Chinese Canadian Library Weblog

Ms. Xiao Long is talking about integration of Chinese digital resources, 中文电子资源整合。She showed us Peking U library’s Subject Gateway which leads to different databases according to a rough Chinese classification, and can be searched by names as well. E-books and dissertations have both marc and metadata, they are converted and linked.

The 2002 national standard (规范）has important components on Chinese classics, which were digitized first, ahead of the new publications and archives. Copy or item based metadata saved some trouble from different editions or annotations. Collecting history is an important field. 秘籍琳琅opens its metadata and allows federated search with other formats of materials, such as rubbings.

Xiao Long thinks that libraries should make all the resources as open as possible, not just integrated within our own libraries, but also with Google and Baidu, so users can easily find what they need.Allyson Carlyle started the talk on organizing digital materials from the controversial RDA. We need to bring data in and push data out from the local system, and therefore need interoperatibility, what we’ve run into in the past days. Marc is not machine friendly.OCLC has been promoting FRBR. Music materials may benefit from FRBRization, Amy Tan’s works may too. Whole and part relationship is one of the weaknesses of FRBR. We should push vendors for everything. Fiction Finderis working on FRBRization here making a shorter and intelligent display. RDA is intended to be …of the Web, …for the WEb and …on the Web. Allyson thinks that marc will go away. RDA draft is targeting this October. Incorporation of FRBR entities work and expression should mean increase in number of access points, increased use of uniform title, necessary to identify works; make RDA more friendly to other metadata communities; make library cataloging data more widely available by others.

After the Thai Resturant gathering, we are back to the lab and question Prof. Chen Chuanfu on:
Translating the subtitle of the movies and sharing the translation with other libraries sound OK from Chen. But digitizing Linglong and providing free access on the Web is dangerous.