1.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Multilingual WorldCatpresented by Janifer Gatenby
IFLA, Singapore, 2013-08-19
Karen Smith Yoshimura
Eric Childress
Janifer Gatenby
Jean Godby
Richard Greene
Jenny Toves
Diane Vizine Goetz
Robert Bremer
JD Shipengrover
Gail Thornburg
Jay Weitz

2.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
WorldCat Today
• Resources in nearly
all languages
• Contributed by more
than 20,000 libraries
worldwide
• More than half the
database is for works
not in English

3.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
WorldCat Today
• Bibliographic Records
• Hybrid records
• Parallel records
• Clustered at Work
level (FRBR)

4.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Existing Architecture
Author
sAuthor
sAuthors
Subj
Classif
Subj
ClassifSubj
Classif
Holdin
gHoldin
gHoldings
Bibliographic
recordWork
cluster
Content
cluster
Manifes
tation
cluster

5.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Complementary Initiatives
Work Level
Record
GLIMIR
Manifestation
& Content
Clusters
Multi-lingual
Bibliographic
Structure

6.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Work Level Record
http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/workrecs.html

7.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Create a landing
page summarizing
content for a work
Work Level Record: Objective

8.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
• The Content Cluster
• Enables better work record displays by reducing the number of lines that display
for large works
• Enables a choice of format and presents the formats that could be acceptable
substitutes
• Consolidates holdings for identical content
• The Manifestation Cluster is important
• Consolidates holdings at manifestation level
• In the short term allows the record catalogued in the language of the interface to
be chosen for display
• Reduces apparent duplication
• Allows a more accurate count of the number of manifestations in WorldCat (as
opposed to the number of records)
GLIMIR

9.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Creates true multi-lingual displays
• At work and manifestation levels
• Using all available data instead of “most appropriate
record”
• Generates data
Corrects many of the 28 million records coded “und”
Better control and linking of translations
Input to refinement of work clusters
Smarter data storage
Multilingual Bibliographic Structure Project

10.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
• Worldcat.org selects the most appropriate record
to show to a user as representative of the work in
the short result list and beyond
• The end result will not be very satisfactory from a
multi-lingual viewpoint… here’s why
“Most appropriate” questioned

11.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Which record is better to present to a German speaker?

12.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Incomplete Swedish Record

13.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Hybrid record

14.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Most appropriate display

15.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
• Work level data, mined from all associated
bibliographic records will be displayed
supplemented with expression / manifestation
level data as the user drills through the short to
fuller versions of the metadata.
Multilingual Bibliographic Structure Project
End user interface will show works and manifestations not bibliographic
records; the cataloguing client will also show bibliographic records

16.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Proposed new architecture
Work
eng
fre
ger
jpn
Manif
eng
Manif
eng
Manif
eng
Manif
eng
Manif
eng Manif
eng
o freNotes
Contents
++
Holdin
gHoldin
gHolding
Holdin
g
Subj
sif
Subj
Classif
eng
fre
ger
jpn
Author
sAuthor
sAuthorseng
fre
ger
jpn
eng
fre
ger
jpn
eng
fre
ger
jpn
Translations
(Language of work)
Manif
fre
Holding

17.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
• Language tagging of elements, particularly
• Summaries (M21 520)
• Subject headings
• Display in script preferred by the user if data is
available
• Improve translated interfaces
• Show consolidated holdings as appropriate
Important principles

18.
The world’s libraries. Connected.

19.
The world’s libraries. Connected.

20.
The world’s libraries. Connected.

21.
The world’s libraries. Connected.

22.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Translations

23.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
• The cream of the world’s cultural and knowledge
heritage is shared by being translated
• WorldCat contains many rich cataloguing records
for these translations
Great works are translated
GOAL: Data mine the really good records to
improve clustering, presentation, authority
records and linked data

24.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
• Inconsistencies causing work clusters to be
incomplete & less than optimal search results
• Titles without subtitles
• Different forms of uniform title or missing uniform title
• Inverted title
• Different coding of original and translated information
Translations
Generated uniform title authority records will overcome most of these
differences without needing to edit individual records

25.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
• Improve FRBR work groups
• Made by data mining
• Contribute to VIAF
• Diffuse via VIAF as linked data
• Possibility to create web page / web service
Generate uniform title authority records

26.
The world’s libraries. Connected.

27.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
Translation records in VIAF
• Will enrich VIAF significantly
• New elements - translated title and translator
Author Title Expressions in VIAF Translation count in
WorldCat
Atwood Blind assassin 8 31
Guevara Notas de viaje 0 11
Hawking Grand design 0 18
Lenard Grosse naturforscher 1 3
Loti Pêcheur d’Islande 1 31

28.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
• Records are freely available to the world from
VIAF in
• MARC-21
• XML
• RDF (linked data)
• Just links in JSON
• And other formats as introduced
Diffusion of Translation records

29.
The world’s libraries. Connected.
• # of manifestations as
opposed to # of records
• # of works that have
translations
• Top translated authors
and works
• And more 
We don’t know now, but soon will