I know I haven’t written much here lately…just got too busy to stop and write about things. I’m at the ALA Midwinter conference in Denver this week, so I thought I’d report on some of what I’m seeing and hearing.

One of the recurring themes centers around RDA(Resource Description and Access) and FRBR(Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records). RDA will govern how catalogers create bibliographic data in the digital age and FRBR is a conceptual model that could affect how end users view that data. RDA is going to replace the AACR2 cataloging rules (once the national libraries train their staff to use it and it trickles down to catalogers around the world), while FRBR is still getting off the ground as a conceptual model and very slowly turning up in library catalogs. FRBR promises to pull together different variations and formats of a work, organizing them so that the user searches for the “work” (author or title), then chooses the variation and format they want, eventually finding an item they can buy, borrow, or link to digitally. The goals of RDA and FRBR are to create globally reuseable metadata.

Closely tied to this theme is the emerging concept of “smart data” and artificial intelligence. We need to develop new ways of creating and using catalog data, now that the Internet is so prevalent in our lives. Mobile devices with GPS software enable us to find information in the context of where we’re located physically, such as pinpointing local restaurants. The challenge is for libraries to do the same thing with bibliographic data. Data needs to be created and packaged for sharing by software that can mine it and display it in a simple, yet meaningful way to the end user. In this scenario, all of the data is linked, both internally and externally out to other data when needed. Nova Spivak, Semantic Web pioneer, envisioned “smart data” that is independent of software programs and can move itself around the Internet, where intelligent agents become personal assistants for gathering  information on related topics. Spivak’s software, Twine, is his attempt to use the Semantic Web to link similar datasets to each other through nodes and links, because he believes “everything is just relationships.”

Pretty heady stuff for the first day. I balanced it out with some practical information-seeking behavior on a human-to-human platform in the exhibits. I spoke with staff from EBSCO, Gale Cengage Learning, Serials Solutions, and Innovative Interfaces about their federated search products. They all promise the same functionality, but prices and features vary greatly from one vendor’s product to the next. Serials Solutions staff will contact me after the conference with information on training that can help us optimize Webfeat, our current federated search software.

Time to for me to go to bed now, so I can dream of RDA, FRBR, linking, smart data, and artificial intelligence. Tomorrow’s agenda includes meals with vendors, an RFID interest group, LibraryThing’s Open Classification project, a committee meeting, and more exhibits.