Transcript Geographic Coordinates in Authority Records Jimmie Lundgren, U of Florida Authority Control Interest Group January 2009

Geographic Coordinates
in Authority Records
Jimmie Lundgren, U of Florida
Authority Control Interest Group
January 2009
Authorities for Places
• SACO or NACO
– See Division of the World
• Current authority records
– Often include coordinates in note field only
Why am I here?
• To talk about a MARC innovation that I
believe in and want to promote
• To introduce the process of MARC
development
– Discussion papers
– Proposals
– Institutional support underlying MARC
MARC and the Monster Mask
• MARC has become a controversial topic
– It seems monstrously complex
– Creative minds want to start over
– The bibliographic universe is complex
– MARC grew in order to accommodate its
complexities
Once upon a time
• UF GIS expert & Digital Library Center
librarian complained about inadequacy of
retrieval of places
• Wanted to search using coordinates
– Coordinates appear in map records
• 255 field as note
• 034 field as data
– Alexandria Digital Library already did this
Why hadn’t this happened?
• Too few bibliographic records have
included geographic coordinates fields
• Coordinates have been based on map
coverage, not subject
• Prior to popularity of GPS (Global
Positioning Systems) in cars, etc. few
library users grasped usefulness of
geographic coordinates
What are Coordinates?
Coordinates are used to represent the
location of features on the surface of
the Earth and the coverage of maps,
etc., and coordinate place referencing
has been associated with resources that
have been treated by information
management systems whether textbased systems or GIS (Hill & Jane, p.
[1-2]).
Latitude is the angular distance north or
south of the equator expressed as
decimal degrees in the range: -90 at the
south pole, through the southern
hemisphere to 0 at the equator, through
the northern hemisphere to +90 at the
north pole
Longitude is the angular distance east
or west of the prime meridian at
Greenwich, UK -- expressed as decimal
degrees in the range: -180 at the
antipodes of Greenwich meridian,
through the eastern hemisphere to 0 at
Greenwich meridian, through the
western hemisphere to +180 at the
antipodes of Greenwich meridian again.
Libraries in a GIS world
“All while libraries attempt to shift to newly
created and shared G.I. systems that allow
the retrieval processes to increase usage,
access and information integration.”
• Jorge A. Gonzalez
Who uses geographic coordinates?
•
•
•
•
Everyone with a GPS-equipped vehicle
Everyone using Google-Earth
Everyone with a property deed
Anxious parents
What’s that got to do with libraries?
• More users now bring their GPS savvy to
their libraries
– Scholarly research
– Travel planning
– Family history research
Challenge
• How could we use power of geographic
coordinates for subject searching given
existing bibliographic records for library
holdings?
• Why not put coordinates data in the
authority records for place names already
included in those catalog records?
What made me think MARC could
be changed?
• I knew that Priscilla Caplan of the Florida
Center for Library Automation in my
hometown Gainesville, Fla. had proposed
addition of anchor text subfield for 856
field and that became accepted practice
“Paradigm shift”*
• Bibliographic records with places as
subjects could then be searched using
coordinates
• Not just maps but all kinds of library
materials through existing bibliographic
records with place subject headings.
*Jorge Gonzalez’s favorite term
Library catalogs
• Should be searchable by coordinates
• FRBR map of MARC fields to functions shows
034 should serve access function, yet few
systems able to do so
Places in the catalog
• 651 fields were found in 77% of book
format member records in MCDU study
• As of this week OCLC includes
125,012,234 records
• By connecting through authority records,
potentially all 651 fields could become
retrievable by coordinates data
So
• I thought we should include a data field in
authority records for coordinates and demand
that catalogs be programmed to use them for
access
• How to make it happen?
Talked about it
• To UF colleagues (Nov. 2003)
– Map Librarian Helen Armstrong
– Cataloger/geography student Jorge Gonzalez
– Permission to list UF as sponsor from Martha
Hruska, former Assoc. Dir. Tech. Serv.
• Mentioned idea at ALA meetings (2004)
– Map Cataloging Discussion Group
– Poster: Problems with Places, Orlando
• Wrote & rewrote drafts of proposal
Took Draft Proposal to Map
Cataloging Committee
• Helpful comments & co-sponsorship
• Revised draft and shared again
• Exact concept hard to convey
– Places are seldom points or rectangles, so
precision in correspondence between named
place and coordinates data is not feasible
• General support strong, but not complete
consensus on details
Time passed
• I hadn’t given up, but felt a little stuck
• Rebecca Guenther at LC offered to edit
the Discussion Paper (fall 2005)
• She got it on the agenda of the Jan. 2006
MARBI meeting (2006-DP01)
• Wow, thanks Rebecca!
Discussion Paper and MARBI
• Used concise handout with examples
• MAGERT’s MARBI representative Susan
Moore helped
• MARBI members quick & enthusiastic
• Good suggestions: go back and prepare
Proposal then come back
Proposal 2006-06
• Rebecca rewrote text
• I wrote examples
– Sara Gonzalez, (Geology Librarian & wife of
Astronomy Prof. at UF), helped
• Presentation “Where we are with
coordinates” at ALA 6/24/06 with Susan
Moore & Colleen Cahill
Proposal at MARBI meeting
• Map community support
– Larsgaard, Mangan, et al.
• Very smooth discussion
• Also subfield changes for Bibl.
– Distance from earth, beginning & ending
dates and name of extraterrestrial body
• ESRI contact interested
After MARBI Passage
• Institutional support of national libraries
late fall 2006
• Issued with next MARC 21 Updates
• May 2008 OCLC Tech. Bull. 255
– 034 field for authority format
– Changes to 034 for bibliographic format
– Bibliographic KW Index of subfield Z
Getting coordinates into the
authority records
• Colleen Cahill at LC Geography & Maps
has been gathering the data
• NACO partners agreed fall 2008
• Only NACO place authority records will be
done at first
Search capabilities in catalog
systems will be needed
• Contacted FCLA about coordinates search
for my catalog
– Was not told no
– Endeca being implemented with emphasis on
keyword and facets in SUL in Florida
• Met with Spatially-Interested UF Librarians
Dec. 2008 to discuss (scheme)
Still waiting
• Hoping LMS designers will provide
– Powerful retrieval options based on
coordinates
– User-friendly designs
MARC Development
• Website transparent
– Form provided
• Support of appropriate communities
significant
• Flexibility and persistence
• MARBI
Summary
• Geographic coordinates data are expected
to be loaded into name authority records
for places in near future
• These changes will not impact the form of
heading in the 151 field
• Please encourage systems developers to
help us take advantage of this change