[DCRM-L] CERL as an alternative for OCLC?

[JOHN LANCASTER]

The Powerpoints presented at the Conference A coordinated approach to recording and searching provenance records and images: moving forward
The Warburg Institute, London, 11 March 2015
 
A conference organised by Raphaële Mouren (Warburg Institute) and Cristina Dondi (CERL Secretary and Lincoln College, Oxford). Sponsored by IFLA RBSC, The Warburg Institute, CERL, 15cBOOKTRADE, CILIP RBSCG
 
are available on the CERL website at http://www.cerl.org/services/seminars/powerpoint_presentations_warburg
 
On Apr 14, 2015, at 1:42 PM, Jennifer Schaffner <jennifer.schaffner at gmail.com> wrote:

> Erin -
> 
> May I jump in here to plug CERL's thesaurus (http://thesaurus.cerl.org/)? I believe that the thesaurus does not require membership for research use, but 'm not sure about ties between membership and contribution. Also, CERL publishes its metadata as linked open data (http://www.cerl.org/resources/cerl_thesaurus/linkeddata).
> 
> I have recently been working on a project about scholarly research with library metadata (including digital scholarship). Along these lines, CERL's workshop on provenance last summer at the SHARP conference was brilliant. Rare materials catalogers internationally might already be following or participating in CERL's collaborative project to build out shared infrastructure for copy-specific metadata. 
> 
> I wonder if there are folks on this list who attended the provenance workshop at the Warburg last month? I, for one, would benefit from learning more about thoughts on the data model, interoperable and shareable metadata, and how scholars can contribute and improve the descriptions, as we all uncover new knowledge about our rare materials. (Please write me directly, so as not to clutter up this list.) 
> 
> The blurb for the Warburg workshop is still on the web at http://www.ifla.org/node/9206 (excerpt below).
> 
> Jennifer Schaffner
> 
> The theme of the meeting is "A coordinated approach to recording and searching provenance records and images: moving forward."  Organised by Raphaële Mouren and Cristina Dondi, the meeting will include discussion of the following topics: The historical framework: why are we gathering provenance data?; Why do we need to work together?; Metadata: an agreed model/structure; Interoperability;  A contributed model: scholars, libraries, and research institutions; What we have, what we need.  There will also be a business meeting of the IFLA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section.
> Sponsored by IFLA RBMS, The Warburg Institute, CERL, 15cBOOKTRADE, CILIP RBSCG.
> 
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2015 at 9:27 AM, Erin Blake <EBlake at folger.edu> wrote:
> 
> There already is an organization that has made great strides with rare materials bibliographic data and linked data: CERL (Consortium of European Research Libraries). Unfortunately, the Folger is not a member (yet!) so I can’t access the Heritage of the Printed Book Database (HPB) to find examples, but their other databases and thesauri are available online for free.
> 
>  
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> CERL hosted meetings in New York in January designed to persuade American research libraries to follow Yale’s example and join the consortium. Caroline Duroselle-Melish and I were there to represent the Folger, but I’m afraid I can’t remember exactly who all else was present.
> 
>  
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> RLIN libraries will remember being able to search the HPB when it was part of RLG (back then HPB stood for “Hand Press Book Database”). The difference between what has happened with the HPB data in the years since RLG disappeared, and what happened with RLIN data, is telling.
> 
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> CERL’s Material Evidence in Incunabula database (MEI) is a particularly good example: it pulls bibliographic data from the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue and allows copy-specific provenance evidence to be attached in time-specific chunks with links to thesauri. For example: http://incunabula.cerl.org/cgi-bin/record.pl?rid=il00023000 brings up the record for a book with multiple copies. Click on “more” for the Bodleian copy and you’ll see that it has three time-specific chunks of provenance information based on physical evidence:
> 
> 1.       An inscription and price on an endleaf let us know that it was in Bologna, owned by Christoph Scheurl, when it was new (late 16th century)
> 
> 2.       The binding lets us know that it was in Frankfurt-am-Main, owned by Georg Franz Burkhard Kloss, in the 18th century
> 
> 3.       Oxford shelfmarks let us know it’s been in Oxford, owned by the University, from 1834 or 5 to the present
> 
> All those places and owners are picked from drop-down menus of data in linked thesauri, and the dates are encoded. Other fields indicate levels of certainty about the data. The former owner’s authority record points back to books he owned. The time and geographic information can be linked to a map with a time-slider and you can watch the book move from Bologna to Frankfurt to Oxford.  
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>  
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> Speaking on my own, and not for my institution (where we’re still in shock) I’m much more inclined to devote cataloging efforts to CERL’s infrastructure, where copy-specific details are valued and machine-actionable, than to OCLC’s infrastructure, where they’re not.
> 
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> Erin.
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> ________
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> 
> Erin C. Blake, Ph.D.  |  Head of Collection Information Services  |  Folger Shakespeare Library  |  201 E. Capitol St. SE, Washington, DC, 20003  |  eblake at folger.edu  |  office tel. +1 202-675-0323  |  fax +1 202-675-0328  |  www.folger.edu
> 
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