texts Research Support
35 Office Hours Research Support
36 Subject Specialists Research Support
37 Databases A-Z Research Support
38 Library Instruction Statistics Research Support,
Teaching/Instruction
39 UCD BooklistsFaculty Reserves Booklists Reserves
40 Archivist Toolkit Special Collections
41 Digital Archives(Spec Coll) Special Collections
42 Special Collections Manuscripts Special Collections

23. STANDARD OLE IMPLEMENTATION

24. LINKED DATA CATALOGUING

25. FULL BIB LOD IMPLEMENTATION

26. EXPANDED LOD IMPLEMENTATION

27. NATIVE LOD IMPLEMENTATION

28. Expectations of Library Web Visibility
“When my community searches the Web for
something we have, we better show up as an option.”
- Chuck Gibson, Director & CEO
Worthington Public Library

29. Can’t ignore the problem…
Everyone benefits from the visibility of libraries and
their content on the Web.
“When my community searches the Web for
something I have, I better show up as an option.”

30. Start with Agreement and Purpose
Everyone benefits from the visibility of
libraries and their content on the Web.

31. Learning through action together

32. Practical Practitioner Community
http://zepheira.com/training

33. Moving from web pages to “a web of data”

34. There is a significant gap between what
browsers and humans see on the Web

35. Now the Web plays a central role for the
library and most staff

36. But we aren’t speaking in a way the Web
understands
• We have a wealth of
content and
resources locked
behind legacy, closed
technology systems
and niche
vocabularies

37. The traditional, Visible Web focuses on
Harvesting and Links to Pages

38. The emerging Invisible Web focuses on
Data, Resources, Vocabulary, and Connections

39. New Vocabularies and Characteristics
Retail – items, reviews, geo, descriptions, inventory, hours, social, events

40. New Vocabularies and Characteristics
Movies – Geo, reviews, ratings, images, previews, times, tickets

41. New Vocabularies and Characteristics
Restaurants – locations, reviews, hours, reservations, menus

42. How does the Web see Libraries?

43. Libraries = Community Businesses
Location, photos, hours, reviews, social, events

44. External Perspectives
• Are websites and systems harvestable?
• Is there a unified and accessible industry
vocabulary?
• Are there strong connections and
relationships?
• What is the consistency and reliability of the
user experience and available data?

46. Still harvesting pages, not data assets

51. And this pattern is already happening
in many localized markets as we speak

54. Moving the Needle
and Transforming the Web
• NO NEED TO WAIT
• Build on existing investments
• Use BIBFRAME to reflect content in the Web
• Leverage the Web’s cooperative infrastructure
• Link between shared & Web assets to test impact on results
• Help the Web understand library vocabularies
• Connect into legacy systems

55. Phases of Linked Data / BIBFRAME Adoption
http://zepheira.com/ala2014
Experimenters
Early
Implementers
Data Publishers
& Connectors
Mainstream
Workflow
Back Office
Systems
• Clarify Space
• Determine the
Need
• Define a
Foundation
• Draft
Specifications
• Test the Assumptions
• Draft Standards
• Evaluate Data, Processes, & Gaps
• Begin to work at scale
• Use other’s data
• Participate – Publish, Share,
Connect
• “Final” Standards & Best
Practices
• New businesses and
models
• “There’s Linked
Data in there!?”

56. Phases of Linked Data / BIBFRAME Adoption
http://zepheira.com/ala2014

57. Incremental Steps
1. Make it extremely easy to project Library data to
Linked Data (BIBFRAME)
2. Start with Visibility – publish to the Web in a way
the Web understands
– Relationships!
– RDFa (schema.org, BIBFRAME)
3. Increase discoverability
– accelerate linking among / across assets
4. Learn! Inform! Educate! Iterate!

58. Getting Involved
Thank you!
Learn more @
http://zepheira.com/solutions/library/
http://libhub.org