Ex Libris has announced that the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) has become the first institution to go live with BIBFRAME, a significant step in enhancing library services through Linked Open Data integration. Starting in May 2024, users of the Primo™ discovery platform will gain access to enriched information, allowing patrons to explore the lives, works, and legacies of notable figures across various disciplines.
The integration facilitates a seamless search experience, featuring intuitive autocomplete suggestions for person entities. It also introduces “info cards” on full record pages and comprehensive “person pages” that aggregate authoritative information from trusted external sources alongside the library's own catalogue.
In tandem with this development, Ex Libris has enhanced its Alma™ system to support BIBFRAME records (Work and Instance) across various functions, including acquisition, resource management, fulfillment, and discovery systems. This enhancement allows for the enrichment of existing MARC records with URIs in a straightforward and configurable manner, marking the first step towards a community-driven vision for Linked Open Data in libraries and support for multiple Linked Open Data metadata formats.
Over the past year, Ex Libris has collaborated with library professionals through a Linked Open Data focus group, ensuring that Alma and Primo VE are production-ready for BIBFRAME works and instances. UC Davis has been at the forefront of developing linked open data and has actively participated in Ex Libris’ linked open data community of practice for many years.
The implementation of Linked Open Data is expected to simplify cataloging processes, create networks of linked entities, and offer more accurate, curated information. It will also enhance existing workflows by clustering similar records based on identifiers (URIs) rather than solely on text-based matching.
Moreover, Linked Open Data provides high-quality data that can serve as a robust infrastructure for artificial intelligence applications, enabling the extraction of information, the creation of relationships, and the generation of insights from a linked data network.
Ex Libris's commitment to Linked Open Data is rooted in its pillars of better discoverability, collaborative cataloging, and global interoperability, all supported by community engagement and advanced technology.
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