Annual Report of The Bibliographic Enrichment Advisory Team 1999

Introduction:

The year just ending was one of the most productive in the Team's history, closing with the realization of yet another of the Team's long-held objectives: the expansion of partnerships with the Public Services reference areas of the Library. These new ventures are exciting projects and will widen the scope of activity of the Team further, and enable the Library to better serve its diverse global user communities.

This year saw the successful migration of our ongoing projects into the new world of the Library's Integrated Library System and the embarkation on cooperative experimentation with OCLC and other participating Libraries in the Cooperative Online Resource Cataloging (CORC) program which will take the team into activities that extend beyond the Library, and which dovetail with so much of the work done by the Team's BEOnline project. The BECites project, the BEOnline initiative, and a success in obtaining some summaries for inclusion in our catalog records all took the Team out to the world of information beyond the physical collections on the Library's own Campus.

We weathered the unavoidable diminution of resources due to the need for all staff to remain committed to production work and above all, to tasks and responsibilities that directly related to the successful implementation of the Library's Integrated Library System. And, despite the fact that a number of BEAT Team members were directly involved with the ILS effort or otherwise affected by it, we were fortunate that their participation in BEAT activities remained generally constant and that we were able to continue our regular meetings and information exchange. While to some degree our research, and in some cases even production projects, were temporarily halted or deferred, those cases were counterbalanced by the completion of the missions set down for others, such as the BECites plus project, and in the successful creation of a technical processing infrastructure compatible with ILS operations for projects such as the Digital Table of Contents project and the related Table of Contents initiative in the Electronic CIP (E-CIP) program.

The Team obtained new scanning equipment and has ordered updated software for the device. These updates support multiple BEAT projects, and their receipt is timely, considering the need to support heightened production goals and a desire to make a smooth transition into the new ILS environment. While we believe we will gain some added productivity with the use of newer equipment, we have remained faithful to the concept that BEAT work will generally be done using off-the-shelf, standard personal computer devices and applications software, supplemented by our own home grown customized applications for interactive processing with the LC ILS.

Finally, this year also saw the retirement of Bob Zich, of the Library's Electronic Programs Office. Bob's vision and support for the objectives and work of the Team since its inception will be missed by all of us. He would have been especially excited by the outlook for our activities in the year 2000.

The 1999 Projects

The Team approved six projects for investigation or continued work in 1999. They were:

Digital Tables of Contents (D-TOC )

The Digital Tables of Contents project creates machine readable TOC data from surrogates of the actual TOC, and using scanning and optical character recognition (OCR) as well as original programming written by project staff, materials are subsequently HTML-encoded and placed on a server at the Library. In the process the underlying MARC records are also modified to include links to the TOC data. This project in particular faced considerable challenges as the Library changed from its own MUMS system to an Integrated Library System (ILS), and perhaps the most intimidating was the need to substantially modify and rewrite in the Visual Basic language, the original OS/2 VX-REXX program so that it would not only work in the ILS and Windows environments, but to write a program that would resolve a number of significant technical issues relating to data access which the new system introduces.

With the cessation of staff updates to catalog records in the existing LC MUMS data base looming, it was decided to suspend TOC production on June 1, and devote available production staff time to offline parts of the process. These tasks included the selection of materials, creation of TOC surrogates, scanning, and OCR. Some work was also done on editing of the resulting texts. At the time the input of new materials halted in advance of the cessation of input-update capability into the old catalog, Digital TOC had placed over 1500 TOC on the Web, more than 1000 of those completed in the calendar year ending May 31. In addition, in a related project with the Electronic CIP pilot program, five hundred TOC records were created for materials received by E-CIP

Approximately 400 files were prepared and edited and placed in a queue for uploading into the new ILS bibliographic data base. The project was able to utilize summer help for some work, including the scanning of TOC for selected best business titles for inclusion, but loss of editing staff hampered further pre-production efforts. The team has recently been informed that the BEAT chair will move to remedy this situation.

At the same time, work continued to move forward on writing new modules for the underlying program in order to automate these many processes for the new environment. A working first version was tested in July. Additional modifications were made, and a second version is now ready to receive test records. The project has created a number of records that it hopes to process and upload in the near future, as testing is expected to demonstrate the basic functionality of the new program. Though additional enhancements are required to allow implementation of all the features resident in the old MUMS program into the ILS-compatible version, the present version of the new program can already be used to create and upload TOC records automatically.

The scope of coverage of materials selected for the project also expanded this year to include many fields of knowledge beyond the initial focus on important business books. Among others, TOC selects materials in most fields of Economics, Political Science, Technology, Computer Science, Bibliography, and continues to select materials on Entrepreneurship and small business as always. As the number of records created has grown, the project has also implemented more automated and regularized quality control procedures to insure that links work properly and that data is available.

Both the MARC records themselves and the linked TOC data may be viewed through a Web browser by accessing the Library's online catalog access options directly, available at catalog.loc.gov In addition, various Web indexing software also makes catalog and TOC records available over the Web from any location

Those who have comments or questions about this project should contact Bruce Knarr, project manager at [email protected]

Business and Economic Resources Online (BEOnline)

BEOnline began as an experimental project designed to explore means of access and bibliographic control for remote Internet resources of interest to the practice or study of entrepreneurship and small business, including general business resources. The project went into production this year, and a number of significant developments, especially regarding its integration into Library of Congress plan for participation, along with that of other libraries, in the OCLC Cooperative Online Resource Cataloging (CORC) project means that the project's goal of making web resources available through the LC catalog has now taken on a much wider scope, with the inherent implications for catalog content that inter-institutional activity implies.

CORC is an OCLC pilot project and software system intended to make creating and maintaining catalog records for electronic resources easier; encourage cooperative creation of a database of electronic resources; and facilitate using the database to create and maintain guides to electronic resources. For additional information about CORC, see http://www.oclc.org/oclc/corc

During this year ended, the project staff submitted proposals to LC governance bodies asking for consideration to expand BEOnline to include additional subject areas. This request was subsequently granted, and the project is now preparing to expand its coverage across the disciplines. The team was also instrumental in framing a recommendation to the Cataloging directorate that LC register with the CORC project, and that it use the CORC cataloging feature to replace the program which LC staff had written for the BEOnline cataloging project and which had been used heretofore within LC. BEAT members demonstrated the CORC system to management, and with the decision to participate, the BEOnline Team is proceeding with a tentative workflow for the expanded version of the project, called BEOnline Plus.

Monographs, whose processing was affected by the transition to the ILS, were placed on hold, but in April, before the halt, monographic BEOnline records were released for distribution through MUMS, and those records can now be now be found in OCLC, RLIN and with other subscribers to Library of Congress cataloged records. The Serials portion of BEOnline+ is continuing with production as usual; cataloging directly into OCLC. Monographic online resources, however, will be cataloged directly into the CORC database and then imported into the LC Integrated Library System. All selected resources are listed on the BEOnline Web page and can be accessed directly through hyperlinks. BEOnline has created almost 300 records, which include monographs (102), Serials (136), Metadata records (41) and others that are in process. A statistical update is also provided on the BEOnline Update page with information on enhancements to related print publications and authority records created. The BEOnline Web site address is http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/business/beonline/beohome.html.

Comments or questions on the Project are welcome and may be directed to the project leader, Allene Hayes at [email protected].

Abstracts or summaries

BEAT has long considered undertaking a project to explore ways to enrich content of catalog records with abstracts, summaries, etc., In 1999, it was thought that through an effort to dovetail with the Electronic CIP (E-CIP) project, BEAT might acquire summaries for inclusion into LC catalog records, along with electronic texts received for cataloging through the E-CIP pilot program. However, this idea was later abandoned. At the same time, events worked in favor of experimenting with the concept when the Digital TOC project leader, Bruce Knarr, was able to obtain permission to use the annotations included in Outstanding reference sources: the 1999 selection of titles (American Libraries, May 1999) to enhance the bibliographic records for the 40 reference sources in the list.

Once the Team made a decision to seek to include the summary within the body of the catalog record rather than through a discrete linked file on the Web, it sought cooperation and technical advice from the Library's Cataloging Policy and Support Office, and a format and an encoding agreement was reached for the incorporation of these summaries into the catalog records for the materials in the list. The project was without editorial or processing support staff, and the BEAT chair took responsibility himself to find ways to facilitate these important parts of the record-creation process. To date, all summaries have all been scanned, and run through optical character recognition (OCR) and are being edited by a staff member being trained for this aspect of the work.

BECites+ 1

This new BEAT initiative, is designed to enhance traditional bibliographies by placing them on the web and including, along with annotated citations, links to the scanned tables of contents, indexes, and back-of-book bibliographies contained in the sources, as well as reciprocal links between the citations in the bibliography, the scanned elements of the works and their catalog records in the OPAC. In addition, links to pertinent online indexes to journals and other related web resources are also included, where available. To demonstrate proof of concept, work focused on a single bibliography, "Guide to Business History Resources," a revision of chapter 13 of Finding Business Reference Sources at the Library of Congress, compiled by Richard F. Sharp. (Library of Congress. Business Reference Services, 1995).

The original print bibliography was revised and annotated, and related resources on the Web were identified. The HTML coding for the basic document was completed, and photocopies of the relevant materials were forwarded to the BEAT technical advisor for electronic conversion, processing, and HTML encoding. All of the selected materials were subsequently completed, and are mounted Web and can be viewed at http://lcweb.loc.goc/rr/business/guide/sharp13.html. These documents are linked to the bibliography, and to each other. In addition, all of these records, and all of the works cited in the bibliography have been linked to catalog records in the new ILS database, and the records in turn linked to the bibliography itself, which then permits users who find a record to be apprized of the existence of the bibliography. Most pages also include the option of searching the LC Online Public Access catalog (OPAC). BECites+, was demonstrated on several occasions for various LC groups during the last quarter of the year.

It has been agreed recently to use the BECites+ concept for cooperative and collaborative projects with two Public Services reference divisions in the coming year, and work on editing an additional chapter of the Sharp Guide on "Entrepreneurship" is almost complete; and that work may allow an additional component of this electronic bibliography to take form during the coming year.

Because the breadth of the projects undertaken by BECites is expanding, the Team is suggesting that the acronym be retained, but is considering altering the underlying terms used to represent Bibliographies plus: Enhanced citations Including Indexes, Tables of Contents, Electronic resources, and Sources cited.

Questions about the project may be directed to Carolyn Larson, project chair, at [email protected]

Produce a 3rd edition of the Entrepreneur's Reference Guide to Small Business Information.

In 1994 BEAT produced The Entrepreneur's Reference Guide to Small Business Information, a bibliography of approximately 200 sources in the Library of Congress that the Reference Staff of Business Reference Services, in consultation with other areas of the Library having business subject expertise (e.g., the Business and Economics Cataloging Team), determined to be of value to those who may be involved in establishing, building, or managing a small business. The1st edition, published in 1994, was extremely popular and all copies have been distributed.

In 1998 BEAT sponsored production of a second edition of the Guide, entitled The Entrepreneur's Guide to Small Business Information, which was compiled by the reference staff of Business Reference Services (Science, Technology, and Business Division) of the Library of Congress, which includes members of the BEAT Team Carolyn Larson and Jim Stewart, and it can be viewed at http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/business/guide2.html It may also be accessed under "Indexes, Bibliographies, and Guides" from the Business Reference Services Web page.

The third edition, the first to be published in electronic form, was completed just after the completion of this report, and may now be accessed at the address above.

Class and Subject Correlation for former Class JX Subject Authorities

This was a pilot project in support a proposal from the Library's Cataloging Policy and Support Office (CPSO) for a project in which updated 053 field data (Classification data in [Subject] authority records) would be added for a limited number of items from the former JX, International law / International relations, two areas of classification BEAT has supported previously. The JX classification schedule was closed in 1997 and JX numbers in the 053 field of the Subject Authority records were removed at that time. Working with a volunteer subject cataloger, the project, done in cooperation with the Cataloging Policy and Support Office, sought to correlate these subject authority records to the new classes of KZ (International Law), and JZ (International Relations). JX was a schedule for which BEAT had previously provided support, especially because of its relationship to international business and international organizations. In addition to correlating the classification references, the pilot also sought to examine the correctness of the old subject headings as well. Approximately 250 authority records were changed during the pilot, which was completed and which also came in under budget. Although it is difficult to estimate the total number of records that would be changed if such a project were undertaken across-the-board, it is clear that the number would be quite large.

Additional questions about BEAT or its projects may also be directed to the BEAT Chair, John D. Byrum, Jr., Chief Regional and Cooperative cataloging Division, Library of Congress, [email protected]

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1 Business and Economics Citations Plus links to Indexes, Tables of Contents, Electronic resources and Sources cited.


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