BDSlife, Autumn 2022

BDSlife

The magazine from BDS for people who love libraries

WHY UNIVERSITIES CHOOSE BDS

INTERVIEWS WITH ACADEMIC LIBRARIES USING BDS METADATA

pages 7 - 11

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UNIVERSITIES CHOOSE BDS

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JENNY AT ROYAL LIBRARY

BDS SPONSORS HEROES

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BDS MAKES MOVIES

ALL INTEREST AT CONUL

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TIME TRAVEL TO ENLIGHTENMENT

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BDS WINS BIC AWARD

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BDS BACKS NAG AWARD

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DUBLIN WLIC REPORT

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ERIC TAKES THE CHAIR

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BDS AT FRANKFURT

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CATALOGUES & STANDARDS

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ISSUE 5 Autumn 2022 MARRIAGE MADE IN DUMFRIES

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Main cover imag:e Chelsea College of Arts

www.bdslive.com

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MORE TOP UNIVERSITIES CHOOSE BDS

Two more top universities have chosen BDS metadata to improve user experience and streamline workflows in their libraries.

The University of Sheffield, ranked number one in the world for library and information studies, and Aberystwyth University, voted top in England and Wales for student satisfaction, signed up to the BDS Academic Library Licence this Autumn.

“In signing up to BDS’ ALL we feel we are making an important step towards standardising our metadata workflows resulting in benefits that we can share with colleagues via other collaborative projects,” says Jonathan Davies, Resource Discovery Team Leader at Aberystwyth. “BDS responded to librarians’ initial concerns about limits to resharing as well as to hopes about ‘shelf-ready’ metadata workflows and now we are excited to give the licence a try!”

The adoption of metadata services from BDS by such prestigious institutions, including the University of Sheffield, a member of the Russell Group and RLUK, represents a ringing endorsement and follows other notable early adopters such as Imperial College London, University of the Arts London, Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Liverpool and The Times and Sunday Times University of the Year 2023, the University of Bath.

“We are now seeing a number of benefits,” says Chris Banks, Director of Library Service at Imperial College London. “These include value for money compared with our previous supplier, an integration with our shelf-ready service – something not available via our previous supplier, a better end user experience as shelf-ready stock can now be sent directly to the relevant campus library without first having to come to our Central Library for checking and onward distribution, and high-quality records.”

Gaining Momentum “Momentum is growing for the BDS ALL as universities are realising the benefits of adopting a service that meets the objectives of Plan M,” says Heather Sherman, Director of Academic Library Operations at BDS. “I am also delighted that our new customers are finding BDS’s responsiveness and renowned customer service to their benefit as they integrate BDS metadata into their workflows.”

Consistently applied standards and a single source record are at the heart of the BDS Academic Library Licence which also allows the sharing of records and intervention-free integration into a library’s LMS. Such streamlining enables cataloguers to concentrate on special collections and customisation which in turn improves end-user experience in the library environment.

Metadata as a Library Asset “As a small but dedicated team, we at Aberystwyth University have a vested interest in seeing Plan M – a new metadata marketplace – come to fruition,” adds Jonathan Davies. “We need to release our skilled metadata and acquisitions librarians from daily checks of metadata of varying standards and spend more time on thinking about our bibliographic metadata as a library asset that allows us to raise the profile of both our collections and our institutional brand.”

Find out more about BDS metadata for academic libraries at www.bdslive.com/libraries/academic-libraries/ or contact Heather Sherman on heather.sherman@bdslive.com, 07711 378 086.

For more information on Sheffield University Information School, visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/is.

For information on Aberystwyth University visit www.aber.ac.uk/en/.

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JENNY PRESENTS AT ROYAL LIBRARY The integration of ISNI into the BDS method for record creation was the topic for BDS Chief Metadata Officer, Jenny Wright at a two day conference titled Linked Data and International Standards for Cultural Heritage held at the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) in September 2022.

Metadata and standards professionals from libraries, publishers and agencies across Europe and North America attended the event. Its aim was to raise awareness and cement the importance of Linked Data and Standards internationally.

BDS is an ISNI Registration Agency (RAG). It integrates ISNI numbers into its metadata and assigns new ISNI numbers when necessary. It can then feed those numbers back into the metadata supply chain.

The International Standard Name Identifier or ISNI is a standard developed over the past 10 years. It aims to ensure clarity and certainty within the global supply chain around the millions of contributors to creative works and those active in their distribution.

It includes researchers, inventors, writers, artists, visual creators, performers, producers, publishers, and aggregators. Gaining increasing approval, it is now adopted in diverse countries and languages.

Linking to the Future ISNI offers an open standard, machine readable unique identifier that is linkable. This means that ISNI-enabled records can connect to the Web. “It is evident that ISNI is a useful identifier. It can do exactly as billed: bridge different domains and sectors, and therefore solve problems of interoperability between systems and practice,” says Jenny.

Her presentation was titled, Linking to the future: ISNIs in the UK Publisher and Library Metadata Systems. It began by looking at The BDS Method, a systematic and rigorous methodology employed by BDS to ensure accuracy and consistency in its record creation from ONIX input to MARC record. Then Jenny moved onto Name Authority files and demonstrated, via an example of a Belgian author, how an ISNI number is integrated into the record creation process.

“My talk shared how BDS is developing ways of using ISNI to improve efficiency,” adds Jenny. “BDS can assign ISNIs to a publishing house’s authors and provide it with existing ISNIs. These are just some among many advantageous services and options.”

Jenny’s presentation is available on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/L5-gqLYGc8c Find out more about ISNI at isni.org.

BDS: A SUPPLIER OF EXCELLENCE BDS has retained its BIC accreditation as a supplier of excellence.

The scope of the award covers BIC’s areas of interest and activity across the supply chain. This includes the provision of product metadata using ONIX through to the efficient management of returns and reporting of sales.

The scheme enables book industry organisations to demonstrate the efficiency of their supply chains for both physical and digital products. Thus, they gain recognition with trading partners and the book industry for business efficiency, customer service, environmental concern and innovation. It aims to reward companies for their investment in automation and innovative solutions to the supply chain issues they face.

“We are delighted to retain BIC SCEA accreditation. We have held it since the awards were first introduced,” says Keith Walters, Trade Data Manager at BDS. “Furthermore, today’s Awards reflect changing developments and environmental concerns around supply chain management. It is therefore particularly encouraging that the SCEA panel place BDS in the select few award winners.”

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ERIC TAKES THE CHAIR Eric Green, Managing Director, Digital at BDS, undertook his new role as Chairperson of the newly formed ISNI Book Publishing Consultation Group.

The Group comprises representatives from the global publishing sector. It includes publishers, system vendors, platform providers, trade associations and libraries. The British Library is also part of the group and working in close association with BDS and publishers to integrate ISNI into its records.

“I chaired an enthusiastic gathering of the Book Publishing Consultation Group,” says Eric. “As the ISNI standard gains traction both in the UK and internationally, the Group will play an important role in creating best practice guidelines and establishing crosssector links that will help promote the benefits of ISNIs to authors, publishers, imprints and the supply chain at large.”

Twenty-five representatives attended the meeting and among the topics discussed were Jenny Wright’s presentation at the Royal Library of Belgium (see article page 4). The next steps on progressing the ISNI standard were covered as were topics for future meetings.

Meetings will be held quarterly, with the next meeting to be held on the 14th December.

“Attaining a wide range of attendees at this meeting is vitally important to progress the ISNI standard. There is growing interest in ISNI worldwide,” says Eric. “I look forward to the next meeting and expanding the number of organisations represented on this Group over the coming months and years.”

If you would like to find out more about joining the ISNI Consultation Group, please email info@isni.org. For information about joining the ISNI International Agency to become an ISNI Member or Registration Agency, please visit isni.org/page/joining-isni.

BDS SPONSORS HEROES The annual British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE) Awards took place at the Camden Roundhouse on 6th October. BDS sponsored the Category Hero – Operations.

Category Heroes are recognised for their individual excellence, skill, commitment and dedication within their roles and teams. The award shines a spotlight on individuals and identifies their extraordinary capabilities as recognised by their peers.

The BDS sponsored section was busy with six people singled out: Adam Rothwell, Merchandise Manager, Entertainment at ASDA; Ben Stoddart, Business and Operations Manager, Video Publishing, DVD Department at the BFI; Fiona Ball, Head of Production, UK Home Entertainment, BBC Studios; Jo Harris, Head of Operations, Spirit Entertainment; Rosie Burbidge, Production Manager at Sony Pictures, and Ted Hodgson, Head of Supply Chain at BBC Studios.

“What a fantastic list of people committed to the keeping the operation of the home entertainment industry running efficiently,” said Barry Smith, Director of Sales at BDS, who was present on the

night. “BDS is proud to sponsor the recognition of their achievements.”

The BASE Awards, of which this was the 42nd, brings the UK home entertainment industry together in a celebration of the talent and creativity shown each year. The sector is worth £3.3bn to the UK economy.

BDS supplies metadata to BASE and many other retailers and etailers working in the High Street and online.

Big studio winners on the night were Warner Bros.

Discovery, Lionsgate UK, BBC Studios while marketing, packaging, distribution, innovation and retail were celebrated across 16 categories.

Find out more at https://base-awards.org

Category Heroes – Operations (left to right): Adam Rothwell, Ben Stoddart, Fiona Ball, Jo Harris, Rosie Burbidge, Ted Hodgson

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BDS MAKES MOVIES BDS has setup a YouTube channel to introduce, explain, entertain and support its customers and people interested in metadata and BDS services.

The channel started with a presentation that was recorded at a NAG seminar in May 2022.

Preserve and Distribute Knowledge Thanks to the generosity of NAG, the recording of the presentation was made available to BDS and the idea of a YouTube channel was born.

“We had to make a few adjustments to our web architecture,” says Chris Miller, Systems Analyst and Programmer at BDSDigital. “We wanted to embed video at relevant points of the website to aid visitors in their understanding of BDS products and services.”

The Potential of Video However, the potential uses of the channel soon became apparent.

“We were planning a recruitment drive and we wanted to show people that BDS was a great place to work, so we created a two-minute video about the BDS workplace environment,” says Lesley Whyte. “It not only sits at the top of our vacancies’ page (www.bdslive.com/job-vacancies) but we can also send links and promote it via social media.”

Another use was to broaden the expressive range of articles featured in BDS’s online magazine, BDSlife. A recent visit to Ireland’s first ever public library offered the chance to sequence as series of photographs into a brief film which allowed for much more visual content to be presented. You can view the video in Ireland’s First Public Library in this issue of BDSlife (www.bdslive.com/bdslife-online/irelands-firstpublic-library).

Both the recruitment video and the magazine feature can also be viewed through the YouTube channel, Bibliographic Data Services, www.youtube.com/channel/ UCgSJQj7qsVgNfUG5Ob9dP4w Plans are afoot to upload feature videos on members of staff, “how to” videos and more magazine features.

BDS BACKS NAG AWARD The winner receives a trophy, prize money and £100 is donated by NAG to a charity of the winner’s choice.

Previous winners have included Bradford Libraries, The University of Kent, Derbyshire Libraries and The Guildhall Library. Winners also benefit from a free seminar or conference place where the NAG Award will be presented, and the winner will present at the following year’s event to share their work.

BDS is sponsoring this year’s National Acquisitions Group Award for Excellence.

Last year the award went to Helen Hall, Inter Library Loan Principal Library Assistant in the Acquisitions and Document Delivery Department at the University of Liverpool. Her work introduced a new subscription model that challenged the traditional transactional form of interlending.

The award, introduced in 2011, promotes innovation and original thinking in the field of library acquisitions. It is open to individual or team entries.

Nominations for the 2022 Award closed on the 10th October and the winner will be announced in due course.

“BDS is delighted to sponsor the award this year and we hope, for years to come,” says Lesley Whyte.

“Excellence, original thinking and innovation are features that have made BDS successful, so we look forward to learning more about the projects that are supporting such work in libraries.”

Find out more about the National Acquisitions Group at www.nag.org.uk.

Find out more about the NAG Award for Excellence, including past winners at https://nag.org.uk/nagaward-for-excellence.

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BDS AT THE FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR Representatives of BDS attended the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time since the pandemic struck in 2020. Managing Director, Lesley Whyte, and Managing Director, Digital, Eric Green met with customers and book fair delegates interested in BDS metadata on the 19th and 20th October.

company back in the mid 1990s, and we have been coming back ever since.”

Frankfurt is the world’s largest and most important book fair and has held a central place in the publishing industry since the Middle Ages and the introduction of print.

If you would like to meet and discuss the provision of UK English language publication metadata with BDS write to sales@bdslive.com or call +44 (0)1387 702 251.

The annual event returned to something like normality after two years troubled by lockdowns and travel restrictions. The U.S. publishing industry was back on the international scene in strength.

According to sources 93,000 trade visitors attended the fair.This is an increase from 36,000 in 2021. Total attendees including the public over the weekend were 180,000. This is still half the number of recorded attendees compared with 2019, when the organisers reported 302,267 total visitors.

This year’s fair also saw a personal address from Ukraine’s President Zelensky and a strong representation from the Ukrainian book industry.

“Frankfurt holds a special place in the BDS calendar,” say Eric Green, Managing Director, Digital at BDS. “It was our very first book fair when we established the

ALL GENERATES INTEREST AT CONUL BDS already supplies metadata to every Irish public library and its offering of metadata to the academic sector is built upon nearly thirty years of experience in the field of metadata aggregation, curation and supply.

A process of significant investment in resources and relationships with academic publishers in order to create a service that met the expressed requirements of Plan M is now bearing fruit.

BDS metadata delivered via the BDS Academic Library Licence generated great interest when introduced at the CONUL conference. The event took place in Limerick, Ireland earlier this year.

The Consortium of National and University Libraries (CONUL) includes university libraries in Ireland and Northern Ireland. BDS was represented by Heather Sherman, Director of Academic Library Operations, and Director of Library Sales, Sarah Armitage. Heather gave a short presentation on streamlining metadata workflows.

“CONUL presented a great opportunity to introduce Ireland’s university libraries to BDS metadata supply,” says Heather. “Sarah and I really enjoyed the event, seeing Limerick and meeting conference delegates.

Many librarians approached us and expressed interest in working with BDS. “As more universities join the Academic Library Licence club, the benefits for all members grows,” explains Heather. “It’s about shared knowledge, shared resources and shared experience, underpinned by the consistency and accuracy of BDS records.”

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“I feel sure that BDS has an important role to play in the future of metadata provision to Ireland’s universities and we will be following up on interest and enquiries in the coming months, and returning to CONUL next year,” concludes Heather.

To find out more about the BDS Academic Library Licence, contact Heather Sherman on heather.sherman@bdslive.com.

WHY UNIVERSITIES CHOOSE BDS ACADEMIC LIBRARIES USING BDS METADATA Universities libraries of all types and specialisms are benefitting from using BDS metadata via BDS’s Academic Library Licence.

The BDS service enables libraries to streamline workflows and free up expert staff to focus on discoverability of special collections and DEI initiatives.

BDS designed the new service to meet the expressed aim of Plan M, produced by Jisc in consultation with end-users of library metadata.

BDS went to talk with two early adopters of BDS’s new service to find out how a year of using BDS metadata has worked for them.

“We’re primarily STEM so it’s a specialist library. We don’t have all the arts and humanities and social sciences collections that you might find elsewhere.” – Andrew Knight.

Imperial College London focuses on the disciplines of science, engineering, medicine and business and is home to 17,000 students and 8,000 staff from more than 125 countries. It awards over 6,700 degrees every year and members of the College have included 14 Nobel laureates. It has one central library and six smaller libraries at other campuses with 180,000 print stock items, 140,000 e-journals, 300,000 ebooks and 6000 online databases.

www.arts.ac.uk

www.imperial.ac.uk

Some 20,000 students at University of the Arts London study at six colleges: Camberwell College of Arts, Central Saint Martins, Chelsea College of Arts, London College of Communication, London College of Fashion, Wimbledon College of Arts, and four institutes. Academic staff, students and visitors can use any of the six college libraries which hold 500,000 books, 25,000 ebooks, 55,000 serial titles, and 160 databases, alongside archives and special collections. The university relies heavily on printed material due to the nature of the subjects studied.

“You’ll often find students sitting on the floor surrounded by books looking for inspiration for their creative practice. And that’s lovely to see.” – Karen Carden.

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THE ART OF DISCOVERY AN INTERVIEW WITH KAREN CARDEN RESOURCES & SYSTEMS MANAGER, LIBRARY SERVICES, UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS LONDON Can you tell us something about your collection and the metadata you use?

For me, a library is all about discovery.

How you discover what is in your collection has got to be intuitive and good. Everything’s about discovery for libraries, everything we do.

Our colleges share a catalogue. We have a centralised team that manages this whole area, which reports to me, but we don’t classify everything exactly the same because each college has a slightly different focus. Most of our books are in a very narrow range of 700s in the Dewey Decimal Classification scheme. And so, it’s better for them to adopt slightly Six colleges form University of the Arts different classification, which is why we provide classification to suppliers rather than asking them to provide classification for us, so that the browsability is better on the shelves for our students. But we are buying in all that metadata. Now, it’s mostly done centrally using BDS as our metadata supplier.

If you’re buying in records from lots of different places, inconsistency will creep in. And if it’s all about discovery, which it definitely is, then consistency is right at the centre of that.

Looking at the critique of the metadata environment prior to the current initiatives directed towards improving the situation, were you getting a variable set of records?

We were big Dawson customers before Dawson folded and we would buy catalogue records from them and they were of decent enough quality. But being a specialist art and design institution, we can’t buy all our books from one single supplier. We buy our books from multiple suppliers including from individuals. We buy strange and wonderful things like zines*. We have large zine collections in some of our colleges. We buy a lot of special things. We’re often the first people to catalogue something. We buy a lot of things like exhibition catalogues. So, we are off-piste quite a lot. Obviously, the bulk of our material is brought from main, consortia framework suppliers. Previously, we would purchase records from our suppliers and they were good enough. But the more relationships you have with suppliers of content, the more variability creeps into the quality of the metadata you’re purchasing.

The main reason why Siu-Ying Yip our acquisitions and metadata librarian was interested in using BDS metadata through the Academic Library Licence was to try and bring as much as possible of that under one supply source, so that we only have to do one set of customisations and we know the quality and reliability of that source.

The real pain point for most librarians is that ebook records have been poor up until now and particularly variable across suppliers. So, to have a source of good quality, customisable records from BDS is a really big thing.

Did you have a wish list when you decided to become an early adopter using BDS metadata in your library?

Yes. The release of cataloguing resources for more specialist material, a reduction in the number of places we have to go to for metadata, and a reduction in conversations with suppliers, obtaining consistent, good quality metadata which will reduce the amount of editing and batch updating we do and, where customisations are required, only having to have that conversation once rather than multiple times with variable results. Finally, we hope to achieve efficiencies and integration with our LMS. We employ an OpenSource library management system, so we take a different path from many other libraries, so that is still work in progress.

The BDS philosophy is to supply the bulk of a library’s requirements, and thus free up institutions to do the rest for themselves. Is that working?

That was one of our original aims. *A zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine.

Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very small group and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation.

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Has it freed up time?

Yes. It’s only just happening. The pandemic didn’t help. But if you’re an early adopter you expect implementation and adaptation to take time. One of the biggest aims for me, as a manager, was to free up expert cataloguers to catalogue special collections. Delivery of the bulk of our metadata that is consistent and being integrated readily means they can devote more time to these collections.

I think it’s a little bit early to say definitively that it’s going to free them up permanently to do this expert work but I think it will. That’s certainly the plan. I’m really looking forward to that because that’s what they should be doing in an age of specialisms.

Do you think cataloguers were worried about the idea of something coming in that saves time and resources, or do you think they’re welcoming it?

I think they’re welcoming it, certainly within our institution, because we have all this other stuff that they should now have time to pay attention to.

Have you realised any other benefits from using BDS metadata?

There are so many elements involved in this process. There’s our library management system. There’s BDS’s metadata. There’s ProQuest as well. And it’s about all those people talking to each other in a meaningful way, which has progressed very successfully. I think most of the issues have been around communication and most have been solved.

It’s certainly not costing us much more, if at all. Previously we would be paying for records as received, now we pay a yearly fee and the payback will be in the consistency of the records and the reduction in the number of places we have to go to get stuff. If you can get back to the original record, as you do with BDS, then you’ve got a sound record.

However, the main benefit for us, I would say, is related to workflow. Our previous problems resulted from dealing with multiple players. It may be different for other libraries but for us, it’s about smoothing out those workflows and BDS is enabling us to do that. We’re receiving records ahead of publication that we know are accurate and consistent and that slot into our workflow.

I remember Siu-Ying drew up an ideal workflow long before BDS offered its Academic Library Licence. With the help of Ray Delahunty and supported by Paul Mellinger, colleagues did all the very hard work of making the integrations between BDS, PTFS (Koha) and ProQuest happen. We believe her dream is becoming reality.

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A STREAMLINED APPROACH AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW KNIGHT, ACQUISITIONS AND CONTENT SERVICES MANAGER & JENNIFER MAY, METADATA SERVICES CO-ORDINATOR AT IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON Being a world-famous research institution, how does your library keep up to date with the latest developments in STEM subjects?

We have a very targeted collections policy for both researchers and undergraduates, and we are lucky to be reasonably well-funded. Our spend is something like 96 to 97% electronic, primarily because of the big science journals we subscribe to. We have six campus libraries, five of which are also used by NHS staff who are heavy users of printed material, probably because they have limited access to resources which are authenticated for College students. So we try and cater for everyone but that’s something we’re looking at in the future, namely, how to get our NHS users better integrated with our collection.

The impact on metadata is that a lot of our electronic resources are now bundled up in packages and the metadata is not always that great. I think, certainly pre-BDS, a lot of people in this sector would say that ebook records were patchy at best, because they were coming from different sources and there wasn’t much in the way of standardisation.

At Imperial College we’re very standardised. I think other, more traditional universities often have bespoke classifications and specifications for things like their Law library, their English library, or their Drama library, which can make things complicated. Whereas at Imperial we’ve tried over the years to standardise our collections as much as possible. We get everything shelf-ready with one standard classification, and the book records are uniform.

Before working with BDS, how did you find the quality of the metadata you were using?

Unpredictable. We got most of our metadata shelf-ready from suppliers so we would generally assume it was okay. We knew it wasn’t absolutely perfect, but we didn’t have the capacity at Central Library to check every single record. And Post-Covid we now get books sent directly to campuses who do not have cataloguing staff, so having a single source for metadata that we can trust, such as we now have with BDS, is even more important.

The Queen’s Tower at Imperial College London

It’s difficult and time-consuming to check something after the fact. What you want is high-quality metadata in place before you get the material – the quality assurance is at the beginning of the process so you know the records you are ingesting are not going to be problematic, and won’t need checking or editing.

Would you say that working with BDS is transforming your workflow?

It’s certainly helped move some activities into our pre-existing workflow. Streamlining the metadata workflow was the central feature of what we wanted to do by working with BDS: to improve quality and achieve consistency, to broaden coverage and streamline via automation. BDS records are of consistently high quality, so we do not need to check or amend them; and they supply 90% of our metadata, so we easily have the capacity to catalogue any remaining titles in-house. And if that 90% figure increases over time, this could help the whole sector, not just Imperial.

Introducing BDS at this stage was helpful because we were looking for minimum intervention by our team. So it’s great that the material which is coming directly to the library has metadata associated with it which is already quality assured. It is imperative for us, really, with the scale of our operation in Central Library and across our campuses.

You referred to the whole sector. Do you see single source metadata provision as the way forward?

We’ve been talking about this for years and years, about how pretty much all institutions want the same thing.

The whole idea of metadata is to have a single point of information. It makes no sense to have 200 different versions of a record which are all slightly different and of variable quality. So, until a kind of sector-wide communal effort emerges where we get together and we try to standardise together, having someone with a good reputation who has been doing it for years seems an obvious solution.

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So far, has it been worth the investment?

Yes. It is costing roughly the same per record as before, but the records are better and the quality is guaranteed. BDS is the industry standard, just like you have in every other industry. And from a user point of view, it always comes down to the same thing: is it easy to find? If we haven’t achieved discoverability, it’s pointless buying the resource, especially with online material. And we’re making life more difficult for users to find something if we have non-standard metadata.

We have to think about that all the time. So, even if we did have to spend a bit more money doing it, it’d be worth the investment. Because if we’ve got 100,000 books in a catalogue and users can’t find half of them, it’s money and effort completely wasted.

Of course, there are things we will buy that might never be used, just because that’s the nature of libraries.

But our job as an acquisitions team is to make sure that we give them as good a chance as possible. A key part of that, especially with the electronic material and especially now all catalogues are online, is its visibility.

How good is its record? How discoverable is it? If you do a keyword search, will you get the right results?

This is key to us and it’s one of the main reasons we wanted to tackle it with BDS. Were there many teething troubles getting BDS metadata and delivery into your workflow?

We normally have to do a bit of engineering with a new product, to figure it out: you know: “it’s designed to do this and we want it to do that.” That process helps you see where it already works and where there’s probably going to be a couple of things that need tweaking. That is completely normal for any kind of library systems modification.

And I suppose we’re reasonably lucky here at Imperial that we have the resources to do that, and we like working with people and developing things. And although I’ve said we’re generally very standardised but we do sometimes have some slightly odd things that we do in terms of workflow. So, it’s about squaring all of that, getting it to work, putting the time and the effort into doing it.

But we are now at a stage where we are happy with the product, and it is working for us in the ways we’d hoped.

Finally, have there been any unexpected benefits from working with BDS? One of the successful things that came out of this project was our working relationship with BDS, particularly with Heather (Sherman). We spoke to her a lot. BDS has been really responsive to our requests for things that we’d like. That has been really helpful. But there’s not really been anything unexpected because we’ve been able to tailor the product to some degree. We spent a lot of time talking. We would ask for something and if it didn’t work, we’d go back to BDS via Heather, and she was really good with the development team interpreting what we were asking.

It sounds like a good working relationship.

We’re in it for the long-haul.

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TIME TRAVEL TO ENLIGHTENMENT

It is Ireland’s first public library, it has captivated great Irish authors, including Jonathan Swift, Charles Robert Maturin, Bram Stoker, and James Joyce, it was built by a man named Narcissus, and it remains virtually unchanged in content and appearance since it was completed in the early 1700s.

It is called Marsh’s Library and it houses 25,000 books and 300 manuscripts. Topics reflect the intellectual passions of the late Renaissance and Enlightenment with the added, eccentric twist of the men who contributed their collections to be shelved in the quarter-planed German oak bookcases.

Theology, chemistry, nearEastern languages, natural philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, medicine and more are organised into three sections, reflecting the library’s four major collections. Each section is then divided into topics and shelved according to size, the larger the book, the lower the shelf.

The Most Reverend Narccissus Marsh

The Most Reverend Narcissus Marsh (1638-1713), Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, a former Provost of Trinity College, was a product of the Enlightenment. He planned his library with zeal and significant personal investment. Not only did he bequeath his own collection of books, he also purchased, for £2,500, the collection of Bishop Edward Stillingfleet, comprising over 10,000 volumes and regarded as one of the finest in England.

Stearne, Bishop of Clogher, bequeathed his collection in 1745, the final significant addition to the library.

Marsh’s Library is a colourful treasure among Dublin’s many literary gems. But why build this remarkable and unusual library only a short walk away from Trinity College Dublin and its famous library?

Significantly, Marsh’s Library predates the building of Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room by several years and, Narcissus Marsh, some say, held the Trinity College collection in poor regard. A former Provost would know; maybe he had fought for improvements at Trinity and failed to get backing. Whatever, Marsh dedicated land attached to his own Archbishop’s Palace along with a small plot granted from St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1701, and building began in 1703. The library was formally established by an Act of the Irish Parliament in 1707, and a second gallery was added in 1708 or 1709, three years before Trinity’s Long Room was even begun.

A Public Library Today, Marsh’s Library is open to the public; it is also a tourist attraction, visited by people from around the world who wish to live and breathe a real, early eighteenth-century library. 23,000 made the pilgrimage in 2015, according to figures. However, the claim that it is Ireland’s first public library must be put into context.

Public meant Protestant, male, and carrying a letter of recommendation from a tutor at Trinity College.

A member of the public couldn’t simply walk in and borrow a book, nor take one from the shelf unannounced and stroll into the reading room. Books, for most of history, have been valuable, fragile and rare.

This rather strict picture is somewhat mollified by a visitor register which began in 1826. Women are listed and, apparently, they were sometimes unaccompanied by men!

The first Head Librarian or Keeper, as he was called, was a French Huguenot exile from La Rochelle, named Elie Bouhéreau (1643–1719), divine and medic, ‘an ingenious and well-learned man’ who added his personal library and a collection of prescriptions. John James Joyce’s signature in Marsh’s Library register on 23rd October 1902

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Inspiring Writers Over its more than 300 years, the library has attracted some remarkable visitors and researchers. In 1902, a young James Joyce sought out the apocalyptic writings of a medieval monk named Joachim of Fiore. Joyce mentions Marsh’s Library in both Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake as well as in his early work, Stephen Hero.

“During his wanderings Stephen came on an old library in the midst of those sluttish streets which are called old Dublin. The library had been founded by Archbishop Marsh and though it was open to the public few people seemed aware of its existence.”

Another well-known figure, who was certainly aware of the library’s existence, was Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. Stoker’s visits as a young man are particularly interesting for, at the time and due to thefts, the library had instigated a system listing all the books that were consulted.

In 1825, a year after Maturin’s death, Sir Walter Scott, a friend and correspondent, visited the library and found “a desk of rather rude workmanship” that Maturin had constructed “with his own hands” and which he would move from place to place around the library as it suited his reading and writing.

Bullet Holes The most modern feature in the library, apart from the WiFi access points, is bullet holes. These remain as a witness to the Easter Rising of 1916 when Thomas MacDonagh seized Jacob’s biscuit factory 200 yards away. A machine gun belonging to British forces strafed the area and bullets whizzed around the usually silent bookshelves. Most of the books damaged in the assault had belonged to Élie Bouhéreau, the first librarian and no stranger to social upheaval in his day.

Stoker had a penchant for populist pamphlets of the 17th century, especially those of sectarian polemic, witchcraft, burnings, astrology and the “vile acts” of the Jesuits, as Protestant pamphleteers branded them. He also consulted maps and travel writing on the borderlands between Christendom and Islam in Europe, notably Transylvania and Wallachia.

Ghosts and Gothic Horror

Marsh’s Library is a remarkable survivor, an institution that doesn’t flaunt frescoes, plaster putti and marble colonnades intent upon making us marvel at the riches of princes and emperors. It stands as a humble and fascinating endeavour built at the dawn of a new era when the human mind became a tool to unlock the mysteries of the universe through building knowledge and reasoned enquiry.

The two library galleries, the second at right angles to the first, offer contrasting environments, the newer gallery feeling considerably chillier due to it northerly aspect. This may account for the many stories of haunting. The ghost of Archbishop Marsh reportedly rummages through the bookcases of his own creation after midnight. However, equally macabre are the cages in the second gallery where less trustworthy readers would be locked in as they consulted their requests so that they could not pilfer items.

Today, the Library displays temporary exhibitions that focus on aspects of its collections. Gothic Horror was explored in “Ragged, Livid and on Fire” about the author Charles Robert Maturin (1780-1824), a flamboyant and eccentric curate who published popular novels with romantic or supernatural themes. He wrote many of these, including his brooding, gothic masterpiece “Melmoth the Wanderer”, the story of a man who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for another 150 years of life, in Marsh’s Library.

It is, perhaps, ironic, therefore, that alongside its tales of hauntings, many of its famous researchers used it as a source for books and pamphlets on apocalyptic visions, superstition and necromancy or discourses that attempt to justify religious intolerance, albeit with the aim of transcending them. But this is what is so compelling about Marsh’s Library: it bears witness to the growth of the human mind, and it allows us to look and inspect that growth.

If you want to know what intellectual life was like at the beginning of the eighteenth century, all you need do is time travel back to the Enlightenment by visiting Marsh’s Library.

The Library is situated in St Patrick’s Close, Dublin 8 and has an excellent website which includes a catalogue and a section where most of the previous exhibitions can be viewed in online format at www.marshlibrary.ie, or follow the library on Twitter @MarshsLibrary for regular features and news.

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WHAT BETTER PLACE THAN DUBLIN?

Lesley Whyte reports on the 87th World Library and Information Congress

After a three-year interval when inperson conferences had to be cancelled, the 87th World Library and Information Congress happened “live” in July 2022.

Dublin, City of Literature was an appropriate choice.

I don’t imagine that the organising committee anticipated the long road ahead when the venue was announced at the closing ceremony of the 85th conference in Athens in 2019.

In the meantime, an online event kept people connected but, as my colleague, Jenny Wright observed, there’s nothing quite like the buzz of catching up with friends and professional developments in person.

The Dublin Convention Centre, overlooking the river Liffey and striking a dramatic modernist pose in the developing docklands area of Dublin, was only a short walk from the bars and live music for which the “fair city” is so famous. I am sure the libraries, museums and literary connections of the city were enjoyed by the 2,000 delegates from 100 countries.

Keynote Speaker The opening ceremony sets the scene for the conference. After a warm welcome by the Mayor of Dublin, and recognition of the official languages of IFLA, including on this occasion, Irish Gaelic, the keynote speaker, Mary Robinson was introduced.

Mary Robinson, the 7th President of Ireland and the first woman to hold this position, has continued to make a difference to the world since she left government office, becoming a founder member and the current Chair of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders who contribute their wisdom to tackling some of the world’s most taxing problems, such a human rights, justice and climate change.

Mary Robinson spoke eloquently about the causes close to her heart that keep her motivated for change, including gender equality and climate justice.

The latter theme was to re-emerge in various sessions during the conference.

A Compressed Conference IFLA is always a packed conference, but having it compressed into three days instead of the usual five made it even busier than usual.

One of the highlights is always the cultural evening, when the host nation showcases aspects of its country. The venue for this particular cultural evening was a library with significant connections to BDS: the library of the seaside town of Dun Laoghaire.

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My inner librarian was concerned when I thought about the combination of books, food and wine, but in fact, the building was ideally suited to hosting the occasion. Located on four floors, the library was opened in 2014, and it doubles as a cultural centre. It is a spectacular building overlooking the water and beautiful, dramatic sunsets. I can’t recall being in a library in a more stunning location.

BDS Metadata Playing Its Part I have to admit to taking a look at the books on the shelves with a sense of pride. In 2014 BDS was involved in supplying records for the catalogue of this new library, in conjunction with our agent in Ireland, Interleaf. It was extremely satisfying to feel that we had played a small part in bringing such an impressive project to fruition.

The interior of the library at Dun Laoghaire

As the enjoyable evening progressed, the delegates were entertained by giants, Irish dancers and musicians. Jenny Wright and I had a long conversation with “James Joyce”, who was reciting passages from “his” most famous work, Ulysses and in remarkably good fettle considering he was buried in Zurich over 80 years ago.

Irish Literary Genius At the end of the conference, I made time to visit the reading room of the National Library of Ireland, an impressive 50 feet high domed horseshoe-shaped edifice that has hosted some of Ireland’s greatest literary figures.

I also visited the impressive Museum of Literature, which employs innovative and engaging means to present the great Irish tradition of telling stories with fine words. While much of the museum focuses on James Joyce, it also presents the strength and depth of the Irish literary genius, including its four Nobel Laureates, and its many innovators, wits, satirists and singers. There can be no doubt that the world is a richer place due to Irish letters.

The conference sessions offered content related to all aspects of librarianship, which is part of its appeal, bringing together ideas and expertise from all parts of the world. IFLA, we all missed you. I look forward to meeting up again with colleagues for thoughtprovoking discussion and exchange of ideas in Rotterdam in 2023.

CATALOGUES, CATALOGUERS & STANDARDS Jenny Wright reports on some of the technical discussions from IFLA’s WLIC 2022…

After three years working in the virtual world of Zoom, WLIC live in Dublin was always going to be a busy affair.

There were things to iron out, methodologies to agree, standards to discuss, committees to attend, meetings to chair and old friends to greet. The pressure mounted due to the conference’s compression. This meant that there would be unfinished business to resolve once we were back at home or in the office.

Indeed, many delegates expressed a concern about loss of impetus as a result of this conference lasting three rather than the traditional five days.

What It Takes to Be a Cataloguer

Open Access I managed to attend one session outwith the ‘normal’ metadata focussed ones. The subject was “Integrating Open Access Content into the Collection: Challenges and Opportunities”.

An interesting panel discussion highlighted varying issues with open access materials, not least of which was identifying OA resources that one could acquire. The philosophy behind OA is positive, but the practical reality is tricky. If something is ‘free’ then it generally comes with few if any services, including decent metadata. And without metadata, it’s hard to discover it…

What Does Quality Metadata Mean?

There were important discussions around staff competencies and training needs. This is something the Cataloguing Section and Subject Analysis and Access groups within IFLA are now cooperating on.

It is a topic also of concern to the MDG (Metadata Discovery Group). A white paper with proposals aiming to address these issues from the Cataloguing Section group should be produced by December.

Oversight of IFLA Standards As I am a member of the editorial group working on updating the Multilingual Dictionary of Cataloguing Terms and Concepts, I was particularly interested and involved with meetings that addressed the exposure of different IFLA standards using terminology differently, and sometimes in contradiction of each other.

The Cataloguing Section is therefore pushing for the Committee on Standards to address this and formalise the coordination between standards.

There’s good basis for a solid suite of IFLA metadata standards. However, there needs to be better coordination in terms of what is reviewed when, since each should follow the other. It’s critical that the standards should not contradict each other.

There was progress in clarifying who is responsible for directing that work alongside a proposal by the Cataloguing Section for a taskforce, set up to take this forward.

IFLA Namespaces IFLA Namespaces launched in July 2020. This was the first in-person conference for the Linked Data Technical Sub-Committee (LIDATEC) to discuss them. This web presence allows for linked data access to various IFLA Standards. These include the FRBR Vocabularies, the ISBD Vocabularies, the UNIMARC Vocabularies, and MulDiCat. The next standard to be included will be the LRM (Library Reference Model).

The International Cataloguing Principles (ICP) Review Group sought, and gained permission, to do a revision. The standard needs to encompass different types of resources and address modern technological needs more broadly.

Find out more at https://www.iflastandards.info

I also moderated a session on the subject of: What Does Quality Metadata Mean? This subject close to the heart of BDS. It is also an over-arching and important issue in light of some of the issues raised earlier in this article and elsewhere in the current issue of BDSlife.

The session attracted delegates and the discussion went down well, generating thought-provoking comments and questions.

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A MARRIAGE MADE IN DUMFRIES Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, one of the world’s most famous and popular operas, was performed in Dumfries as part of the 2022 Absolute Classics Festival.

Sponsored by BDS, Mozart’s comedy of love, lust and mistaken identity was staged by Opera Bohemia.

Nearly 250 people filled the theatre. The performance was preceded by a buffet reception, also sponsored by BDS, with guests from BDS staff, Absolute Classics supporters and friends of the arts in the Dumfries and Galloway region.

“BDS is pleased to continue its support of Absolute Classics,” says Lesley Whyte. “The annual festival and year-round series of concerts alongside the educational programme has made a huge difference to the cultural life and experience of the region of Dumfries and Galloway, where BDS is based.”

Exuberant and Wonderful Mozart’s opera was subversive in its time and remains an astute comment on the abuse of power. First performed in 1786 in Vienna, it features a corrupt ruling class competing against and undermined by the honest and intelligent working man and woman. Such sentiments eventually erupted into the French Revolution just a few years after the opera’s opening night.

“We had a wonderful festival and this performance of The Marriage of Figaro was the perfect, exuberant way to begin a long weekend of superb musical events,” says Alex McQuiston, Artistic Director of Absolute Classics.

“Our audience loved it.

“I’d like to thank BDS for its generous sponsorship for this performance and the reception for supporters which went some way to recognising the huge effort needed to realise the Absolute Classics Festival.”

Find out more about Absolute Classics at www.absoluteclassics.co.uk. Find out more about Opera Bohemia at www.operabohemia.com.

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