# Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem

edited by Giovanni Bergamin, Mauro Guerrini

**Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem**

Giovanni Bergamin, Mauro Guerrini

#### BIBLIOTECHE & BIBLIOTECARI / LIBRARIES & LIBRARIANS

ISSN 2612-7709 (PRINT) - ISSN 2704-5889 (ONLINE)

– 7 –

### BIBLIOTECHE & BIBLIOTECARI / LIBRARIES & LIBRARIANS

#### *Editor-in-Chief*

Mauro Guerrini, University of Florence, Italy

#### *Scientific Board*

Carlo Bianchini, University of Pavia, Italy Andrea Capaccioni, University of Perugia, Italy Tom Delsey, University of Ottawa, Canada Chiara Faggiolani, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy Angela Nuovo, University of Milan, Italy Alberto Salarelli, University of Parma, Italy José Luis Gonzalo Sánchez-Molero, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain Lucia Sardo, University of Bologna, Italy Giovanni Solimine, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

# Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem

edited by Giovanni Bergamin and Mauro Guerrini

> with the assistance of Carlotta Alpigiano

ASSOCIAZIONE ITALIANA BIBLIOTECHE EDIZIONI UNIVERSITÀ DI MACERATA FIRENZE UNIVERSITY PRESS 2022

Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem / edited by Giovanni Bergamin, Mauro Guerrini ; with the assistance of Carlotta Alpigiano. – Roma : Associazione italiana biblioteche ; Macerata : Edizioni Università di Macerata ; Firenze : Firenze University Press, 2022. (Biblioteche & bibliotecari / Libraries & librarians ; 7)

https://www.fupress.com/isbn/9788855185448

ISSN 2612-7709 (print) ISSN 2704-5889 (online) ISBN 978-88-5518-542-4 (Print) ISBN 978-88-5518-544-8 (PDF) ISBN 978-88-5518-545-5 (XML) DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-544-8

Front cover: ©marzolino/123RF.COM

This volume includes the complete proceedings of the International *Conference Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, 8-12 February 2021. Papers were first published in the journal JLIS.it 13 (1) 2022 www.JLIS.it. AIB (Associazione italiana biblioteche), EUM (Edizioni Università di Macerata) and FUP (Firenze University Press) are co-publishers of this work.

*FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing* (DOI https://doi.org/10.36253/fup\_best\_practice) All publications are submitted to an external refereeing process under the responsibility of the FUP Editorial Board and the Scientific Boards of the series. The works published are evaluated and approved by the Editorial Board of the publishing house, and must be compliant with the Peer review policy, the Open Access, Copyright and Licensing policy and the Publication Ethics and Complaint policy.

Firenze University Press Editorial Board

M. Garzaniti (Editor-in-Chief), M.E. Alberti, F. Vittorio Arrigoni, E. Castellani, F. Ciampi, D. D'Andrea, A. Dolfi, R. Ferrise, A. Lambertini, R. Lanfredini, D. Lippi, G. Mari, A. Mariani, P.M. Mariano, S. Marinai, R. Minuti, P. Nanni, A. Orlandi, I. Palchetti, A. Perulli, G. Pratesi, S. Scaramuzzi, I. Stolzi.

The online digital edition is published in Open Access on www.fupress.com.

Content license: except where otherwise noted, the present work is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ legalcode). This license allows you to share any part of the work by any means and format, modify it for any purpose, including commercial, as long as appropriate credit is given to the author, any changes made to the work are indicated and a URL link is provided to the license.

Metadata license: all the metadata are released under the Public Domain Dedication license (CC0 1.0 Universal: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode).

© 2022 Author(s)

Published by Associazione italiana biblioteche, Edizioni Università di Macerata, Firenze University Press

Firenze University Press Università degli Studi di Firenze via Cittadella, 7, 50144 Firenze, Italy www.fupress.com

*This book is printed on acid-free paper Printed in Italy*

# **Table of Contents**

# **Welcome by the Rector of the University of Florence**

### **Luigi Dei**

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, I am very glad to introduce this Conference on the Universal Bibliographic Control. I would like to thank Professor Mauro Guerrini for having invited me to give these welcome remarks and please accept the warmest greetings and wishes by the University of Florence. It's always a great pleasure for a Rector of a big University where almost every discipline is cultivated to participate to the opening ceremony of an International Meetings: indeed, looking at the various programmes it's possible sharing the great horizons and frontiers of the advanced research in the various domains of the research. In particular, you will discuss about themes that truly permeate some important aspects of many topics dealing with cataloguing and libraries. As you well know bibliographic control is radically changing because the bibliographic universe is radically changing: resources, agents, technologies, standard, and practices. In this view libraries play a fundamental role in the digital ecosystem. Your conference will address many topics, as the new bibliographic universe, library cooperation networks, the legal deposit, national bibliographies, bibliographic agencies, new control tools and standard, authority control and new alliances, new ways of indexing documents by means of artificial intelligence, machine learning, text-mining and so on, role of thesauri and ontologies in the digital ecosystem. Let's me express gratitude to all the speakers who will participate to this Meeting that is held due to the pandemic at distance by virtual meetings. I am sure that the debate and the discussion that will take place during the meeting allows to stimulate new ideas for future research projects and possibly generate interesting partnerships among different research groups. I believe one of the most positive aspects of such meetings is the possibility, thanks to the human contacts, to establish interactions and contaminating some different knowledges on similar subjects. Unfortunately, the social distancing due to the pandemic has removed that wonderful aspect of Conferences which is to socialisation, but I want to hope that this year can be the renaissance year for meetings where people start again to be in presence. I am sure that the level of the contributions in this Meeting will be very high, and I hope you can continue to study and work at your Universities, Research centres, private or public institutions with a renovated will to improve the knowledge and develop new research strategies.

My best wishes for a fruitful and good Conference and I am very sad not being able to invite you enjoying with the cultural heritage beauties of our city. Thank you very much of your attention.

Giovanni Bergamin, Mauro Guerrini (edited by), *Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem*, © 2022 Author(s), content CC BY 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Associazione italiana biblioteche, Edizioni Università di Macerata, Firenze University Press, ISSN 2704-5889 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-544-8 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-544-8

# **Welcome by the Director of the Department of History, Archaeology, Geography, Art History and Performing Arts (SAGAS) of the University of Florence**

### **Andrea Zorzi**

I am very honoured to bring greetings from the Department of History, Archaeology, Geography, Art History and Performing Arts to this International Conference on Bibliographic Control in the digital ecosystem. Our department has been awarded by the Ministry of University and Research as a department of excellence for a scientific project focused on cultural heritage. Therefore, a conference that aims to explore the new boundaries of Universal Bibliographic Control finds in our department a natural place of development.

I am pleased to remember that the initiative was promoted by colleagues in the Archives, Bibliography and Library Science Sector. This Sector represents, since the establishment of the Department at the beginning of 2013, one of its most industrious components in the field of teaching and research. He actively contributed to qualify the University of Florence as one of the reference poles of the sciences dedicated to the theoretical, historical and methodological aspects of document and book conservation.

I am therefore very grateful to the colleagues who organized this conference, and in particular professor Mauro Guerrini, and the IFLA Bibliography Section, with the Italian Library Association.

I welcome and thank the colleagues here convened from many countries, and I wish you all a constructive conference.

# **Welcome by the IFLA President 2019-2021**

### **Christine Mackenzie**

The pandemic we are living through has only hastened and confirmed that the digital ecosystem is rapidly changing – that we now interact online and that is how people access information. We are certainly now in the digital age; and when we come out of the pandemic, we have an opportunity to promote the idea that we need an informed recovery and that access to information is essential for development. Libraries have a vital role to play in ensuring equal and free access to information and knowledge and are a force for fairness in the information ecosystem, helping to ensure that education, knowledge and culture are rights, not privileges. As the IFLA Bibliographic Section reminds us – National bibliography is an important link in the chain of dissemination and is at the centre of a system that involves libraries of all types (not just national libraries), along with publishers, distributors, researchers, and ultimately end-users.

Congratulations to all involved in organising the conference and publishing this volume, which will be an important record of the state of bibliographic control at this point in time.

# **Welcome by the AIB President**

### **Rosa Maiello**

Few things like bibliographic control characterize the specificity of the librarian's work and explain our community's established attitude to international cooperation; and few things like bibliographic control have been a source of inspiration for technological innovation, from general search engines to conceptual models for the semantic web, at least on a par with the impulse given by technological evolution to the evolution of bibliographic control methodologies and tools.

The proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Bibliographic control allow learning about the state of the art of theoretical elaboration, as well as significant experiences and proposals regarding sustainable organizational architectures.

While the configuration and tasks of national bibliographic agencies are redefined also through the possible forms of partnership with other producers of (bibliographic and non-bibliographic) information, and while we are reasoning on the repositioning of libraries and catalogs in the semantic web, and/or on the movement that leads from catalogs to open data and the opportunities that the web of data offers for the reuse of information in contexts other than those of origin, the common values that guide our work remain firm: collect, preserve, extract, represent and make available the knowledge recorded in documents intended for public use, for the benefit of the current and future public.

Such structurally public destination, such ambition to include and promote the encounter between all the documentary multiverse and all the possible audiences that will benefit from it, which underpins our methodologies and the technical solutions we choose to adopt, is what makes the work of libraries for bibliographic control peculiar and non-replaceable for the democracy of knowledge.

FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup\_best\_practice)

Giovanni Bergamin, Mauro Guerrini (edited by), *Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem*, © 2022 Author(s), content CC BY 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Associazione italiana biblioteche, Edizioni Università di Macerata, Firenze University Press, ISSN 2704-5889 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-544-8 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-544-8

# **Welcome by the Chair of the IFLA Bibliographic Section**

### **Mathilde Koskas**

How timely, how welcome this conference is when we haven't had the opportunities we usually do to discuss these topics in 2020, for instance at IFLA. What luxury to be able to spread out discussions over five days and to have such a broad panel of speakers, in a dialogue between the Italian and international experience! I want to thank our Italian colleagues for this. Intermingling of the two perspectives. From the Italian point of view to the international and back gives us a sounding board and a common thread in the dialectics of global and local. Which will be conducive to productive discussions. As you see, I come with high expectations of this conference, as I'm sure you do too!

I was invited to give these opening remarks as Chair of the Bibliography Section at IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and institutions. So, I wanted to start with this simple question: what is universal bibliographic control to us?

Admittedly, UBC is almost 50 years old. Of course, it has evolved. Yes, today, there is no governing entity anymore. Still, it is the framework for our activity, I'd almost say it is a state of mind. Implicitly, our activity as national bibliographic services contributes to UBC. Even if it was declared obsolete a few years ago, or rather if it changed beyond recognition. I'd say it adapted. It shifted, our understanding of the underlying principles changed (basing it on nations, languages, the objects of UBC – not just books anymore – and the focus on metadata rather than records), but I notice, in my discussions with colleagues at home and internationally, it's still the implicit frame of reference for our work. And so, before we start, I'd like to share some questions, reflections, expectations for this conference, that I think will resonate with the various papers we're about to hear and discuss.

First question that came to my mind was interoperability. One of the founding principles of UBC. An important change from the initial concept of UBC was the recognition of local needs, especially the need to access bibliographic information in one's own language. It modified the original concept, which was more concentrated. Not only on the question of language, but in general, specific information needs and local cataloguing practices. International cataloguing code RDA provides for the local, giving many options to cataloguing agencies on how to record and display information, but what will this do to the global, to interoperability?1

1 Renate Behrens: « Common core ».

FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup\_best\_practice)

Giovanni Bergamin, Mauro Guerrini (edited by), *Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem*, © 2022 Author(s), content CC BY 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Associazione italiana biblioteche, Edizioni Università di Macerata, Firenze University Press, ISSN 2704-5889 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-544-8 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-544-8

Another question is knowledge and access to information, and their role in a democracy.2 Universal bibliographic control is the promise to register, organise, ultimately give access to everything. UBC and the mass information era may have been said to be incompatible, but mass information (and its too painfully obvious pitfalls) underscores the need for this compilation and organisation of information. Mass information doesn't mean this work, this ideal of UBC is useless, because it's hopeless, it means, properly done, it is needed as much as it ever was, as long as we make it fit the new context. What librarians have to bring to the table is the having thought about this encyclopedic, universal idea (or ideal) for generations, and having a framework and practices in place for more than half a century! Whether we call it Universal bibliographic control or something else, international standards, interoperability, and so on, these underlying principles are still there. Need to be careful not to let them cut us off from the world outside of libraries, keep them more open than they have been in the past. And I'm sure after this week's proceedings, we'll go back to work in our respective institutions, with even more ideas on how to adapt, to keep this useful framework alive and evolving!

Evolution in the concept: from shared bibliographic control to shared entity management.3 For libraries and librarians, it means thinking about our scope of action. Moving from bibliographic and authority records to entities, which entities do we take responsibility for? What level of quality do we promise our users for each entity? And how do we work with other metadata producers, especially for what we can't take coplete responsibility for?4 Bear in mind that, in this new ecosystem, there might be another protagonist: the machine (AI), that we are just starting to explore, what it could or couldn't do.

At the French National Library, where I work, it feels like very chaotic times. We are working at the same time on the cataloguing code, application profiles, format, and the new cataloguing application, to say nothing of training etc. And France is no exception. This is happening all over our institutions right now. It's difficult, but also potentially very fruitful. The progress is parallel in terms of temporality, but in a dialogue ("feedback loop") in terms of method (ideally!). It's the kind of chaos that leads to creation.

And that's the note I want to finish on. I'm excited about what's coming. I hope you are too! And I wish you a fruitful and thought-provoking conference.

2 Ph. Schreur; F. Guatelli: «The metadata of a work is also responsible for its success»; Bourke.

3 Dunsire: «The challenge for bibliographic control is the reconciliation of globalization and personalization via localization».

4 Cf. BnF (Leresche; Boulet).

# **Welcome by the Director of the National Central Library of Florence**

### **Luca Bellingeri**

Dear Colleagues,

This greeting of mine should have welcomed you to the premises of the National Library of Florence, where one of the days of this Conference was supposed to be held. The terrible pandemic, that has hit the whole world for over a year now, has by necessity transformed this important event into a 'virtual' meeting and thus our welcome at the National Library needs to be limited to a remote connection and to the brief introductory video on the website.

When more than a year ago, as a promoter institution, we were asked to join the Scientific Committee and to adhere to the realisation of this Conference, it was natural to welcome the proposal with conviction. Indeed, bibliographic control has always constituted one of the main tasks of our Library, since, in accordance with art. 62 on the Regulation for the government libraries of 1885, by the initiative of the director of that time, Desiderio Chilovi, in 1886 the *Bollettino bibliografico delle pubblicazioni italiane ricevute per diritto di stampa* ("Bibliographic Bulletin of the Italian publications received by legal deposit") was born and subsequently transformed, from 1958, into the *Bibliografia Nazionale Italian* ("Italian National Bibliography"). In the meantime, the national bibliographic services which, it is good to remember, represent one of the purposes of the Ministry we belong to, MiBACT (Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali e per il turismo), have been further enriched and distinguished, always having this Institute as their main reference point. Therefore, since 1925, the descriptions of the *Bollettino* have included subject metadata for enhanced access referring to the relevant topic, aimed at the creation of an *Indice nazionale dei soggetti* ("National Index of subjects"), through collaboration with other libraries. Once this ambitious purpose was abandoned, in the years following the war, in 1956 it was however possible to achieve the publication of the *Soggettario* ("Subject indexing") of Florence, replaced, in 2007, by the *Nuovo soggettario* ("New Subject Indexing"). A new edition of this work, based on a Thesaurus, including over 66,000 entries, will be issued shortly.

Yet, as this Conference reminds us, the bibliographic universe has radically changed in the last decades, above all because of the spread of digital technologies, even the role of the National Library, in the matter of bibliographic services, has had to modify itself.

So, as provided by art. 6 of the decree which granted full autonomy to our Library and which identified, among others, the institutional task to carry out research and studies and to activate

Giovanni Bergamin, Mauro Guerrini (edited by), *Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem*, © 2022 Author(s), content CC BY 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Associazione italiana biblioteche, Edizioni Università di Macerata, Firenze University Press, ISSN 2704-5889 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-544-8 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-544-8

the procedures for preservation, in the long term, of digital resources, since 2010, our Library, in collaboration with the National Library of Rome and the Marciana Library of Venice, has undertaken the realisation of the project *Magazzini digitali* ("Digital storage") for the deposit, the preservation and the accessibility of digital native resources in the framework of the projects for digitisation. In March 2018, the service for the collection and preservation of websites of cultural interest was started, in prototype form. Over the next days, almost 40 speakers will discuss the cutting edges of bibliographic control, in the light of deep variations introduced in the bibliographic universe by the digital ecosystem. This is a scenery in which libraries will certainly continue to play a prominent role. Even more than in the past, it will be fundamental for libraries to operate according to a logic of cooperation and sharing, that is indispensable in order to be able to adequately face these new and ambitious challenges.

Many of the fundamental choices implemented by this Institute over the years are, after all, based on this conviction. We can mention: the choice to adhere, first in Italy, to the rising Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale (SBN, National Library Service), by starting computerised cataloguing, since 1985, and by connecting to the Index the following year; the choice to involve very many institutions, not necessarily libraries, for the development of the *Nuovo soggettario* and the decision to activate forms of collaboration also with realities apparently belonging to other frameworks, such as Wikimedia (2013) or MAB, the coordination for Museums, Archives and Libraries (2016); the choice to make the Italian National Bibliography free and independent, through the publication in PDF, UNIMARC and XML on its own site (2015); and finally, in 2017, the choice to experience the possibility of involving other important library realities of our Country, BNCR (Biblioteca centrale giuridica), BEIC (Biblioteca Europea di Informazione Cultura), in its production, according to the criteria of geographic or disciplinary subdivision.

If part of all this has been possible in a still largely analogical environment, a digital system cannot but definitely confirm this demand and reinforce my personal conviction. Waiting to hear what will arise from these labour-intensive days and not to steal more time needlessly, with this greeting of mine, I just wish you all a fruitful job.

# **Welcome by the Director of the National Central Library of Rome**

### **Andrea De Pasquale**

I would like to thank the organizers of the Conference and to greet, both personally and on behalf of the National Central Library of Rome (BNCR) which I represent, the speakers and the participants from all over the world who have wished to honor us with their presence, albeit virtual due to the particular moment we are living.

Bibliographic control, understood as the census of publications that begins with the publication of the book and continues with its distribution, then with the different phases of taking charge, cataloging, indexing, and use, has changed radically over the last decade.

The National Central Library of Rome has always been involved in bibliographic control. In 1886, in fact, the creation of the Bulletin of modern foreign works was carried out, which had the purpose of cataloging all foreign books acquired by state libraries and offering a cataloging model for books in foreign languages to be used by other libraries. In the same Library, what would later become SBN was conceived, thanks to the experiments of library cataloging cooperation promoted by Angela Vinay, at the time librarian at the National Central Library. In the same years the first cooperative projects of microfilming of newspapers were also launched, which constitute an embryonic idea of being able to use reproductions to reconstruct the entirety of a serial.

Talking today about bibliographic control inevitably means talking about digital bibliographic control, even if the systemic realization of a bibliographic control fully inserted in a digital ecosystem is still in progress. We cannot ignore the fact that Italy lags behind other countries by a few years, although in the last period there have been several initiatives aimed at filling this gap. Collecting, preserving, and valorizing national and local editorial production are among the fundamental tasks of the National Central Library of Rome. The Library implements these tasks primarily through the institution of Legal Depository. As far as valorization is concerned, an important role is played by bibliographic control, which today more than ever must take into account the international context and the digital environment.

The BNCR Digital Library is an important resource with great potential for digital bibliographic control. The Digital Library collects in a single container all the digitizations produced by the Library in its laboratories during numerous national and international digitization projects. The portal currently hosts over 19 million images belonging to the Library's most important and valuable collections, divided between Printed Books, Antique Books, Graphics, Photographs, Music, Modern Manuscripts and Antique Manuscripts, Maps, and Author's Funds.

Giovanni Bergamin, Mauro Guerrini (edited by), *Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem*, © 2022 Author(s), content CC BY 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Associazione italiana biblioteche, Edizioni Università di Macerata, Firenze University Press, ISSN 2704-5889 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-544-8 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-544-8

An important place is reserved to the Digital Newspaper Library: it is one of the richest resources in Italy among the collections of periodicals available on the web, with 2,312 headings of daily newspapers, periodicals and newspapers, and historians that can be consulted free of charge online, in compliance with copyright law. It is then constantly enriched thanks to a continuous digitization campaign, also thanks to the agreement signed with the Senate of the Italian Republic, to create a real national newspaper library.

Then there is another set of international initiatives, directed and coordinated by the Library:

BNCR will participate in the interesting debate of these days through two speeches, which will address two different, but complementary, aspects of bibliographic control in the digital environment:

I therefore believe that today's important conference can offer ample food for thought and analysis and can truly mark a fundamental moment in the history of the Italian librarianship debate.

I wish everyone good work.

# **Welcome by the Director of the Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries**

### **Simonetta Buttò**

I thank prof. Guerrini for the invitation, the entire Organising Committee, and the Board comprising, together with professor Guerrini, Carlotta Alpigiano, Laura Manzoni and our mutual friend Giovanni Bergamin; they all have done an admirable job of constantly connecting us all despite the tough times characterised by isolation and distance that we all are experiencing. As the Central Institute for the Union Catalogue of Italian Libraries, we welcomed the proposal to join the scientific committee of this international Conference with a great deal of enthusiasm, for the topics we are going to address these days are closely related to the current development of the national bibliographic services and to the ability to share innovative and effective operational models within our library community. ICCU's core institutional mission lies indeed in the management of the national union catalogue SBN, which keeps growing everyday thanks to the work of more than 6,500 libraries of several types and affiliations, contributing together to the collective effort of cataloguing the Italian book heritage. ICCU's main task is to manage the union catalogue of Italian libraries SBN according to both national and international cataloguing standards, and by providing the technological infrastructure for national bibliographic services. Today SBN is also a tool for universal bibliographic control itself, for the quantity and the variety of partner institutions, and for the amount of information it has been offering over its more than thirty years long institutional life. SBN proves to be very useful both in providing verified information on the Italian book production to end users, as well as in supporting libraries towards their cultural policies through the analysis of data related to works, authors and publishers as it is available through the shared catalogue.

Bibliographic work to improve the quality of data within the catalogue is therefore a crucial task according to the Institute's role. ICCU has always been working at this target through the painstaking study, translation and eventually dissemination of national and international standards, by drawing up guidelines and setting up courses and tutorials. New challenges are now imposing a stricter cooperation with the two national central libraries of Rome and Florence as well as with other GLAM institutions, and are also forcing us to a closer international exchange. We will address some of these issues over the next few days: let me just say that the crucial role of authority data for the development of shared services within an international framework, such as those that it is our institutional role to improve, is now clearer than ever.

Giovanni Bergamin, Mauro Guerrini (edited by), *Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem*, © 2022 Author(s), content CC BY 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Associazione italiana biblioteche, Edizioni Università di Macerata, Firenze University Press, ISSN 2704-5889 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-544-8 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-544-8

Since more than ten years the ICCU shares its authority records with the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), an international project managed by OCLC meant to merge controlled authority files coming from several library catalogues around the world.1 Since 2009, every year the Institute shares with the VIAF its controlled authority records, together with links to titles, for them to join authority clusters comprising all forms of each name as they appear in each participating resource. We are now planning to turn our policy, which was to date limited to the sharing of authority records of a very high level, into a new approach with the help of the Wiki community thanks to our longstanding collaboration with Wikidata, which dates back to an agreement with Wikimedia Italy signed in March 2015.

With a similar purpose, in July 2020 the ICCU, as the national cataloguing agency, became an ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier) Registration Agency (RAG) for the SBN network, joining a community of national libraries and cataloguing institutions all over the world. The mission of the ISNI International Agency (ISNI-IA) is to assign to each name that has a relation of responsibility towards a work or its manifestation or expression a persistent unique identifying number in order to resolve the problem of name ambiguity in search and discovery; and diffuse each assigned ISNI across all repertoires in the global supply chain so that every published work can be unambiguously attributed to its creator wherever that work is described. The ISNI therefore plays a fundamental role in connecting different domains, especially in Linked Data and Semantic Web applications.2

In such a context, where data clusters are not only able to allow but even to make the most of inconsistencies, SBN will lead and be the core of the current ICCU's main project that, after 24 months of work, is finally in the final stage of its development, and which we are confident to introduce this summer. This project is meant to build an integrated search system (Italian acronym SRI, for 'sistema di ricerca integrata') to search in one go through all the databases managed by the ICCU, including our digital library *Internet culturale*. This integrated access point will be publicly available through a new portal, which we named *Alphabetica*. As my colleagues Maria Cristina Mataloni and Elena Ravelli will explain later on, *Alphabetica*, whose development is still in progress, has been specifically designed as a platform for information retrieval from all the databases managed by the ICCU. The SBN Index will aggregate users' searches and serve as the main repository of data coming from all the ICCU databases, including controlled authority records and subject terms. Users will be able to browse the new portal through search keys related to specific contexts (protagonists, libraries, places), or starting from a customised menu on several types of materials (books, serials, manuscripts, graphics, cartography, music, audiovisual). The combination of SBN with our specialised databases of early printed books and manuscripts, together with digital resources, is expected to provide extensive results. The new *Alphabetica* portal will encourage new ways to ask questions and to discover our cultural heritage through cross-domain data and new paths to widen each user's research experience. *Alphabetica* will sort and arrange results in boxes according to the user's requests, dramatically reducing the 'noise' that usually affects queries performed simultaneously through search engines. The project is based on a conceptual model which is designed for the future and therefore meant to be flexible: we plan to add further contents and new links through agreements with cultural institutions, which are responsible for the production of catalogues and digital contents of high cultural value. One of the main targets of institutions which, like us, have to manage such an immense heritage, both real and virtual, is indeed to promote strategies and tools to provide our users with structured and complex contents, in order to stimulate the development of critical thinking, and of personal and professional skills for each of us.

Thanks for your attention and enjoy the conference.

# **International Conference Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem, Florence, Italy, 8-12 February 2021**

### **Scientific Commettee**

Mauro Guerrini, Università degli studi di Firenze, IFLA Bibliography Section, JLIS.it, chair of the Conference Giovanni Bergamin, Associazione italiana biblioteche, co-chair of the Conference Lucia Sardo, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, co-chair of the Conference Christian Aliverti, Schweizerische Nationalbibliothek NB, IFLA Cataloguing Section Luca Bellingeri, Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze, director Marisa Borraccini, Università degli studi di Macerata, SISBB, president Simonetta Buttò, Istituto centrale per il catalogo unico delle biblioteche italiane e per le informazioni bibliografiche, director Michele Casalini, Casalini Libri Gianfranco Crupi, Sapienza Università di Roma, JLIS.it Andrea De Pasquale, Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma, director Rosa Maiello, Università degli studi di Napoli Parthenope, Associazione italiana biblioteche, president Giulia Maraviglia, Università degli studi di Firenze, Area per la valorizzazione del patrimonio culturale dell'Ateneo, director Paola Passarelli, Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali e per il turismo, Direzione generale biblioteche e diritto d'autore, director general Pep Torn, European University Institute Library, director **Organising Committee**

Christian Aliverti, Schweizerische Nationalbibliothek NB Carlotta Alpigiano, European University Institute Giovanni Bergamin, Associazione italiana biblioteche Carlo Bianchini, Università degli studi di Pavia Claudia Burattelli, Università degli studi di Firenze Michele Casalini, Casalini libri Gianfranco Crupi, Sapienza Università di Roma Giuliano Genetasio, Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma Mauro Guerrini, Università degli studi di Firenze Anna Lucarelli, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze Laura Manzoni, Università degli studi di Firenze Maria Cristina Mataloni, Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico delle Biblioteche Italiane e per le informazioni bibliografiche Tiziana Possemato, Università degli studi di Firenze Lucia Sardo, Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna

### **Secretariat**

Carlotta Alpigiano, European University Institute Giovanni Bergamin, Associazione italiana biblioteche Mauro Guerrini, Università degli studi di Firenze Laura Manzoni, Università degli studi di Firenze

Giovanni Bergamin, Mauro Guerrini (edited by), *Bibliographic Control in the Digital Ecosystem*, © 2022 Author(s), content CC BY 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Associazione italiana biblioteche, Edizioni Università di Macerata, Firenze University Press, ISSN 2704-5889 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-544-8 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-544-8

# **Universal Bibliographic Control today: preliminary remarks**

12738

# **Mathilde Koskas(a)**

a) Bibliothèque nationale de France

**Contact:** Mathilde Koskas<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### **ABSTRACT**

Universal Bibliographic Control was formulated in the 1960s and 1970s, and was at the core of international bibliographic productions and exchange in the subsequent decades. However, in a digital ecosystem that is very different from the context in which it was born and thrived, it is important to examine what Universal Bibliographic Control means to the international bibliographic community, that is, the producers and managers of bibliographic – and authority – metadata, today. This paper is meant to invite discussion and reflections and to resonate with the various papers from the International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem, organised by the University of Florence in February 2021. It focuses on the future of interoperability and the role of UBC in a democratic society, in the context of mass digital information, and its companion technologies.

#### **KEYWORDS**

Universal Bibliographic Control; Metadata; Interoperability; AI.

The International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem, organised by the University of Florence in February 2021, was a rare opportunity to examine in depth the idea of Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC), its relevance, the challenges it faces, in an information ecosystem that is so very different from what it was when the concept of UBC was first formulated and formalised in the 1960s and 1970s (Illien and Bourdon 2014, Guerrini 2021).

The scope and magnitude of the conference was of the kind that is seen maybe once a decade, and the last time the topic of Universal Bibliographic Control was examined by an international group of specialists and practitioners of comparable status was, to the best of our knowledge, at the joint open session of the Cataloguing, Bibliography and Classification & Indexing Sections and UNI-MARC Strategic Programme of IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, in Lyon, France, in 20141 .

In 2021, of course, the topic, scope and international make-up of the conference was made all the more timely and relevant by the pandemic and its subsequent cancellation of international meetings. The international bibliographic community had been unable to meet in person to hold its usual discussions at the World Library and Information Congress (WLIC), IFLA's yearly international conference, in 2020. Meanwhile, the information landscape continued its fast-paced evolution, made, if possible, even faster by the increased importance of online communications during the pandemic.

The organisers built a very strong programme in the form of a dialogue between the Italian and international experiences, not confining it to the library world, either. Over the five half-days of the conference, going from the Italian point of view to the international and back gave participants a sounding board and a common thread in the dialectics of global and local, which was conducive to productive discussions.

This article is a formalised version of the opening remarks we were invited to give as Chair of IFLA's Bibliography section. It will examine what Universal Bibliographic Control means to the international bibliographic community, that is, the producers and managers of bibliographic – and authority – metadata, today. Like the speech it derives from, it is meant to invite discussion and reflections and to resonate with the various papers from the conference.

### **What is Universal Bibliographic Control to us?**

During the aforementioned session on Universal Bibliographic Control in the Digital Age: Golden Opportunity or Paradise Lost? in 2014, the question was asked, "Did the digital tide knock UBC out?". Authors Françoise Bourdon and Gildas Illien noted the widely different ecosystem and the disparition of a formal governing body. But they also concluded that news opportunities had emerged which could form "the nodal point from which UBC's ideals may be invented once again". So, while Universal Bibliographic Control is admittedly almost 50 years old, has seen a deep evolution since its principles were first formally written down (Anderson 1974), and is now

1 World Library and Information Congress: 80th IFLA General Conference and Assembly 16-22 August, Lyon, France. Session 86 - *Universal Bibliographic Control in the Digital Age: Golden Opportunity or Paradise Lost?* - Cataloguing with Bibliography, Classification & Indexing and UNIMARC Strategic Programme. http://library.ifla.org/view/conferences/2014/2014-08-18/315.html

without a formal governing scheme, we think it is fair to say it still is the framework for our activity. In a way, the principles that presided over its conception and development have become such a fundamental part of bibliographic activities in libraries as to become perhaps largely implicit to librarians. Still, the activity of national bibliographic services contributes to Universal Bibliographic Control. Even if it changed, maybe beyond recognition, it hasn't disappeared but adapted. It shifted as our understanding of the underlying principles changed (be it the basing it on nations, the question of language, the objects of Universal Bibliographic Control themselves, not confined to just books anymore, or the focus on metadata rather than records). But we have noticed, in discussions with colleagues at home and internationally, that it still is the frame of reference for the production and distribution of bibliographic data, even when not explicitly invoked. The proceedings of the International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem certainly confirm that observation.

If we examine some of the ways in which Universal Bibliographic Control and the ecosystem in which it exists have evolved, a few questions immediately arise, amongst which we will focus on the future of interoperability and the role of UBC in a democratic society, in the context of mass digital information, and its companion technologies.

### **Interoperability**

2

1 World Library and Information Congress: 80th IFLA General Conference and Assembly 16-22 August, Lyon, France. Session 86 - *Universal Bibliographic Control in the Digital Age: Golden Opportunity or Paradise Lost?* - Cataloguing with Bibliography, Classification & Indexing and UNIMARC Strategic Programme. http://library.ifla.org/view/conferen-

The International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem, organised by the University of Florence in February 2021, was a rare opportunity to examine in depth the idea of Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC), its relevance, the challenges it faces, in an information ecosystem that is so very different from what it was when the concept of UBC was first formulated

The scope and magnitude of the conference was of the kind that is seen maybe once a decade, and the last time the topic of Universal Bibliographic Control was examined by an international group of specialists and practitioners of comparable status was, to the best of our knowledge, at the joint open session of the Cataloguing, Bibliography and Classification & Indexing Sections and UNI-MARC Strategic Programme of IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and

In 2021, of course, the topic, scope and international make-up of the conference was made all the more timely and relevant by the pandemic and its subsequent cancellation of international meetings. The international bibliographic community had been unable to meet in person to hold its usual discussions at the World Library and Information Congress (WLIC), IFLA's yearly international conference, in 2020. Meanwhile, the information landscape continued its fast-paced evolution, made, if possible, even faster by the increased importance of online communications

The organisers built a very strong programme in the form of a dialogue between the Italian and international experiences, not confining it to the library world, either. Over the five half-days of the conference, going from the Italian point of view to the international and back gave participants a sounding board and a common thread in the dialectics of global and local, which was

This article is a formalised version of the opening remarks we were invited to give as Chair of IFLA's Bibliography section. It will examine what Universal Bibliographic Control means to the international bibliographic community, that is, the producers and managers of bibliographic – and authority – metadata, today. Like the speech it derives from, it is meant to invite discussion and

During the aforementioned session on Universal Bibliographic Control in the Digital Age: Golden Opportunity or Paradise Lost? in 2014, the question was asked, "Did the digital tide knock UBC out?". Authors Françoise Bourdon and Gildas Illien noted the widely different ecosystem and the disparition of a formal governing body. But they also concluded that news opportunities had emerged which could form "the nodal point from which UBC's ideals may be invented once again". So, while Universal Bibliographic Control is admittedly almost 50 years old, has seen a deep evolution since its principles were first formally written down (Anderson 1974), and is now

and formalised in the 1960s and 1970s (Illien and Bourdon 2014, Guerrini 2021).

.

reflections and to resonate with the various papers from the conference.

**What is Universal Bibliographic Control to us?**

Institutions, in Lyon, France, in 20141

conducive to productive discussions.

during the pandemic.

ces/2014/2014-08-18/315.html

The first question that comes to mind is that of interoperability. One of the founding principles of Universal Bibliographic Control is the sharing of bibliographic data. To that purpose, the tools of bibliographic exchange: standards (ISBD) and formats (MARC) were developed. Today's interoperability derives in part from these, but adapted to a completely renewed ecosystem of data exchange, relying on the internet and reaching far outside of the library world. An important change from the initial concept of Universal Bibliographic Control was the recognition of local needs, especially the need to access bibliographic information in one's own language. It modified the original concept, which was more concentrated. This is not just about the question of language, but in a broader sense, the taking into account of specific information needs and local cataloguing practices. Today, the international cataloguing code Resource Description and Access (RDA), which, interestingly, was not created under the auspices of IFLA, but gradually evolved into its current international scope and is now widely accepted as a major instrument for achieving the integration of bibliographic metadata in the semantic web, provides for the local, giving many options to cataloguing agencies on how to record and display information. Will this prove to be a problem on the global scale? Might these local rules become so fragmented as to constitute a challenge to interoperability? The reconciliation of local and global needs has been pointed out (Dunsire 20212 ) as one of the main opportunities for the future of library metadata in the digital ecosystem. And indeed, if handled well, this challenge carries the seeds of opportunity. During the conference, one example of this came from the German-speaking countries' experience with the implementation of RDA, and the concept of a "Common core" (Behrens 2021).

2 "The challenge for bibliographic control is the reconciliation of globalization and personalization via localization".

# **Democratic role of UBC**

Another important question revolves around knowledge and access to information, and their role in a democratic society3 .

Access to the entirety of the intellectual output of a society is an important condition of the democratic debate and a citizen's informed decision-making. This access is, of course, not possible if said output is not described with the appropriate metadata. Universal Bibliographic Control carries the promise to register, organise, and, ultimately, give access to everything. And while the promise is of course never entirely fulfilled, this objective has kept its relevance. Universal Bibliographic Control and the mass information era may have been said to be incompatible, but mass information (and its too painfully obvious pitfalls) underscores the need for the compilation and organisation of information that UBC strives for. That we are in an age of mass information doesn't mean that this work, this ideal, of Universal Bibliographic Control is useless, because it's hopeless, it means that, properly done, it is needed as much as it ever was, as long as we make it fit the new context. What librarians have to bring to the table is decades of reflection and practical experience of this encyclopaedic, universal idea (or ideal), and a framework and practices that have been in place for more than half a century. Whether we call it Universal Bibliographic Control or something else, the underlying principles of bibliographic information produced in accordance with international standards, in a way that is interoperable, accessible, and so on, are still there. We in the library world need to be careful not to let them cut us off from the world outside of libraries, but keep them more open than they have been in the past. With relevant and continuing adaptations, Universal Bibliographic Control remains a useful framework in today's digital ecosystem.

### **Shifting tides**

We are shifting from distributed bibliographic control to shared entity management. This conceptual evolution comes with a reevaluation of libraries' scope of action. In the moving from bibliographic and authority records to entities, librarians have to ask themselves which entities libraries should take responsibility for, what level of quality is promised to users for each entity, and, crucially, how to work with other metadata producers, especially for what libraries can't take complete responsibility for (Leresche 2021, Boulet 2021).

In this new ecosystem, another protagonist has appeared: the machine, in the form of artificial intelligence, whose possibilities libraries and the metadata world is only starting to explore. Experiments around the world, such as Annif and Finto AI (Mödden 2021, Suominen 2021), show both the great potential of these technologies and the great investments (of skill, time, energy and money) they require. Ethical questions will also have to be addressed. Like all technological advances (for example the computerisation of libraries), it will turn out to be useful in its place, not so much reducing the human workload as shifting it. We learned from previous instances that it's important not to embark on technological choices that are specific to libraries, cutting our metadata off from the wider world. This is a pas de trois, involving libraries, the wider metadata and information communities, and the machine, not a pas de deux.

3 Schreur 2021; Guatelli 2021; Bourke 2021.

Most of us feel that we are living in very chaotic times, professionally speaking. At the French National Library, for instance, we are working at the same time on a new cataloguing code (RDA-FR, a French version of RDA), its application profiles, a new format4 , and a new cataloguing application, to say nothing of training, etc. This is actually a global issue, as this is happening all over our institutions right now, France being no exception. It is quite challenging, but also potentially very fruitful. As the various projects' progress is parallel in terms of temporality, each one informs the others, in a dialogue, in terms of method. Chaotic it may feel, but from chaos springs creation, as the initiatives and experiments presented at this conference abundantly proved.

4

We are shifting from distributed bibliographic control to shared entity management. This conceptual evolution comes with a reevaluation of libraries' scope of action. In the moving from bibliographic and authority records to entities, librarians have to ask themselves which entities libraries should take responsibility for, what level of quality is promised to users for each entity, and, crucially, how to work with other metadata producers, especially for what libraries can't take

In this new ecosystem, another protagonist has appeared: the machine, in the form of artificial intelligence, whose possibilities libraries and the metadata world is only starting to explore. Experiments around the world, such as Annif and Finto AI (Mödden 2021, Suominen 2021), show both the great potential of these technologies and the great investments (of skill, time, energy and money) they require. Ethical questions will also have to be addressed. Like all technological advances (for example the computerisation of libraries), it will turn out to be useful in its place, not so much reducing the human workload as shifting it. We learned from previous instances that it's important not to embark on technological choices that are specific to libraries, cutting our metadata off from the wider world. This is a pas de trois, involving libraries, the wider metadata and

Another important question revolves around knowledge and access to information, and their role

Access to the entirety of the intellectual output of a society is an important condition of the democratic debate and a citizen's informed decision-making. This access is, of course, not possible if said output is not described with the appropriate metadata. Universal Bibliographic Control carries the promise to register, organise, and, ultimately, give access to everything. And while the promise is of course never entirely fulfilled, this objective has kept its relevance. Universal Bibliographic Control and the mass information era may have been said to be incompatible, but mass information (and its too painfully obvious pitfalls) underscores the need for the compilation and organisation of information that UBC strives for. That we are in an age of mass information doesn't mean that this work, this ideal, of Universal Bibliographic Control is useless, because it's hopeless, it means that, properly done, it is needed as much as it ever was, as long as we make it fit the new context. What librarians have to bring to the table is decades of reflection and practical experience of this encyclopaedic, universal idea (or ideal), and a framework and practices that have been in place for more than half a century. Whether we call it Universal Bibliographic Control or something else, the underlying principles of bibliographic information produced in accordance with international standards, in a way that is interoperable, accessible, and so on, are still there. We in the library world need to be careful not to let them cut us off from the world outside of libraries, but keep them more open than they have been in the past. With relevant and continuing adaptations, Universal Bibliographic Control

**Democratic role of UBC**

.

remains a useful framework in today's digital ecosystem.

complete responsibility for (Leresche 2021, Boulet 2021).

information communities, and the machine, not a pas de deux.

3 Schreur 2021; Guatelli 2021; Bourke 2021.

in a democratic society3

**Shifting tides**

4 INTERMARC Next Generation, see Peyrard and Roche 2018.

# **References**

Anderson, Dorothy. 1974. *Universal Bibliographic Control: a Long Term Policy, a Plan for Action*. Pullach bei München: Verlag Dokumentation.

Behrens, Renate. 2021. "Standards in a new bibliographic world – community needs versus internationalisation". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

Boulet, Vincent. 2021. "Towards an identifiers' policy: the use case of the Bibliothèque nationale de France". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

Dunsire, Gordon and Mirna Willer. 2014. "The local in the global: universal bibliographic control from the bottom up". Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2014 - Lyon - Libraries, Citizens, Societies: Confluence for Knowledge in Session 86 - Cataloguing with Bibliography, Classification & Indexing and UNIMARC Strategic Programme. In: IFLA WLIC 2014, 16-22 August 2014, Lyon, France. Accessed April 14, 2021. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/817.

Guatelli, Fulvio. 2021. "Maximising dissemination and impact of books: the scientific cloud". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

Guerrini, Mauro. 2021. "Opening remarks". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

*IFLA Professional Statement on Universal Bibliographic Control, December 2012*. Accessed April 14, 2021. https://www.ifla.org/files/assets/bibliography/Documents/ifla-professional-statement-on-ubcen.pdf.

Illien, Gildas and Françoise Bourdon. 2014. "UBC reloaded: remembrance of things past, back to the future". Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2014 - Lyon - Libraries, Citizens, Societies: Confluence for Knowledge in Session 86 - Cataloguing with Bibliography, Classification & Indexing and UNIMARC Strategic Programme. In: IFLA WLIC 2014, 16-22 August 2014, Lyon, France. Accessed April 14, 2021. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/956.

Leresche, Françoise. 2021. "Rethinking bibliographic control in the light of IFLA LRM entities: the ongoing process at the National library of France". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

Mödden, Elisabeth. 2021. "Artificial intelligence, machine learning and DDC Short Numbers". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

Peyrard, Sébastien and Mélanie Roche. 2018. "Still Waiting for That Funeral: the Challenges and Promises of a Next-Gen INTERMARC". Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Transform Libraries, Transform Societies in Session 141 - Cataloguing. Accessed April 14, 2021. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2204.

Schreur, Philip. 2021. "*I'm as good as you*": the death of expertise and entity management in the

age of the Internet". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

Suominen, Osma. 2021. "Annif and Finto AI: developing and implementing automated subject indexing". Paper presented at the International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

World Library and Information Congress: 80th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, 16- 22 August, Lyon, France. Session 86 - *Universal Bibliographic Control in the Digital Age: Golden Opportunity or Paradise Lost?* - Cataloguing with Bibliography, Classification & Indexing and UNIMARC Strategic Programme. Accessed April 14, 2021. http://library.ifla.org/view/conferences/2014/2014-08-18/315.html.

6

Schreur, Philip. 2021. "*I'm as good as you*": the death of expertise and entity management in the

Anderson, Dorothy. 1974. *Universal Bibliographic Control: a Long Term Policy, a Plan for Action*.

Behrens, Renate. 2021. "Standards in a new bibliographic world – community needs versus internationalisation". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the*

Boulet, Vincent. 2021. "Towards an identifiers' policy: the use case of the Bibliothèque nationale de France". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital*

Dunsire, Gordon and Mirna Willer. 2014. "The local in the global: universal bibliographic control from the bottom up". Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2014 - Lyon - Libraries, Citizens, Societies: Confluence for Knowledge in Session 86 - Cataloguing with Bibliography, Classification & Indexing and UNIMARC Strategic Programme. In: IFLA WLIC 2014, 16-22 August 2014, Lyon,

Guatelli, Fulvio. 2021. "Maximising dissemination and impact of books: the scientific cloud". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*,

Guerrini, Mauro. 2021. "Opening remarks". Paper presented at the *International conference on*

*IFLA Professional Statement on Universal Bibliographic Control, December 2012*. Accessed April 14, 2021. https://www.ifla.org/files/assets/bibliography/Documents/ifla-professional-statement-on-ubc-

Illien, Gildas and Françoise Bourdon. 2014. "UBC reloaded: remembrance of things past, back to the future". Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2014 - Lyon - Libraries, Citizens, Societies: Confluence for Knowledge in Session 86 - Cataloguing with Bibliography, Classification & Indexing and UNIMARC Strategic Programme. In: IFLA WLIC 2014, 16-22 August 2014, Lyon, France.

Leresche, Françoise. 2021. "Rethinking bibliographic control in the light of IFLA LRM entities: the ongoing process at the National library of France". Paper presented at the *International confer-*

Mödden, Elisabeth. 2021. "Artificial intelligence, machine learning and DDC Short Numbers". Paper presented at the *International conference on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*,

Peyrard, Sébastien and Mélanie Roche. 2018. "Still Waiting for That Funeral: the Challenges and Promises of a Next-Gen INTERMARC". Paper presented at: IFLA WLIC 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Transform Libraries, Transform Societies in Session 141 - Cataloguing. Accessed April

*ence on Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

*Bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

**References**

en.pdf.

Pullach bei München: Verlag Dokumentation.

*ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

14, 2021. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/2204.

*digital ecosystem*, Florence, Italy, February 08-12, 2021.

France. Accessed April 14, 2021. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/817.

Accessed April 14, 2021. http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/956.

# **Conference BC 2021**

# **Josep Torn(a)**

a) European University Institute

**Contact:** Josep Torn<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### **ABSTRACT**

12782

This article is a compendium of some of the presentations made during the BC2021 conference.

#### **KEYWORDS**

Bibliographic control; Metadata; Research data; Open access; Authority control; Research libraries; National libraries; Musicology collections; Artificial intelligence.

The Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC), as indicated by professor Mauro Guerrini (Università degli studi di Firenze, IFLA Bibliography Section, chair of the Conference) in his opening remark, is an exercise that intellectually begins, at least, with Conrad Gesner's Bibliotheca Universalis. We are confronted with a panorama that allows more than ever to advance towards IFLA's objective of making catalogue records available immediately, an exercise in which libraries have always excelled in its two aspects: thoroughness in document description and willingness to share knowledge in any of its stages.

The Conference on Universal Bibliographic Control (BC 2021) touched on key aspects for, in a digital ecosystem, making the maximum of resources available, opening interesting debates on new standards (or the evolution of current ones). Some aspects, formats or objects take on greater significance such as data, authority control, multilingual collections, or artificial intelligence. These aspects, although key, are not new to the librarians. As Mauro Guerrini reminds us, already in 2014 during the IFLA conference in Lyon (France) he raised the key question that librarians have still do not solved: "Digital age: Golden opportunity or Paradise lost?"

Mathilde Koskas (Bibliothèque nationale de France, IFLA Bibliography Section, chair) proposed the ideal departing point, starting from the relationship between local work (Italy, for the case) as the basis for a, step by step, more global approach. Koskas raised key questions for the UBC, such as the role of the national libraries in this ambition. Both, Guerrini and Koskas, emphasised basic aspects to UBC today such as interoperability, multilingualism or the international cataloguing practices in local. The democratic role of UBC overcomes the barriers that mass information seems to want to impose as more universal, since it compiles information in a complex context where *mass* means quantity without quality assessment or veracity control. Mathilde Koskas proposes a [maybe] new role of responsibility for the librarian – role that she opposes precisely to that of the automated systems, where we still have to learn what kind of results they give or will give and what benefit they offer in terms of knowledge organisation.

Renate Behrens (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Germany) opened fire with a central issue: standards. Standards and their meaning in this new bibliographic framework. Behrens described the current library environments as challenging, because of the need for (still another) transition, as well as promising because of the role of librarians as mediators that guarantee participation in social development. Standards help on this objective by "putting the world of things in order", but as Behrens indicates "standards do not establish the order of the things themselves". Standards are crucial for those libraries that want to exchange information and share content, or for those that have a common goal that they want to advance on. Behrens reminds us of the importance of keeping the standards up to date, otherwise, they lose the aim for what they were created (and maybe even all the work behind them).

Standardisation was also the key aspect that Andrew MacEwan (British Library, UK) touched upon. He focused more on authority control and name identifiers. His presentation, about the International Standard Name Identifier, started by posing for discussion the huge amount of metadata models that libraries use today that, for sure, make life easier to many but that present a complex playground for the interconnection of knowledge. MacEwan did not see a big challenge though, due to the variety of metadata silos from where crosswalks are created, but he raised concerns about the quality of the metadata and the need to count on *this quality* at the beginning of the supply chain.

8

**Conference BC 2021**

**Josep Torn(a)**

a) European University Institute

**Contact:** Josep Torn<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
Bibliographic control; Metadata; Research data; Open access; Authority control; Research libraries; National libraries;

This article is a compendium of some of the presentations made during the BC2021 conference.

**ABSTRACT**

12782

**KEYWORDS**

Musicology collections; Artificial intelligence.

The International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) is an ISO standard that the British Library uses as a registration agency as a tool to unequivocally identify creators that can play different roles along with their creative career. But despite the fact that ISNI presents itself as a standard and it is precisely an ISO, Andrew MacEwan warned of important challenges in order to go further, such as to become a tool for the collaboration with LoC or to be adopted by all UK publishers.

The British Library was not the only national library to address the topic of music in relation to bibliographic control. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Germany) has one of the largest collections of music and musicology in the world, and Klaus Kempf explained how the application of the RDA in different specific cases has been implemented in the Bavaria National Library. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has brought the search of music documents to another level, with its project Melody Search; an optical music recognition search engine.

The Biblitoteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma (Italy), for its part, added solutions to working with digital materials, including also Open Access objects. The paper, by Fabio D'Orsogna and Giulio Palanga, was centred on the example of a final front end that uses form standards for description, but also the long path still pending to walk in collaboration with other libraries. It was a constant by the different national libraries that presented at BC2021 to do not only describe their internal procedures or methods, but to illustrate the results by using clear front-ends where professionals and users see the application of standards or models; which is more than welcomed.

Continuing with national libraries, Osma Souminen presented an example on how to bring bibliographic description to another level, combining artificial intelligence (AI) with manual text code used in classification. The National Library of Finland has created an Open Source solution, *Annif*, that has evolved into Finto AI. Finto AI integrates semi-automated subject indexing into metadata workflows, a tool that it is already used by libraries in Finland. Introducing automated subject or bibliographic description is not the sole objective of the Finnish. Also in Germany, Elisabeth Mödden (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) and her team have worked on the automated assignment of Dewey Decimal Classification numbers.

For Renate Behrens, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, collaboration continues to be crucial. National libraries do not only have the role in guiding libraries and librarians of their nations, but the commitment to seek collaborative solutions in relation to the use of standards, in that case those used in bibliographic description.

Collaboration – when applied to national libraries – means, precisely, internationalisation. Vincent Boulet, (Bibliothèque nationale de France) mentioned the need to define identifiers' policies, be them for international – again – or even local models. And still from the BNF, Françoise Leresche recalled the transition from ISBD and Unimarc to new models like LRM that IFLA has sponsored. The BNF is a provider of metadata for cataloguers beyond the walls of the national library and beyond the boundaries of France.

We also saw how national libraries are concerned about final services, for which they rely on bibliographic control to assure the quality of the information involved in services. Oddrun Pauline Ohren (Nasjonalbiblioteket – National Library of Norway) addressed the need for solid use of bibliographic control standards to be able to cover "every corner of Norway" with digital material, media podcasts or streaming events (among others), straddling – thus – the back office and the front office of library services.

Professionals from academic libraries addressed as many different issues as the national libraries'

ones. Tiziana Possemato (Università di Firenze) put together the Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC) with the semantic web. She advocates for a dialogue between systems in the form of the exchange of records that overcomes cultural, linguistic or geographical limits. Similarly, the University of Alberta Library, represented by Ian Bigelow and Abigail Sparling, presented the conversion of standards (RDA and MARC) to BIBFRAME as examples of collaborative innovations. There was also time for research datasets, not covered by any other speaker, Thomas Francis Bourke (European University Institute Library, Italy) explored how the bibliographic control function has been expanded to embrace research data in the social sciences and humanities. Bourke claims that data librarians need to work closer to research data management (RDM) units by using formal bibliographic control functions. The relation between wikidata and UBC was discussed by Lucia Sardo and Carlo Bianchini (Universities of Bologna and Pavia [Italy], respectively). Sardo and Bianchini offered a theoretical but also a practical approach, arguing that wikidata shows that we need to overcome the only approach of the national libraries to embrace more co-operative approaches.

Another crucial and interesting aspect addressed during this edition of the Conference on BC was multilingual collections and UBC by Pat Riva, from Concordia University Montréal (Canada). Institutions like Riva's, with users that represent a variety of native languages amongst their community, may find it difficult to search by using the library discovery tools in their own languages when the description of the objects has been solely made in one of the languages of the society in play (the predominant one). CUM has integrated some strategies by using linkages between authority files in English and French.

We have had red flags raised about the wrong or too limited use of metadata that librarians do. Richard Wallis warned us that, while many other actors in the information industry use metadata to make others aware of their resources, libraries tend to hide these metadata in the back-office. With this practice, we lose potential users and customers.

And as a final remark, and leaving some other interesting presentations unmentioned, as Michele Casalini (Casalini Libri) said talking about the future for an international audience, there is the need for connected services and automatic processes to help enrich the information we provide to our users. This challenge needs to be addressed not only with interoperability but with international cooperation.

10

Professionals from academic libraries addressed as many different issues as the national libraries'

The International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) is an ISO standard that the British Library uses as a registration agency as a tool to unequivocally identify creators that can play different roles along with their creative career. But despite the fact that ISNI presents itself as a standard and it is precisely an ISO, Andrew MacEwan warned of important challenges in order to go further, such

The British Library was not the only national library to address the topic of music in relation to bibliographic control. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Germany) has one of the largest collections of music and musicology in the world, and Klaus Kempf explained how the application of the RDA in different specific cases has been implemented in the Bavaria National Library. The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek has brought the search of music documents to another level, with its

The Biblitoteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma (Italy), for its part, added solutions to working with digital materials, including also Open Access objects. The paper, by Fabio D'Orsogna and Giulio Palanga, was centred on the example of a final front end that uses form standards for description, but also the long path still pending to walk in collaboration with other libraries. It was a constant by the different national libraries that presented at BC2021 to do not only describe their internal procedures or methods, but to illustrate the results by using clear front-ends where professionals

Continuing with national libraries, Osma Souminen presented an example on how to bring bibliographic description to another level, combining artificial intelligence (AI) with manual text code used in classification. The National Library of Finland has created an Open Source solution, *Annif*, that has evolved into Finto AI. Finto AI integrates semi-automated subject indexing into metadata workflows, a tool that it is already used by libraries in Finland. Introducing automated subject or bibliographic description is not the sole objective of the Finnish. Also in Germany, Elisabeth Mödden (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek) and her team have worked on the automated

For Renate Behrens, Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, collaboration continues to be crucial. National libraries do not only have the role in guiding libraries and librarians of their nations, but the commitment to seek collaborative solutions in relation to the use of standards, in that case those used

Collaboration – when applied to national libraries – means, precisely, internationalisation. Vincent Boulet, (Bibliothèque nationale de France) mentioned the need to define identifiers' policies, be them for international – again – or even local models. And still from the BNF, Françoise Leresche recalled the transition from ISBD and Unimarc to new models like LRM that IFLA has sponsored. The BNF is a provider of metadata for cataloguers beyond the walls of the national library

We also saw how national libraries are concerned about final services, for which they rely on bibliographic control to assure the quality of the information involved in services. Oddrun Pauline Ohren (Nasjonalbiblioteket – National Library of Norway) addressed the need for solid use of bibliographic control standards to be able to cover "every corner of Norway" with digital material, media podcasts or streaming events (among others), straddling – thus – the back office and the

and users see the application of standards or models; which is more than welcomed.

as to become a tool for the collaboration with LoC or to be adopted by all UK publishers.

project Melody Search; an optical music recognition search engine.

assignment of Dewey Decimal Classification numbers.

in bibliographic description.

and beyond the boundaries of France.

front office of library services.

# **Universal bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem: opportunities and challenges**

# **Mauro Guerrini(a)**

a) Università degli Studi di Firenze

**Contact:** Mauro Guerrini<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### **ABSTRACT**

12742

The idea of universal bibliographic control (UBC) has been of interest for centuries in the history of cataloguing and is based on the humanistic ideal of sharing recorded knowledge produced anywhere in the world. In the contemporary era, IFLA has played a central role, stimulating national bibliographic agencies and other institutions to promote standards and collaborations that go beyond the national sphere, leading to multicenter and even more cooperative bibliographic control. The tradition of cataloguing also grows and is enriched by the dialogue with different communities and users' groups. The free reuse of data can take place in contexts very different from the original ones, multiplying for all the opportunities for universal access and the production of new knowledge: the UBC, therefore, looks at interoperability and flexibility in the dialogue with the various communities of stakeholders and with the cultural institutions.

#### **KEYWORDS**

Universal Bibliographic Control; UBC; Cataloging.

Culture is the only asset of humanity that, when divided between us all, becomes greater rather than smaller.

Hans-Georg Gadamer

As a "non-commercial public space" (IFLA Global Vision) – not only in a literal sense – libraries play a fundamental role also in the digital ecosystem Conference BC2021

### **Bibliographic control: a central topic in LIS**

The idea of universal bibliographic control has been of interest for centuries in the history of cataloguing, and it is based on the humanistic ideal of sharing collective knowledge in every part of the world. It probably began with Conrad Gesner's *Bibliotheca Universalis* (1545–1549), the catalog of all printed books published up to that time in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Gesner called 'Universalis' his work, pursuing the goal of maximum bibliographic coverage in relation to the concrete literary reality of his time. His universal bibliography included a catalog for authors' names, and a catalog for general as well as specific subjects (*loci*). Gesner established the connotations of the scientific and literary heritage and established the characteristics of indexing logic using four categorical levels: author, work, text, and edition.1

In the contemporary era, IFLA has played a central role in the realm of Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC) by bringing together national bibliographic agencies and other institutions to promote standards and collaborations in this area. This also includes the work of promoting conferences and publishing texts and documents.2 From 1990 through the 1st of March 2003, the Deutsche Bibliothek hosted the IFLA Universal Bibliographic Control and International MARC Core Activity (UBCIM),3 demonstrating the direct connection between UBC and technologies. For years IFLA has edited "IFLA Series on Bibliographic Control". In particular, one book in that series entitled "National Bibliographies in the Digital Age: Guidance and New Directions", edited by Maja Žumer in 2009,4 continues to be a fundamental reference text. A statement reaffirming IFLA's commitment to UBC was endorsed by the Professional Committee in December 2012. Initiated by the Bibliography Section, that statement was also supported by the Cataloguing Section and the Classification and Indexing Section.5 The WLIC of Lyon in 2014, included in the programme a seminar entitled "Universal Bibliographic Control in the Digital Age: Golden Opportunity or Paradise Lost?"6 It was planned by the Cataloguing Section, with the Bibliography Section, the Classification Section, and the UNIMARC Strategic Programme.

12

**Universal bibliographic control**

**in the digital ecosystem:**

**opportunities and challenges**

**Mauro Guerrini(a)**

a) Università degli Studi di Firenze

**Contact:** Mauro Guerrini<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
The idea of universal bibliographic control (UBC) has been of interest for centuries in the history of cataloguing and is based on the humanistic ideal of sharing recorded knowledge produced anywhere in the world. In the contemporary era, IFLA has played a central role, stimulating national bibliographic agencies and other institutions to promote standards and collaborations that go beyond the national sphere, leading to multicenter and even more cooperative bibliographic control. The tradition of cataloguing also grows and is enriched by the dialogue with different communities and users' groups. The free reuse of data can take place in contexts very different from the original ones, multiplying for all the opportunities for universal access and the production of new knowledge: the UBC, therefore, looks at interoperability and flexibility in the

dialogue with the various communities of stakeholders and with the cultural institutions.

**ABSTRACT**

12742

**KEYWORDS**

Universal Bibliographic Control; UBC; Cataloging.

1 (Sabba 2012).

2 (Anderson 1974); (Davinson 1975).

3 https://archive.ifla.org/ubcim/.

4 (IFLA 2009).

5 https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/7468.

6 Monday, 18 August 2014; see Session 86, http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/817/.

Also, back in 2001, the Library of Congress organized the "Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium",7 celebrating a significant anniversary precisely with this theme. The Library of Congress established an independent Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control that published the report entitled "On the record" in 2008.8

As we can see from these recent events, bibliographic control is central to the history of cataloguing and to the history of libraries themselves.

The concept of Bibliographic Control has changed and still changing radically, because the bibliographic universe and technologies are radically changed; and resources, actors, standards, and practices will presumably change further. It necessary, therefore, to explore the new boundaries of bibliographic control, in fact, the digital ecosystem.

## **Text and metadata as paradigm of bibliographic control**

For centuries, a text (whether manuscript or printed) was identified by the physical volume. Today, 'work' is at the center, and increasingly its content can be presented and enjoyed in many forms. For example, a reader can choose between paper and e-books, based on his or her reading preferences. This content is now usually accompanied by a set of metadata. Metadata has become the protagonist of communication on the web; metadata is today the paradigm of bibliographic control. Some of the consequences are already evident. For example, the quality metadata of a resource contribute to its knowledge, enhancement, and success.9

The process of metadata creation for bibliographic resources starts with the creators of those resources – obviously providing the content –, and, in the modern era, usually providing the title, and some basic metadata; then, the publishers add their metadata, including some standard identifiers, an important step in the bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem. The process of metadata creation continues through the intellectual contribution of the cataloguers of the bibliographic agencies. Considerable is the initial investment in the creation of metadata based on authoritative sources.10

From the model of universal bibliographic control based on the centrality and exclusivity of the national bibliographic agencies, we are moving on to dynamic and shared bibliographic control. In the digital world, this is configured as a process of data reuse and enrichment, linking single data elements. In an evolving ecosystem, the international dimension is the virtual space where stakeholders meet. In this context, libraries, and in particular, the national libraries, no longer have the monopoly of bibliographic control. This poses an intellectual and operational challenge to library institutions. However, libraries, library networks and bibliographic agencies still play an important role, in particular, through strong collaborations among themselves, through their role as true protagonists of the standards of bibliographic control, standards flexible and at the same time binding and reliable. Still, libraries remain an essential part of the digital ecosystem.

7 Library of Congress, "Proceedings of the Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium" https://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/.

8 https://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/.

9 (Guatelli 2020).

10 As an added aspect, metadata can serve as an antidote to even fake news; cfr. (Bredemeier 2019, 384 and so on).

What are the consequences of digital transformation for library catalogues, and work processes in metadata creation? What is the function of repositioned and reconfigured catalogues on the web? Understanding how texts are conveyed today requires cultural awareness and professional training: this is the basis of the process of literary and conceptual analyzing the resource. These two aspects – awareness and training – should be common to the training of other actors involved in the process, who serve as mediators of the knowledge process.

# **Beyond tradition**

14

7 Library of Congress, "Proceedings of the Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium"

time binding and reliable. Still, libraries remain an essential part of the digital ecosystem.

10 As an added aspect, metadata can serve as an antidote to even fake news; cfr. (Bredemeier 2019, 384 and so on).

Also, back in 2001, the Library of Congress organized the "Conference on Bibliographic Control

Library of Congress established an independent Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic

As we can see from these recent events, bibliographic control is central to the history of catalogu-

The concept of Bibliographic Control has changed and still changing radically, because the bibliographic universe and technologies are radically changed; and resources, actors, standards, and practices will presumably change further. It necessary, therefore, to explore the new boundaries

For centuries, a text (whether manuscript or printed) was identified by the physical volume. Today, 'work' is at the center, and increasingly its content can be presented and enjoyed in many forms. For example, a reader can choose between paper and e-books, based on his or her reading preferences. This content is now usually accompanied by a set of metadata. Metadata has become the protagonist of communication on the web; metadata is today the paradigm of bibliographic control. Some of the consequences are already evident. For example, the quality metadata of a

The process of metadata creation for bibliographic resources starts with the creators of those resources – obviously providing the content –, and, in the modern era, usually providing the title, and some basic metadata; then, the publishers add their metadata, including some standard identifiers, an important step in the bibliographic control in the digital ecosystem. The process of metadata creation continues through the intellectual contribution of the cataloguers of the bibliographic agencies. Considerable is the initial investment in the creation of metadata based on

From the model of universal bibliographic control based on the centrality and exclusivity of the national bibliographic agencies, we are moving on to dynamic and shared bibliographic control. In the digital world, this is configured as a process of data reuse and enrichment, linking single data elements. In an evolving ecosystem, the international dimension is the virtual space where stakeholders meet. In this context, libraries, and in particular, the national libraries, no longer have the monopoly of bibliographic control. This poses an intellectual and operational challenge to library institutions. However, libraries, library networks and bibliographic agencies still play an important role, in particular, through strong collaborations among themselves, through their role as true protagonists of the standards of bibliographic control, standards flexible and at the same

Control that published the report entitled "On the record" in 2008.8

**Text and metadata as paradigm of bibliographic control**

resource contribute to its knowledge, enhancement, and success.9

celebrating a significant anniversary precisely with this theme. The

for the New Millennium",7

authoritative sources.10

https://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/. 8 https://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/.

9 (Guatelli 2020).

ing and to the history of libraries themselves.

of bibliographic control, in fact, the digital ecosystem.

The data models and the semantic web paradigm invite us to go beyond that aspect of the cataloging tradition that entrusted only the bibliographic agencies with the role of authoritative producers of quality registration. Data models and the semantic web paradigm invite us to go beyond the cataloging tradition. That tradition provided for homogeneous descriptions for all the libraries. The contemporary perspective foresees the participation of new and different actors. In addition to libraries and librarians, other institutions (publishers, distributors, private agencies, universities), and professionals (archivists, museum professionals) are contributing to the recording and enrichment of metadata and authority files. In those context, libraries still play the role of intermediary with the other major producers of metadata. The participation of several actors is very positive, and everyone is invited to find a new balance between their different methodological and cultural traditions to pursue a common goal: the cooperative editing of quality metadata, possibly in open access. The best cataloging tradition in the completely new collaborative context is therefore maintained and indeed enhanced.

Another consequence is that the relationship between libraries, publishers and distributors becomes more strategic, because the publishers are the first, after the creators themselves (in the modern era), who should create the metadata of a resource, and later, that metadata is enhanced by libraries for the part that concerns libraries. Libraries feel, with particular responsibility, the issue of the shared construction of quality data, by virtue of the principles of precision, accuracy, and social sharing of the cultural heritage that have characterized their history.

Bibliographic control today is, therefore, multicentric, and even more cooperative than in the past. National bibliographic agencies maintain and reinforce their role in quality control of metadata and authority control, through the maintenance of fundamental tools, such as VIAF (Virtual International Authority File) and through support of international identifiers such as ISBN (International Standard Book Number), ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) and ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier), that are part of broader international cooperation and authority control projects.

VIAF and ISNI are different projects: VIAF is an international collaboration that supports a shared authority file; ISNI is a name identifier and a system for recording those numbers that define it. VIAF, in particular, provides authoritative services that reliably identify agents, places etc., and the works associated with them in the global registered knowledge network. Its philosophy is inspired by promoting all cultural perspectives equally, including all languages and scripts, and simplifying the work of bibliographic agencies and libraries. Many libraries and bibliographic agencies collaborate in sustaining these authoritative resources for the benefit of users everywhere. The greater the accuracy of the data, the greater the benefits of using those authoritative sources. By aggregating and linking data, these sources for authority control can bring greater interoperability to the galleries, library, archival, and museum community (GLAM) as well as the publishing and book dealership industries.

### **The form of the name: conditioned by the cultural and linguistic context**

The choice of form of a name associated to an entity is always culturally founded, but the selection of the preferred form of a name is, in many cases, complex, and depends upon the cultural and linguistic context in which that name is used. In the past, the bibliographic traditions of the Western world were privileged, but now the global dimension of communication changes all parameters. In the global cultural environment (as opposed to a single library's catalogue), there has been the important acknowledgement that there is no single form of an author's name that must be used by everyone. The choice of the form of a name to be displayed is conditioned by the cultural and linguistic context within which the dataset for that name is placed. IFLA LRM recalls that a named entity can have different *nomen*, all valid (e.g., Léonard de Vinci in France and Leonardo da Vinci in Italy; Cicero in a specializing library in Latin literature and Cicerone in a public library). The goal is to overcome the geography and dominance of a cultural area, and to respect the cultural and linguistic traditions of each Country, and of each individual cultural community in the solutions adopted.

The mechanism of "reconciliation" of the different forms with which an entity is known and identified in a global context (for example, the creator of a work), brought together in a group of variant forms, all recognized, becomes the principle for new ways of sharing information. The entity reconciliation process produces a cluster: it is a grouping of the different variant forms referable to the same entity; this entity is known in various nomen in different cultural, linguistic, geographical, domain contexts; all valid, usable and actually used variants. Linking various identifiers is of strategic importance. In all entity identification projects that make use of the reconciliation (or clustering) mechanism, it is customary to assign an identification to the recognized entity; identifier that connects to other identifiers assigned to the same entity in different contexts, and all valid. The clustering mechanism starts from the assumption that all forms of a name used in the global context have equal dignity; there is no particular preference for one or the other form. The context of belonging (the source from which that variant form of the name comes) and the need for use (the target that recalls that name) define each time the choice of the form to be considered the preferred "conditioned" form of the name. This is motivated by the desire to enrich the dataset, and to offer the reader as many channels as possible to reach the goal; this is the pragmatic and functional purpose of being able to identify, select and obtain the resource. The identifiers allow both the explication of the equivalence function of the forms of the cluster and the connection of the cluster to other clusters relating to the same entity. The choice of the preferred form of the name, the structuring of the string (according to syntactic rules known in the past only to catalogers), lose importance in the face of the practical need to create multiple and equivalent retrieval channels for the same resource.In the context of Universal Bibliographic Control, there remains the need to offer a form as a result of a national or cultural or linguistic choice; this is also achieved through information presentation mechanisms linked to the cluster: the data on the "provenance" of the information (given on the source that produced the information) can be used in a double meaning:

Therefore, the cluster of variant forms is fundamental passage from Bibliographic Control intended as control of strings and access points to the more complex concept of entity identification, through different and variant identities with which it can be expressed. The choice of the form of the name and the linking of variants in clusters enhances the concept of universal bibliographic control that respects cultural variations for the display of names.

The tradition of cataloguing grows and enriches in dialogue with different communities and groups of users. The free reuse of data can take place in very different contexts from the original ones, multiplying for all the opportunities for universal access and for the production of new knowledge. The concept of cultural heritage values is a living idea.

The great changes brought on by the use of metadata have led to new perspectives on bibliographic control. UBC now contemplates interoperability and flexibility in dialogue with the various communities and with institutions of registered memory.

Who knows what the future will bring us? Perhaps, we are still at the beginning of the digital revolution. Precisely in the field of metadata and authority control, we could expect developments and surprises from alternative technologies on machine learning or artificial intelligence, a tool that promises to be very useful; a tool that takes nothing away from the cataloguer's judgment, which remains a fundamental intellectual activity.

16

The greater the accuracy of the data, the greater the benefits of using those authoritative sources. By aggregating and linking data, these sources for authority control can bring greater interoperability to the galleries, library, archival, and museum community (GLAM) as well as the publishing

**The form of the name: conditioned by the cultural and linguistic context**

The choice of form of a name associated to an entity is always culturally founded, but the selection of the preferred form of a name is, in many cases, complex, and depends upon the cultural and linguistic context in which that name is used. In the past, the bibliographic traditions of the Western world were privileged, but now the global dimension of communication changes all parameters. In the global cultural environment (as opposed to a single library's catalogue), there has been the important acknowledgement that there is no single form of an author's name that must be used by everyone. The choice of the form of a name to be displayed is conditioned by the cultural and linguistic context within which the dataset for that name is placed. IFLA LRM recalls that a named entity can have different *nomen*, all valid (e.g., Léonard de Vinci in France and Leonardo da Vinci in Italy; Cicero in a specializing library in Latin literature and Cicerone in a public library). The goal is to overcome the geography and dominance of a cultural area, and to respect the cultural and linguistic traditions of each Country, and of each individual cultural

The mechanism of "reconciliation" of the different forms with which an entity is known and identified in a global context (for example, the creator of a work), brought together in a group of variant forms, all recognized, becomes the principle for new ways of sharing information. The entity reconciliation process produces a cluster: it is a grouping of the different variant forms referable to the same entity; this entity is known in various nomen in different cultural, linguistic, geographical, domain contexts; all valid, usable and actually used variants. Linking various identifiers is of strategic importance. In all entity identification projects that make use of the reconciliation (or clustering) mechanism, it is customary to assign an identification to the recognized entity; identifier that connects to other identifiers assigned to the same entity in different contexts, and all valid. The clustering mechanism starts from the assumption that all forms of a name used in the global context have equal dignity; there is no particular preference for one or the other form. The context of belonging (the source from which that variant form of the name comes) and the need for use (the target that recalls that name) define each time the choice of the form to be considered the preferred "conditioned" form of the name. This is motivated by the desire to enrich the dataset, and to offer the reader as many channels as possible to reach the goal; this is the pragmatic and functional purpose of being able to identify, select and obtain the resource. The identifiers allow both the explication of the equivalence function of the forms of the cluster and the connection of the cluster to other clusters relating to the same entity. The choice of the preferred form of the name, the structuring of the string (according to syntactic rules known in the past only to catalogers), lose importance in the face of the practical need to create multiple and equivalent retrieval channels for the same resource.In the context of Universal Bibliographic Control, there remains the need to offer a form as a result of a national or cultural or linguistic choice; this is also achieved

and book dealership industries.

community in the solutions adopted.

## **References**

Anderson, Dorothy. 1974. *Universal Bibliographic Control: A long term policy, a plan for action*. Pullach/München: Verlag Dokumentation.

Bredemeier, Willi. 2019.  Grundlagen und Perspektiven. Angebote in der Lehre. An den Fronten der Informationswissenschaft*. Simon Verlag für Bibliothekswissen.

Davinson, Donald Edward. 1975. *Bibliographic Control*. London: C. Bingley.

Guatelli, Fulvio. 2020. «FUP Scientific Cloud e l'editoria fatta dagli studiosi». *Società e storia* 167. doi:10.3280/SS2020167008.

https://archive.ifla.org/ubcim/.

http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/817/.

https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/7468.

https://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/.

IFLA. 2009. *National Bibliographies in the Digital Age: Guidance and New Directions*. A cura di Maja Žumer. IFLA Series on Bibliographic Control 39. München: K.G. Saur.

Library of Congress, "Proceedings of the Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium" <https://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/>.

Sabba, Fiammetta. 2012. *La 'Bibliotheca Universalis' di Conrad Gesner, monumento della cultura europea*. Roma: Bulzoni.

# **Standards in a new bibliographic world**

### **Renate Behrens(a)**

12783

a) German National Library

**Contact:** Renate Behrens<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### **ABSTRACT**

Jointly developed and agreed standards are essential for description and exchange of data on cultural assets. We are at a turning point here. Standards with broad acceptance must move away from strict sets of rules and towards framework models. To meet this challenge, we need to fundamentally rethink the conception of standards.

Cultural institutions hold treasures and want to make them accessible to a wide range of interested parties. What was only possible on site not so long ago, now also takes place in virtual space and users worldwide can access the content. To make this possible, all resources must be provided with sufficient and sustainable metadata. Many sets of rules and standards can do this and aim to make the exchange of data as international and large-scale as possible.

But does this also apply to special materials? Is a lock of hair to be recorded in the same way as a book, or is an opera to be redorded in the same way as a globe? By now, it is clear to everyone involved that this is not the case. Far too much expertise is required for this, which is not available in the breadth of cataloguing. This is quite different in the special communities, where this expertise is available and many projects and working groups are working intensively on the relevant topics. In order to bundle these approaches and enable more effective cooperation, the colleagues must be networked and embedded in a suitable organisational structure. This is the only way to achieve results that are accepted by a broad range of users and at the same time are sustainable and reliable.

This article is intended as an introduction to a future discussion and does not aim to provide answers.

#### **KEYWORDS**

18

Anderson, Dorothy. 1974. *Universal Bibliographic Control: A long term policy, a plan for action*.

Bredemeier, Willi. 2019.  Grundlagen und Perspektiven. Angebote in der Lehre. An den Fronten der Informa-*

Guatelli, Fulvio. 2020. «FUP Scientific Cloud e l'editoria fatta dagli studiosi». *Società e storia* 167.

IFLA. 2009. *National Bibliographies in the Digital Age: Guidance and New Directions*. A cura di

Library of Congress, "Proceedings of the Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for

Sabba, Fiammetta. 2012. *La 'Bibliotheca Universalis' di Conrad Gesner, monumento della cultura*

**References**

Pullach/München: Verlag Dokumentation.

doi:10.3280/SS2020167008.

*europea*. Roma: Bulzoni.

https://archive.ifla.org/ubcim/.

http://library.ifla.org/id/eprint/817/.

https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/7468.

https://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/.

*tionswissenschaft*. Simon Verlag für Bibliothekswissen.

Davinson, Donald Edward. 1975. *Bibliographic Control*. London: C. Bingley.

Maja Žumer. IFLA Series on Bibliographic Control 39. München: K.G. Saur.

the New Millennium" <https://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/>.

Standards; Internationalization; Cataloguing; Special Resources; Objects; Collections; Cooperative Cataloguing; Data Exchange.

## **What is the new bibliographic world?**

The world of information and documentation institutions has changed dramatically in the past few years. Information must be made available both quickly and reliably. The speed at which information flows has increased exponentially, whereas the durability of the data has decreased considerably. The worlds of academia and research produce and distribute information in vast quantities and update it virtually in real time. New methods of production and distribution are capable of making this information available, reusing it, changing it and reintroducing it to the data cycle, all within a very short period of time.

The basis for this was and remains the technical innovations of recent decades, which made these processes feasible in the first place and whose effects have been so profound that they have also transformed society. In those areas of the world where democracy is established, all levels of society – regardless of sex, age or world-view – gained access to knowledge and information. Life-long learning and education became available to far more people and are now taken for granted by the younger generation.

At the same time, this achievement also necessitates more stringent quality control. Data can be altered, falsified and reintroduced into the information cycle with the same speed that they can be produced in the first place. So-called fake news has become an ignoble part of our global communication in recent years.

Every information and documentation institution must reinvent itself in this new environment. The traditional tools used in libraries, archives and museums are no longer sufficient to the task. These tools are no longer adequate for administering and controlling the global data streams with the desired quality or speed, and the large quantities of data can no longer be tackled with conventional means. It is essential to create synergies and intensify or establish international, interdisciplinary cooperation. To this end, it should be self-evident that the efficacy of the old, familiar tools and approaches must be re-examined.

### **What role can international standards play in this context?**

Standards provide the foundation for the generation and functional exchange of data. Even communities that seem to be highly independent will sooner or later reach a point where they require shared agreements and regulations in order to ensure the interchangeability of data and maintain a certain level of quality. Effective and contemporary standards can accelerate the editing and generation of data and increase efficiency in the further use of data. To achieve this, however, these standards must be updated continuously and adapted to the current circumstances. General standards that are adapted by the respective user communities to their specific needs can be of benefit in this context, but also require a large degree of initiative on the part of the respective community. Modular standards are easier to work with and more flexible in their application. In many instances, a minimum degree of consensus is all that is required to ensure the exchange of data. Special requirements can be added in dedicated modules, which in turn are then further developed by experts in the respective field. In light of the aforementioned developments, rigid frameworks that contain fixed rules and are heavily text-based have proved to be no longer fit for purpose.

In this context, authority data have become particularly significant. They are a tried-and-tested

tool in libraries and are labour-intensively administered there – within the Integrated Authority File (GND) in German-speaking countries, for example, or using the Library of Congress Authorities in Anglo-American countries – and, in some instances, collated within intraregional data such as the Virtual Authority File (VIAF). However, the importance of authority data has further increased as a result of increasingly interdisciplinary collaborations. Authority data e.g. for individuals and geographic entities are the smallest common denominators for the collaboration across different communities. Yet the altered circumstances have also resulted in fresh challenges. In addition to expanding the vocabulary, new concepts must be developed and a shared definition created for entities that have hitherto been imbued with different meanings and the subject of diverging interpretations. For example, the term "work" is interpreted differently in the world of archiving than it is in library-related contexts.

## **Who are the stakeholders in this new bibliographic world?**

As described in the preceding section, data-administering cultural institutions are an essential part of our society. This is nothing new; for centuries now, libraries, archives and museums have been responsible for the preservation and administration of our cultural heritage. Yet this task has long been regarded as an activity exclusively for the benefit of a select clientele. By contrast, modern cultural institutions regard themselves as habitats, sometimes to an extent that exceeds their legal mandate. New library and museum buildings around the world stand as testimony to this fact. Yet it is not just the external appearance of cultural institutions that has to adapt to these new circumstances, but also the products and services they provide. However, this adaptation must occur not only in line with the respective institution's own community, but also on an interdisciplinary basis.

Unlike 50 or 100 years ago, say, the updating and new development of standards in the sphere of information science requires the input of expertise from many different areas. Technical expertise is a given in this context; however, sociological and socially relevant aspects must also be factored in. If standards are to continue adhering to the International Cataloguing Principles (ICP)1 , then users' search habits and the reliability of the generated data must be included amongst the key criteria. Democratic methods for developing standards are also desired today, which generally increases the development period but also ensures considerably greater acceptance. Ideally, standards should already be considered from different perspectives in terms of their intended use, target audience and applicability before they are actually developed or updated. Especially when it comes to implementing theoretical concepts and models, attention must be paid to their practical relevance, and the expertise of colleagues working in user communities and educational institutions sought. Sensibly, global feedback phases are no longer a rarity, and an interdisciplinary perspective should become a matter of course.

Sound and practicable organisation is required in order to bring together these different players. In general, libraries have the requisite standardisation committees at their disposal and have gained lots of relevant experience over the decades. Examples of such collaborations will be described in the next section.

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In this context, authority data have become particularly significant. They are a tried-and-tested

**What is the new bibliographic world?**

data cycle, all within a very short period of time.

tools and approaches must be re-examined.

**What role can international standards play in this context?**

and are heavily text-based have proved to be no longer fit for purpose.

younger generation.

nication in recent years.

The world of information and documentation institutions has changed dramatically in the past few years. Information must be made available both quickly and reliably. The speed at which information flows has increased exponentially, whereas the durability of the data has decreased considerably. The worlds of academia and research produce and distribute information in vast quantities and update it virtually in real time. New methods of production and distribution are capable of making this information available, reusing it, changing it and reintroducing it to the

The basis for this was and remains the technical innovations of recent decades, which made these processes feasible in the first place and whose effects have been so profound that they have also transformed society. In those areas of the world where democracy is established, all levels of society – regardless of sex, age or world-view – gained access to knowledge and information. Life-long learning and education became available to far more people and are now taken for granted by the

At the same time, this achievement also necessitates more stringent quality control. Data can be altered, falsified and reintroduced into the information cycle with the same speed that they can be produced in the first place. So-called fake news has become an ignoble part of our global commu-

Every information and documentation institution must reinvent itself in this new environment. The traditional tools used in libraries, archives and museums are no longer sufficient to the task. These tools are no longer adequate for administering and controlling the global data streams with the desired quality or speed, and the large quantities of data can no longer be tackled with conventional means. It is essential to create synergies and intensify or establish international, interdisciplinary cooperation. To this end, it should be self-evident that the efficacy of the old, familiar

Standards provide the foundation for the generation and functional exchange of data. Even communities that seem to be highly independent will sooner or later reach a point where they require shared agreements and regulations in order to ensure the interchangeability of data and maintain a certain level of quality. Effective and contemporary standards can accelerate the editing and generation of data and increase efficiency in the further use of data. To achieve this, however, these standards must be updated continuously and adapted to the current circumstances. General standards that are adapted by the respective user communities to their specific needs can be of benefit in this context, but also require a large degree of initiative on the part of the respective community. Modular standards are easier to work with and more flexible in their application. In many instances, a minimum degree of consensus is all that is required to ensure the exchange of data. Special requirements can be added in dedicated modules, which in turn are then further developed by experts in the respective field. In light of the aforementioned developments, rigid frameworks that contain fixed rules

1 Cf. https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/11015.

### **What role do the user communities play?**

Due to changed circumstances, the user communities play a greater role in the development of standards than was previously the case. Flexible standards must be repeatedly analysed to ensure that they are up to date, and continuously amended. The assumption that the adoption of national or international standards could negate the need for any standardisation work of one's own has proved false. A comprehensive and international standard cannot meet the needs of the often very heterogeneous communities, but merely provide the basis for local and subject-specific adaptations. What is required is a group of experts in the areas of data generation, the further use of data by community members and technical parameters. This task is resource-intensive and expensive but can result in efficiency-savings when narrowing the broad scope of standards and their application. This is because the needs of, for example, those performing cataloguing work are known and can be taken into consideration when adapting the standards. In future, this task will require the establishment of a greater knowledge-base and expertise in the training of specialist staff.

### **Examples**

We will now provide three examples to further illustrate the requirements outline above. These are standards that originate from very different traditions and areas of application, and yet feature certain commonalities.

### **Rules on Cataloguing Authority Data in Archives and Libraries (RNAB)2**

This standard was first published in 1997 under the name "Rules on Cataloguing Autographs and Legacies" (RNA) and is used for these kinds of material by many archives and libraries. Since 2015, the standard has been painstakingly revised and was first published on the website of the German National Library in 2019. The organisation of this standard is regulated in a dedicated co-operation agreement between the Austrian National Library, the Swiss National Library, the Berlin State Library and the German National Library. The update was carried out by a thematic working group of the Committee for Library Standards3 and underwent a comprehensive assessment procedure performed by colleagues working in archives and libraries.

In terms of its content, the standard has predominantly been optimised for use in literary archives. Alongside the actual revision of the rules, the circumstances of the institutions using the standard have also been taken into consideration at every stage. Thus the RNAB have deliberately been kept brief, dispensing with any complicated theoretical models. This was done in awareness of the fact that many institutions wishing to process this material do not have staff trained in Library Science at their disposal and that the cataloguing work has to be performed by other employees in addition to their primary tasks. For practical reasons, the standard was published at a time when it was clear that it would shortly require further revision due to changes in the fundamental model.

2 Cf. https://www.dnb.de/EN/Professionell/Standardisierung/Standards/\_content/rnab\_akk.html.

3 Cf. https://wiki.dnb.de/display/STAC/AG+RNAB.

The feedback from the user communities has been uniformly positive and vindicates the practical approach of the RNAB.

### **3R Project for DACH Libraries**

The international Standard Resource Description and Access (RDA)4 was first introduced in German-speaking countries in 2014 for the cataloguing of authority data, and then for bibliographic data in 2015. Due to changes in the standard, a project for the necessary adaptations was set up in 2020. This so-called 3R Project for DACH Libraries implements the above-described community-centred approach to standards. By means of a cataloguing handbook as a web-based tool, the rules of the RDA are being prepared for the user communities in German-speaking countries and documented in a cataloguing handbook. This handbook will be composed of three sections: the descriptions of the elements, the descriptions based on resource types, and general instructions and assistance. As an end-product, it will provide the foundations for the practical cataloguing of data in the respective institutions, but also form the basis of staff training and induction. The provision of the handbook as a web tool opens up many options for subsequent use and for institutions to compile their own information and examples with links to the original RDA standard. The project is set to be completed by late 2022 and introduced within the institutions by training staff in the use of the revised standard. The DACH cataloguing handbook is being developed by the cataloguing expert group5 , a group of experts from library unions, public libraries and national and state libraries. The work has been commissioned and organised under the aegis of the Committee for Library Standards.6 Specialist materials such as art books, graphic materials and audio-visual media have been incorporated into this process. The thematic working groups of the Committee for Library Standards are responsible for this task and will participate in the resource-description work from late 2021 onwards. The new cataloguing handbook will be documented in a web-based tool modelled on Wikibase. The work is being carried out within the DNB as part of an in-house documentation project.

### **International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD)7**

Within the world of libraries, the ISBD is a very well-known and globally used standard issued by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).8 It was first published in 1971 and has been revised and expanded many times since then. The current version is the Consolidated Edition from 2011.

The ISBD seeks to provide a basic standard for as many different applications as possible in different environments and regions. Based on this fundamental principle, the aim is to make the exchange of data easy and effective. By using a dedicated system of symbols, data elements are labelled and made comprehensible internationally.

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**What role do the user communities play?**

**Examples**

certain commonalities.