University Library

UC Santa Cruz Library recently enhanced bibliographic data with identifiers to facilitate the eventual reuse of MARC data as Linked Data. The project was a result of Associate University Librarian Kerry Scott’s desire to position the library system for a linked data environment. Uniform Resource Identifiers, or URIs, were a topic of great discussion in the library community in 2018. The consensus was that the first step in preparation for Linked Data was moving from “strings” of bibliographic data to “things,” machine-actionable identifiers that uniquely identify things on the Semantic Web. Based on recommendations from the Program for Cooperative Cataloging Task Group on URIs in MARC and the BIBFLOW roadmap report produced by UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz Library added URIs to controlled access points in local MARC records as the first step toward a Linked Data bibliographic environment.

This presentation will include what to consider when adding URIs to MARC data, why this is an important first step, and options for achieving URI enrichment.