IFLA - CDNL Alliance for Bibliographic Standards (ICABS)

Annual Report
October 2003 - February 2004

ICABS secretary

Following the IFLA conference 2003 in Berlin Die Deutsche Bibliothek made efforts in finding an appropriate person as secretary. At the end of November the chair of ICABS-Board Renate Gömpel and the new secretary Susanne Oehlschläger travelled to IFLA HQ in The Hague to get informed about the basics of the co-operation with HQ.

Communication
Die Deutsche Bibliothek installed a closed mailing list "ICABS-Board" icabs-board@ddb.de to get started communication between all parties. Furthermore we initiated quarterly reports written by the ICABS members.

Coordination
ICABS strategic plan
Nomination of ICABS representatives
WLIC Buenos Aires 2004 programme planning

World Wide Web
IFLAnet
Public statement
ICABS strategic plan

Website of Die Deutsche Bibliothek
Information about ICABS in German and English including German translation of ICABS statement
http://www.ddb.de/professionell/icabs.htm (German)
http://www.ddb.de/professionell/icabs_e.htm (English)

Publications
IFLA-CDNL Alliance for Bibliographic Standards (ICABS)
In: IFLA Journal 29.2003, Nr. 4, pp. 392 – 394

Oehlschläger, Susanne: IFLA-CDNL Alliance for Bibliographic Standards (ICABS)
In: SCATNews, Number 20, January 2004, pp.12-13
http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/scatn/news20.pdf

Oehlschläger, Susanne: German translation of ICABS statement
In: Dialog mit Bibliotheken 16.2004, Nr. 1 (not yet published)

Forthcoming publications
Leaflet about ICABS to be distributed during WLIC in Buenos Aires

Susanne Oehlschläger
Die Deutsche Bibliothek

British Library

This report covers the period from the initiation of ICABS in summer 2003 to February 2004.

The British Library focus in ICABS in this period has been on initial communications with the FRBR and FRANAR communities and working with them to identify where ICABS support can best be directed.

FRBR maintenance and development
The British Library is the lead ICABS partner in supporting the work of the IFLA Cataloguing Section’s FRBR Review Group in developing and maintaining the conceptual model and related guidelines for the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR). We also work to promote the use of this model.

ICABS is represented on the FRBR Review Group by Alan Danskin (British Library). During this period, Alan has initiated discussions within the FRBR groups to identify where ICABS support would be most useful.

The main topic for discussion lately has been on the merits of a possible mapping at this time between FRBR and ISBD. The consensus from both FRBR and ISBD Review groups is that we should go ahead with this work. We hope this can be arranged for the near future, with involvement from all the relevant Working Group leaders.

Promotion of results

Alan Danskin. "Mature consideration: developing bibliographic standards and maintaining values." New Library World, Vol 105, No. 3/4 (April) (forthcoming)

Alan Danskin & Ann Chapman. "Bibliographic records in the computer age." Library + Information Update, September 2003 Vol 2 (9) pp.42-43

Ann Chapman & Alan Danskin. "A new direction for bibliographic records?: the development of Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records". Catalogue & Index. Numbers 148, Summer, 2003. pp. 8-12, & 149 Autumn, 2003, pp. 9-11

Umbrella Conference, UMIST, Manchester, England, 4th July 2003

Andrew MacEwan & Thurstan Young.  Quality v quantity: using FRBR to measure the quality of bibliographic records.

Tom Delsey. FRBR user tasks and cataloguing data

Slides for these presentations can be found at: http://www.cilip.org.uk/groups/cig/news.html and the papers will be published in Catalogue & Index.

Forthcoming events
27th Feb. 2004. CILIP Cataloguing & Indexing Group Scotland. Annual General Meeting: Alan Danskin will give a presentation on FRBR
30th June -2nd July 2004. CILIP Cataloguing & Indexing Group. Annual Conference:  Patrick LeBoeuf will give a paper on FRBR.

Financial Support
FY 2003-4: The British Library has offered financial assistance for Working Group meetings in Paris and Crete. The British Library will also jointly fund the FRBR/ISBD mapping project with Die Deutsche Bibliothek.
FY 2004-5: BL has budgeted £2.5K to support FRBR

Coordination
BL has had input to the following FRBR related consultations:

Joint Steering Committee for AACR2

International Cataloguing Code (Frankfurt meeting)

FRANAR project
The British Library is the lead ICABS partner in support of the IFLA Division IV Working Group on Functional Requirements of Authority Numbering and Records (FRANAR). We also work to promote the use of this model for authority control.

ICABS is represented on the FRANAR Review Group by Andrew MacEwan (British Library). Andrew is currently discussing with FRANAR colleagues the type and level of support which would be most useful in supporting future FRANAR activity and promoting the work to date.

Financial Support
FY 2004-5: The British Library has budgeted a potential £2.5K to support FRANAR activities.

Caroline Brazier, Alan Danskin, Andrew MacEwan
The British Library

Die Deutsche Bibliothek

During the period from the initiation of ICABS in summer 2003 to February 2004 the focus of Die Deutsche Bibliothek as the chair of the ICABS-Board has been on initial organisational work of the secretary and communications with the ISBD Review Group to identify where ICABS support can best be directed. Another main working field has been the VIAF cooperative.

Within ICABS Die Deutsche Bibliothek and the Library of Congress are responsible for the VIAF cooperative. For this proof of concept project DDB provided a copy of their retrospective personal name authority file and the whole bibliographic file to OCLC by October 2003. OCLC is integrating the matching records to generate an initial VIAF using bibliographic records of the two parties and of the Bayerischer Bibliotheksverbund (BVB) to verify the matches. The project is divided into 4 phases:

1. Matching of the name authority files
2. Installation of the VIAF server
3. OAI protocols, operation
4. User interface, multilingual

In total 5.022.315 bibliographic records of BVB, 4.805.646 bibliographic records of DDB dating from 1945 – 2003 and 1.511.029 bibliographic records of DBL-Retro as well as 2.498.073 name authority records has been delivered to OCLC. LC contributed about 12 million of bibliographic records and about 3,8 million of name authority records.

Lecture at the German librarians’ conference "Bibliothekartag" on March 24, 2004 in Leipzig:
Christel Hengel-Dittrich: Internationale Kooperation – der Virtual International Authority File (VIAF)

According to ICABS goals Die Deutsche Bibliothek is the lead ICABS partner in supporting the work of the IFLA Cataloguing Section’s ISBD Review Group in developing and maintaining the International Standards for Bibliographic Description. We also work to encourage the harmonization of national practices to follow these standards and to promote the results of the ISBD revisions.

ICABS is represented on the ISBD Review Group by Renate Gömpel (Die Deutsche Bibliothek). During this period, the main topic for discussion lately has been on the merits of a possible mapping at this time between FRBR and ISBD. The consensus from both FRBR and ISBD Review groups is that we should go ahead with this work. We hope this can be arranged for the near future, with involvement from all the relevant Working Group leaders.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek will jointly fund the FRBR/ISBD mapping project with The British Library. Expected cost amount to 1500,- US $ for each.

Die Deutsche Bibliothek has given financial and organisational input to the First Meeting of Experts on an International Cataloguing Code July 28 – 30, 2003 in Frankfurt am Main (Germany). The proceedings of the meeting are being prepared and will be edited by Barbara Tillett, Renate Gömpel and Susanne Oehlschläger by June 2004.

Henze, Gudrun: German translation of Statement of International Cataloguing Principles
In: Dialog mit Bibliotheken 16.2004, Nr. 1 (not yet published)

Lecture at the German librarians’ conference "Bibliothekartag" on March 24, 2004 in Leipzig:
Henze, Gudrun: Auf dem Weg zu einem internationalen Regelwerk - Ergebnisse des First IFLA Meeting of Experts International Cataloguing Code

Renate Gömpel
Die Deutsche Bibliothek, February 2004

Koninklijke Bibliotheek

Together with the other partners in the IFLA-CDNL Alliance for Bibliographic Standards (ICABS) the KB will carry out actions to improve international co-ordination and to steer developments in the area of digital preservation. The KB’s actions will be (as defined in the ICABS Strategic Plan, actions 4.1 and 4.2):

• Explore the requirements/conditions for long-term archiving of electronic resources.
• Explore and promote strategies, methods and standards for migration and emulation.

To start the work on the KB actions for ICABS, an actionplan has been drafted

• to plan the actions within the department of Digital Preservation at the KB
• to discuss plans with our contacts at the National Library of Australia

The two actions – on long-term archiving and on permanent access strategies – will be combined in a joint approach. Similar issues will arise in the study of both subjects. Apart from the similarities, there will be special attention for specific archiving and permanent access issues. The final results of both studies will differ, since the current developments in digital archiving are at a different stage than the R&D in permanent access. For this reason, the study on digital archiving can focus on best practices while the approach of permanent access strategies pays more attention to new developments, research and future expectations.

The actionplan describes goals, audience, issues to be addressed and practical steps of the KB’s actions. The actionplan is under discussion at this moment, a final document will be ready next month. In short the actionplan contains:

The goal of the actions:
Advance understanding of issues related to long-term archiving of electronic resources, including the promotion of new and recommended conventions for such archiving.

The audience for the ICABS study
The study will be presented to the ICABS partners to serve as a document to help understand digital preservation strategies and support implementing policy. The final text will be written with an audience of library professionals in mind.

Issues to be addressed:
Digital archives’ architecture, standards, preservation metadata and format registry, technological R&D of Permanent Access Technology, organizational and policy issues

Practical steps and planning:
Planning of desk-research, interviews, writing/reviewing/editing of the report.

Hilde van Wijngaarden

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress continued to work collaboratively on development of the MARC 21 formats and the web publication of documentation supporting their use. Format updates for 2003 were made available on the web and in print. Change proposals and discussion papers were published on the web for wide review and comment. Part 1 of a report on the use of full Unicode was released in January 2003. Preparations were made for circulation of a New Work Item proposal for a generalized XML structure for MARC 2709 formats. For Buenos Aires, plans were made for an ICABS presentation, a joint presentation with UNIMARC, and other meetings. The MARC/FRBR display tool was revised with a new architecture that makes it easier to use and the MARC to FRBR mapping was updated.

Continued support for Z39.50 and the international group developing SRU/SRW. Version 1.1 was completed and published and prototyping/testing begun. The Library of Congress was established as the registry for the srw namespace, which was registered as a namespace under the info URI. Several object types and object lists were registered under info:srw. Discussions were held concerning editorial arrangements for SRU/SRW. Important Z39.50 functionality, SCAN and SORT, were added to SRW. The Bath specifications were profiled for SRW as a context set. Supported the development of the metasearch activities and formation of working groups, one of which will define the relationship of SR to that work.

Supported the ballot of a New Work Item was balloted in ISO for standardization of the Z holdings XML schema and worked with the project editor to set up an editorial and experts review group.

Continued to support the development of the Metadata Exchange and Transmission Standard (METS). Sponsored the first of a series of workshops at the Library of Congress in Washington and assisted in planning others in California in May 2003, in the UK and other sites. Participated in the METS editorial board and disseminated its decisions through the METS web site. Initiated collaboration on the development of a METS profile for web archiving.

Completed web review of version 3.0 of the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) and published it on the web site, updating appropriate mappings, transformations and the guidelines. Registered MODS through the NISO standard registration process. Tested and updated the transformations between MODS, MARCXML, and Dublin Core and began a review of the ONIX transformation. Developed an initial draft of a Metadata Authority Description Schema (MADS) and prepared it for broad electronic review. A draft of a study on rights metadata expression languages was completed and a contract written for a review of image schemas was contracted.

Action 2.3 - Monitor work on persistent identifiers (PIDs)

Began planning for a "clearinghouse" web site for information and pointers to key information on PIDs. Supported the successful petition of the IETF for the "info" URI scheme, and registered lccn as a possible namespace under info.

Investigated the implications of the 13-digit ISBN for libraries and the probable implementation timeline for publishers.

Sally McCallum

National Library of Australia

Goal: Advance understanding of issues related to long-term archiving of electronic resources

Action 3.3 Web harvesting

Explore and promote methods to archive web-based publications collected by web harvesting.

(i) Through membership of the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC), lead the work of the Working Group on the Deep Web.

The Library joined the International Internet Preservation Consortium (IIPC) in July 2003 and has been actively involved in its work since. In particular, it is leading the work of the Deep Web Archiving Working Group and is working in close cooperation with the Bibliothèque nationale de France to investigate the identification, acquisition, storage and display of publications and web sites that are database driven.

Work commenced well before the stated time frame of October 2003 and is proceeding according to plan. Action on developing an access tool to interface with stored data is well advanced, and progress has also been made in migrating contents to XML format.

The Library’s representative will attend a meeting of the IIPC Steering Committee and Deep Web Archiving Group in Florence in March 2004 when it is expected that this action will be developed further.

(ii) Hold an international conference on digital archiving

An international conference is planned for 9-11 November 2004 with a workshop for practitioners on the 12^th. The conference is titled Archiving web resources: issues for national libraries. Its main objective is to identify significant issues facing cultural heritage institutions in collecting web resources and to explore how the issues are being addressed. Major research and project initiatives will be included in the program and participants will be encouraged to identify gaps in the international response to the issues. The one-day workshop will provide institutions that are actively involved in digital archiving with the opportunity to discuss details of new tools and developments.

A conference web site is available at http://www.nla.gov.au/webarchiving/ and it will be updated as details of the program and speakers are confirmed. Online registration will be available by April. Promotion of the conference will begin in earnest in April and invitations will be sent to a wide range of cultural institutions.

(iii) Automated deposit and archiving of online government resources

In the first stage of the Commonwealth Metadata Pilot Project, the Library has worked with seven government agencies throughout 2003 to explore the workflows and processes required to automate acquisition of descriptive metadata of online government publications for the National Bibliographic Database (made available through its Kinetica service). The Library has successfully converted the metadata of two agencies and loaded it into Kinetica. The metadata of two more agencies is ready to load.

A seminar is to be held on 19 March 2004 to report on progress so far and to discuss issues that have arisen. The project will be extended to more agencies in 2004.

The Library has identified enhancements required to enable the batch loading of metadata acquired in this way into its digital archiving system for automated harvesting. Work to implement these enhancements will commence in the first half of 2004.

(iv) Explore and promote methods to archive web-based publications collected by web harvesting.

An initial review of information in PADI on methods of web archiving has been completed. Restructuring to ensure PADI is structured in the best way to facilitate access to this information is programmed for April 2004.

Actions and progress

(i) By means of PADI, prepare a review of existing guidance documents that address digital preservation issues and identify any significant gaps in PADI coverage.

The review of existing guidance documents listed in PADI is still underway but has been substantially completed.

(ii) Critically review existing PADI structures and interfaces to ensure they offer useful and easy access to information about existing standards, guidelines and codes for preservation of digital materials (i.e., guidance documents)

PADI structures and interfaces have been reviewed and new approaches proposed that should make it easier for those seeking guidance to find information that would be most useful to them. Action on the review recommendations is programmed for May 2004.

(iii) Work with IFLA PAC partners and UNESCO to identify digital preservation "readiness" issues in SE Asian and the Pacific. The objective is to:

• Review information that is already available on the issue
• Develop a set of "readiness" indicators
• Provide guidance on how to improve levels of readiness

Based on a review of information provided to a UNESCO Regional Consultation in November 2002, a checklist of readiness factors and guidance on improving readiness was prepared for a UNESCO Memory of the World nomination workshop held in Manila, The Philippines in early February 2004. The documents will be revised in the light of feedback from the workshop and prepared for wider circulation by June 2004.

Pamela Gatenby

National Library of Portugal: IFLA UNIMARC Core Activity

Goal 2. – Maintain, promote and harmonize existing standards and concepts related to bibliographic and resource control

Action 2.4 – UNIMARC – Promote the development and use of UNIMARC according to the IFLA UNIMARC Core Activity Strategic Plan

2003 was the first year of the IFLA UNIMARC Core Activity hosted at the National Library of Portugal, as of 1 March, after the closing of UBCIM. The purpose of the UNIMARC Core Activity is to coordinate actions aimed at the development, maintenance and promotion of the Universal MARC format (UNIMARC), now a set of four formats – Bibliographic, Authorities, Classification and Holdings, the last two still at a draft phase. A brief overview of the activities in 2003 follows.

The Permanent UNIMARC Committee is committed to the maintenance and promotion of UNIMARC. The 14^th meeting took place in Lisbon, February 2003. A number of new proposals especially developments concerning electronic resources as in ISBD (CR) were examined and they will incorporate the UNIMARC Manual Bibliographic Format, Update 5 to be published in 2004. An ad-hoc meeting took place in Berlin, during the IFLA Conference, preceded by an open hour for all attendees wanting to know about the current work of the PUC. The meeting was well participated.

• UNIMARC/Holdings had its draft version posted on IFLANET for comments until 31^st October. Work on comments received is ongoing and will be presented at the PUC meeting in March 2004.
• UNIMARC/Authorities revision took place and a list of errata was submitted to PUC for decision.
• Guidelines for Music are under consideration and by the end of 2003 proposals for Music fields were submitted to PUC for decision.

Following the resolution of the GB meeting in Berlin, the Terms of Reference for PUC were updated and revised.

• Presenting a report in Division IV Open Forum, at IFLA Berlin, about "UNIMARC in its new home", containing information about PUC’s action plan and future trends for UNIMARC developments.
• Signing the agreement of ICABS (IFLA/CDNL Alliance for Bibliographic Standards) where the UNIMARC Core Activity is also a part.
• Presenting the Strategic Plan 2004-2005.
• Preparing a session for IFLA Buenos Aires under the topic "The holdings record as a bibliographic control tool", in collaboration with ICABS (MARC 21 activity) and Division IV.
• Contract the development of an XML schema for UNIMARC meta-information and related products (to be finished in March 2004).
• Preparing the nominations process for PUC’s next term.
• Contacting UNIMARC users, respond to their questions and/or submit them to PUC for further response.
• Preparing UNIMARC Forum, the UNIMARC Core Activity dedicated website.

Fernanda Maria Campos
IFLA UNIMARC Director