The Library of Congress (LOC) has contracted with Zepheira, a semantic web development company, to accelerate the launch of its Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative (BFTI). A major goal of BFTI is to replace the MARC 21 exchange format with a new Linked Data model.
Zepheira is led by president Eric Miller, who previously led the Semantic Web Initiative for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and was a senior research scientist for OCLC and a co-founder of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative prior to founding the company.
“The Library of Congress has asked Zepheira to provide a model (or models) that can serve as a strong starting point for discussion, and an analysis of related initiatives underway that will be useful to this effort,” the LOC explained in a release on May 22. Afterward, LOC will seek feedback on the proposed model from the library community, making alterations and tweaks in response to that feedback, and ultimately creating a demonstration system. That demonstration system will, in turn, be used to further refine the model.
“The expectation is that such iterative feedback loops will eventually ensure a flexible bibliographic framework, a robust reference code, a supporting infrastructure for deployment, and an effective migration plan to support the community in making a transition from MARC to a new framework,” the release explains.
LOC is currently seeking participation in this process from a broad spectrum of information agencies, libraries, and library suppliers, and is organizing “various scenarios to enable community participation.” Information—especially information regarding projected milestones—will be posted as it emerges at the BFTI website.
Attendees at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA, can also hear more about LOC’s plan during the “LC Bibliographic Framework Transition Update Forum” featuring Eric Miller and LOC representatives on Sunday, June 24 from 10:30am to noon, at the Anaheim Marriott Grand Salon A-C.