Trond Aalberg

Evaluation of digital libraries

Digital libraries (DLs) are new and innovative information systems, under constant development and change, and therefore evaluation is of critical importance to ensure not only their correct evolution but also their acceptance by the user and application communities. The Evaluation activity of the DELOS Network of Excellence has performed a large-scale survey of current DL evaluation activities. This study has resulted in a description of the state of the art in the field, which is presented in this paper. The paper also proposes a new framework for the evaluation of DLs, as well as for recording, describing and analyzing the related research field. The framework includes a methodology for the classification of current evaluation procedures. The objective is to provide a set of flexible and adaptable guidelines for DL evaluation.

A process and tool for the conversion of MARC records to a normalized FRBR implementation

This paper presents a generic process and a tool for the conversion of MARC-based bibliographic records to the ER-based model of the Function Requirements for Bibliographic Records. The interpretation of a record, the construction of a new set of records and the final normalization needed, is decomposed into a series of steps that is implemented in the tool using XSL transformations. The purpose of the tool is to support researchers and developers who want to explore FRBR or develop solutions for using FRBR with existing MARC-based bibliographic catalogues.

The value of MARC data, or, challenges of frbrisation

Purpose – Bibliographic records should now be used in innovative end-user applications that enable users to learn about, discover and exploit available content, and this information should be interpreted and reused also beyond the library domain. New conceptual models such as FRBR offer the foundation for such developments. The main motivation for this research is to contribute to the adoption of the FRBR model in future bibliographic standards and systems, by analysing limitations in existing bibliographic information and looking for short- and long-term solutions that can improve the data quality in terms of expressing the FRBR model. Design/methodology/approach – MARC records in three collections (BIBSYS catalogue, Slovenian National Bibliography and BTJ catalogue) were first analysed by looking at statistics of field and subfield usage to determine common patterns that express FRBR. Based on this, different rules for interpreting the information were developed. Finally typical problems/errors found in...

A tool for converting from MARC to FRBR

The FRBR model is by many considered to be an important contribution to the next generation of bibliographic catalogues, but a major challenge for the library community is how to use this model on already existing MARC-based bibliographic catalogues. This problem requires a solution for the interpretation and conversion of MARC records, and a tool for this kind of conversion is developed as a part of the Norwegian BIBSYS FRBR project. The tool is based on a systematic approach to the interpretation and conversion process and is designed to be adaptable to the rules applied in different catalogues.

JExercise: a specification-based and test-driven exercise support plugin for Eclipse

Programming exercises are an important part of an introductory course in programming. To improve the focus on encapsulation, requirements-based testing and give better feedback given to the students during their work, we have created an Eclipse-based plugin called JExercise. Based on a model of an exercise, it presents the structure of requirements to the student and allows her to test the code by running accompanying JUnit tests.

Automatic Conversion from MARC to FRBR

Catalogs have for centuries been the main tool that enabled users to search for items in a library by author, title, or subject. A catalog can be interpreted as a set of bibliographic records, where each record acts as a surrogate for a publication. Every record describes a specific publication and contains the data that is used to create the indexes of search systems and the information that is presented to the user. Bibliographic records are often captured and exchanged by the use of the MARC format. Although there are numerous ”dialects” of the MARC format in use, they are usually crafted on the same basis and are interoperable with each other —to a certain extent. The data model of a MARC-based catalog, however, is ”[...] extremely non-normalized with excessive replication of data” [1]. For instance, a literary work that exists in numerous editions and translations is likely to yield a large result set because each edition or translation is represented by an individual record, that is unrelated to other records that describe the same work.

Coding FRBR-structured bibliographic information in MARC

The lack of support for the FRBR model in current bibliographic standards has been a major bottleneck for the implementation and use of this model in library databases. In this paper we present solutions for coding FRBR structures using MARC and show that it is possible to code even more complex FRBR structures within the current format. This solution promises a migration path for library systems without losing the compatibility with existing standards.

Presenting bibliographic families using information visualization: Evaluation of FRBR-based prototype and hierarchical visualizations

Since their beginnings, bibliographic information systems have been displaying results in the form of long, textual lists. With the development of new data models and computer technologies, the need for new approaches to present and interact with bibliographic data has slowly been maturing. To investigate how this could be accomplished, a prototype system, FrbrVis1, was designed to present work families within a bibliographic information system using information visualization. This paper reports on two user studies, a controlled and an observational experiment, that have been carried out to assess the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)‐based against an existing system as well as to test four different hierarchical visual layouts. The results clearly show that FrbrVis offers better performance and user experience compared to the baseline system. The differences between the four hierarchical visualizations (Indented tree, Radial tree, Circlepack, and Sunburst) were, on the other hand, not as pronounced, but the Indented tree and Sunburst design proved to be the most successful, both in performance as well as user perception. The paper therefore not only evaluates the application of a visual presentation of bibliographic work families, but also provides valuable results regarding the performance and user acceptance of individual hierarchical visualization techniques.

FrbrVis: an information visualization approach to presenting FRBR work families

Although FRBR is becoming an important player in the bibliographic world, we have not seen many discussions or examples of how FRBR-based entities or relationships could best be displayed, explored or interacted with within a user interface. The paper presents a FrbrVis prototype as one possible approach to presenting FRBR-based bibliographic data using hierarchical information visualization structures and looks into how FRBR concepts have been implemented into an interactive user interface display.

FRBR-ML: a FRBR-based framework for semantic interoperability

Metadata related to cultural items such as literature, music and movies is a valuable resource that is currently exploited in many applications and services based on semantic web technologies. A vast amount of such information has been created by memory institutions in the last decades using different standard or ad hoc schemas, and a main challenge is to make this legacy data accessible as reusable semantic data. On one hand, this is a syntactic problem that can be solved by translbrming to formats that are compatible with the tools and services used for semantic aware services. On the other hand, this is a semantic problem. Simply transforming from one format to another does not automatically enable semantic interoperability and legacy data often needs to be reinterpreted as well as transformed. The conceptual model in the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records, initially developed as a conceptual framework for library standards and systems, is a major step towards a shared semantic model of the products of artistic and intellectual endeavor of mankind. The model is generally accepted as sufficiently generic to serve as a conceptual framework for a broad range of cultural heritage metadata. Unfortunately, the existing large body of legacy data makes a transition to this model difficult. For instance, most bibliographic data is still only available in various MARC-based formats which is hard to render into reusable and meaningful semantic data. Making legacy bibliographic data accessible as semantic data is a complex problem that includes interpreting and transforming the information. In this article, we present our work on transforming and enhancing legacy bibliographic information into a representation where the structure and semantics of the FRBR model is explicit.