This collaboratively edited knowledgebase provides a common source of data for Wikipedia, and everyone else.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2629489

Wikidata: a free collaborative knowledgebase

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(09)60948-X.pdf

Violence and injuries in South Africa: prioritising an agenda for prevention

Author(s): Borgman, Christine L. | Abstract: We return to arguments made 10 years ago (Borgman, 1986a) that online catalogs are difficult to use because their design does not incorporate sufficient understanding of searching behavior. The earlier article examined studies of information retrieval system searching for their implications for online catalog design; this article examines the implications of card catalog design for online catalogs. With this analysis, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of user behavior and to lay to rest the card catalog design model for online catalogs. We discuss the problems with query matching systems, which were designed for skilled search intermediaries rather than end-users, and the knowledge and skills they require in the information-seeking process, illustrated with examples of searching card and online catalogs. Searching requires conceptual knowledge of the information retrieval process—translating an information need into a searchable query; semantic knowledge of how to implement a query in a given system—the how and when to use system features; and technical skills in executing the query—basic computing skills and the syntax of entering queries as specific search statements. In the short term, we can help make online catalogs easier to use through improved training and documentation that is based on information-seeking behavior, with the caveat that good training is not a substitute for good system design. Our long term goal should be to design intuitive systems that require a minimum of instruction. Given the complexity of the information retrieval problem and the limited capabilities of today's systems, we are far from achieving that goal. If libraries are to provide primary information services for the networked world, they need to put research results on the information-seeking process into practice in designing the next generation of online public access information retrieval systems.

/pdf/why-are-online-catalogs-still-hard-to-use-3anszd1qo0.pdf

Why are online catalogs still hard to use

Author Name Disambiguation Neil R. Smalheiser and Vetle I. Torvik

Author name disambiguation

/pdf/international-federation-of-library-associations-and-4gycxtrgqi.pdf

International federation of library associations and institutions

In this report a taxonomy of bibliographic relationships is derived from an analysis of cataloging rules and types of bibliograpical items

A taxonomy of bibliographic relationships

SUMMARY This article discusses how various controlled vocabularies, classification schemes, and thesauri can serve as some of the building blocks of the Semantic Web. These vocabularies have been developed over the course of decades, and can be put to great use in the development of robust Web services and Semantic Web technologies. The article covers how initial collaboration between the Semantic Web, Library and Metadata communities are creating partnerships to complete work in this area. It then discusses some core principles of authority control before talking more specifically about subject and genre vocabularies and name authority. It is hoped that future systems for internationally shared authority data will link the world's authority data from trusted sources to benefit users worldwide. Finally, the article looks at how encoding and markup of vocabularies can help ensure compatibility with the current and future state of Semantic Web development and provides examples of how this work can help impr...

/pdf/library-of-congress-controlled-vocabularies-and-their-24zch5h42s.pdf

Library of Congress Controlled Vocabularies and Their Application to the Semantic Web

A pool of authority records for bibliographic entities (persons, corporate bodies, works/expressions, concepts objects, events, and places) to use on the Internet is of interest not only to libraries and their users but also to publishers, copyright and rights management organizations, museums, and archives. This paper will explore how this all might actually work. Authority control remains the most expensive part of cataloging, but through cooperative efforts like NACO, SACO, and IFLA initiatives, the research done in one library can be shared internationally to lower the cost. It has often been observed that the current Web is chaotic for finding information. It needs help and we can provide it! Introducing an element of authority control to the Web environment would help meet these objectives: • to facilitate the sharing of the workload to reduce cataloguing costs and our community has expanded, especially in Europe these days, where libraries are viewed with archives, museums, and rights management agencies as “memory institutions.” Shared authority information will reduce costs overall. Other objectives for authority control are • to simplify the creation and maintenance of authority records internationally and • to enable users to access information in the language, scripts, and form they prefer or that their local library provides for them. The virtues of authority control have been debated and restated for decades. When we apply authority control in the Web environment, we are reminded how it brings precision to searches, how the syndetic structure of references enables navigation and provides explanations for variations and inconsistencies, how the controlled forms of names and titles and subjects help collocate works in displays, how we can

/pdf/a-virtual-international-authority-file-qkqmo3l6og.pdf

A Virtual International Authority File.

Country report: Ethiopia

SUMMARY Authority control is necessary for meeting the catalog's objectives of enabling users to find the works of an author and to collocate all works of a person or corporate body. This article looks at the current state of authority control as compared to the visions of the 1979 LITA (Library Information and Technology Association) Institutes and the 1984 Authority Control Interest Group. It explores a new view of IFLA's Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC) and a future vision of a virtual international authority file as a building block for the Semantic Web, and reinforces the importance of authority control to improve the precision of searches of large databases or the Internet.

Barbara B. Tillett

Papers

A taxonomy of bibliographic relationships

Library of Congress Controlled Vocabularies and Their Application to the Semantic Web

A Virtual International Authority File.

Country report: Ethiopia

Authority Control: State of the Art and New Perspectives