BBC Archive Catalogue
In a recent post here I mentioned a thread on XML4Lib that discussed standards in libraries. It has evolved into a discussion regarding the various non-library standards and their use in the library catalog. If you haven’t been reading it I highly recommend to. The discussion has brought up many ideas and problems and discussions about the various technologies. This hit home today when I saw the following:
Ever wondered what’s in that archive? Who looks after it? It turns out there’s a huge database that’s been carefully tended by a gang of crack BBC librarians for decades. Nearly a million programmes are catalogued, with descriptions, contributor details and annotations drawn from a wonderfully detailed controlled vocabulary.
Controlled vocabulary? Librarians? Catalogue? Sounds familiar. Are we looking at another generic OPAC? Not really…
…has oodles of Ajax, and tags, and RDF, and FOAF, and Sparklines, and Microformats, and just about everything else we can fit in.
Now things are getting interesting. Their quickly prototyping interfaces and it looks to be interesting (screenshots at the sites). Can’t wait to see what it looks like once they get it beta quality. I’ll be really interested in the use of FOAF for contributers and what that might allow them to do. Obviously this is not the same as a general library collection but it will be interesting to watch nonetheless, especially with the debate on XML4Lib on the utility of RDF.
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