You can download a printable version at https://bit.ly/SFBulletin_n11_Feb2026
Citation: Share Family Team, Share Family Bulletin 10 (April 2025), https://bit.ly/SFBulletin_n11_Feb2026
Introduction
LOD Platform developments
After the announcement of LOD Platform version 3 that was done in the last Share Family Bulletin and also through a press release, we have been doing hard work to progress with developments that will enable users to fully benefit from the tools and components available on the various Share Family environments and tenants.
The LOD Platform technology is shared across all environments of the Share Family initiative, and software releases are rolled out to the various tenants following a dedicated schedule.
Data management and Cluster Knowledge Base
LDF - Linked Data Fragments
We are advancing developments of the LDF - Linked Data Fragments structure to support an innovative approach to linked data creation and consumption. LDF are being implemented to provide a distributed and scalable approach for publishing and serving linked data via real-time RDF generation, on-demand ontology mapping, and multi-provenance management. The goal is to create an efficient RDF data distribution process without relying on a RDF storage: this will greatly benefit scalability and resource saving.
This module is currently in development with the following major expected output:
- a set of APIs that adopt Linked Data Fragments;
- RDF Data is translated/generated on demand;
- output data available in multiple formats.
The latest presentation of LDF implementation for the LOD Platform has been given at the LD4 conference 2025: Leveraging Linked Data Fragments for enhanced data publication, by Andrea Gazzarini; the recording is available.
Entity Cluster Knowledge Base
As described in previous updates, the CKB - Cluster Knowledge Base of linked data entities has been undergoing significant refactoring to make the data structure more and more granular. This will serve a twofold purpose:
- allowing a single conversion pipeline that does not use MARC structure as an intermediate BIBFRAME conversion step;
- prepare the data structure for the new NoSQL database that will be implemented (see also the Architecture and infrastructure section below).
As part of the granularization work, attributes that were previously managed as literals are now controlled vocabularies sets; therefore, they have been clustered and assigned a URI.
JCricket Entity Editor
Share Family members have been testing JCricket throughout 2025 and raised input for improvement, while the Share Family team has been continuing the work on new features to enable granular and effective cataloguing and progressively make JCricket a production-ready tool.
Among these features, it’s worth mentioning the advancement in the integration with third parties’ systems (see Third parties integration section), the creation of the Provision Activity metadata block and the review of the Provenance-based function.
Provision Activity is a set of attributes of the Instance entity that represent an event or action describing:
- how an Instance was produced and made available;
- the agents involved (e.g., publishers, printers, distributors);
- the space-time coordinates (location and date of the activity).
This new metadata block serves not only the enrichment of the information available for an entity, but also the curation of publisher data according to RDA guidelines (e.g. the ability to record the Publication statement). Also, the Provision Activity is in fact a multi-entity metadata block, because it includes information that is described as individual entities in their turn. So, we needed JCricket to handle this complex data structure that will also serve other use cases: this multi-entity metadata block approach will be used for the management of Subject entities in JCricket.
The LOD Platform system is Provenance-based, meaning that the relationship between the entity and the source record that contributed to its creation is always retained through the Provenance, in order to maintain the relationship with the data that generated an entity over time and allow to manage the entity both in automated update processes and in manual processes (via JCricket entity editor). See also the wiki section on the Provenance.
This is the background for some important improvements to the “IsLeader” information: this feature is key to streamline cataloguing in a cooperative system where different users work on entities stored in the same Cluster Knowledge Base, so the underlying logic must be solid.
We reviewed and improved the way JCricket handles the “IsLeader” value to better support libraries’ cataloguing needs. The IsLeader value identifies which data values are shown on public portals, helping limit redundancy in a collaborative environment where multiple libraries contribute similar information. Previously, many values were automatically marked as leader and could not be edited or unmarked, creating issues when data was entered incorrectly. With the new behavior, catalogers can freely add or remove the leader flag from any value, even if it is the only one present, for both single-value and multi-value fields.
We also fixed issues with multi-value fields, where all values were treated as leaders by default. Catalogers can now choose which values should be leaders. Finally, leader values can now be deleted with an explicit confirmation, and internal handling of multi-value fields has been improved to ensure consistent saving and retrieval of data. Overall, these changes make JCricket more flexible, reliable, and aligned with real-world cataloguing practices. Other JCricket features useful to facilitate real-world cataloguing practices:
- display of contributors roles’ URIs;
- display of contributors’ role term in the provenance metadata block;
- properties menu has been restructured and now groups properties by category;
- display of properties’ URIs and descriptions (see the Front-end enhancements section below);
- OpusType implementation.
Architecture and infrastructure
Multi-tenant architecture
The multi-tenancy infrastructure configuration has been deployed and is being progressively rolled out to the various tenants: the first multi-tenant installations are two UAT - User Acceptance Testing environments for the National Bibliographies tenant and the National Taiwan University Library tenant. Uploading institutions’ data to UAT environments is the preliminary step to production, for testing and verification with libraries.
New database
We are working on the preliminary implementations for the new NoSQL database where to migrate the current database; these implementations include the ongoing granularization of the CKB. This process is crucial to have a sustainable environment in terms of scalability and performance for the whole LOD Platform system, and in terms of hosting resources, which is a critical factor for the sustainability of the initiative.
Third parties integration
The integration of LOD Platform components with ILS/LSP has progressed and has been demonstrated during 2025:
- the workflow from JCricket to Alma has been set up so that data created in JCricket can be posted to Alma APIs. This has been presented at the BIBFRAME Workshop in Europe 2025. Further operations are being implemented to close this loop.
- After the initial operation from JCricket to FOLIO was implemented earlier last year, the workflow from JCricket to FOLIO has been further enhanced:
- the data flow from JCricket into FOLIO’s Inventory module was already been implemented, so that data from Share can be posted to FOLIO;
- from JCricket, users can query FOLIO and retrieve data to enrich Share Family entities. This has been presented at the BIBFRAME Workshop in Europe 2025.
The integration with external ILS / LSP contributes to shaping a cooperative cataloguing environment, an integrated workflow where local and central systems are fully interoperable: data entered locally is reflected centrally, and conversely, central data is discoverable and reusable locally. The focus is on bidirectional synchronization; cataloging gains added value by keeping local and central environments aligned. This model enables full interoperability between local and central systems, ensuring that data flows in both directions. This new cooperative cataloging scenario is built on strong interoperability between systems, allowing libraries the freedom to design their own workflows — whether starting from the central hub or from the local environment — depending on their specific cataloging needs at any given time.
Front-end enhancements
Accessibility
An important achievement is the accessibility certification that has recently been issued by a specialised company that has validated the front-end components of the LOD Platform Entity Discovery Portal.
While we are going to publish the certifications on the relevant Entity Discovery portals, the certifications of compliance are also available here:
- Accessibility statement in a standard synthetic format;
- Accessibility Conformance Report WCAG Edition based on VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template).
User interface enhancements
As mentioned above, the Provision Activity, the management of Provenance-based functions, and the integration with external sources entailed intense back-end and front-end work.
Among other enhancements, it’s worth mentioning that:
- the review of the Publication page has been completed under the guidance of the UX-UI and Natbib Working Groups (see the Share Family Community Work section below) and is going to be released shortly. As part of this effort, the group shortened the current metadata list into a core set of metadata, tailored according to the material type. They also took into account which selected metadata should appear exclusively on the National Bibliographies portal. Any additional metadata that is not part of the core set will be accessible via a “Show more” option, which will expand the information in an accordion-style display. The group also revised the current “More options” button, relocating the download formats functionality under a new “View source description” button.
- The new Opus types defined by the SEI Working Group have been incorporated into the user interface. The changes to the SVDE Ontology that this work has entailed have been reflected at the technical level with the reconciliation of pre-existing Opus types (e.g. multi-volume types).
- We have implemented the informative feature of displaying properties’ details for JCricket cataloguers. This has given the occasion to improve the way that users are presented with the actions that can be performed on properties. The Property details dialogue box shows information about the property from the SVDE ontology (URI, name description) and provides a dedicated space where we can list all actions available for a property (e.g. adding a language). This UI pattern allow for many more actions to be added in the future.
