Find out the latest news about the Share Family of initiatives and the most relevant updates on the developments going on within the various branches of the family.
January 2023
September 2022
May 2022
As 2022 has started, we are happy to look at the results achieved within the Share-VDE initiative over the past year and share with you the goals for the next period.
Since the release of Share-VDE 2.0 new version in September available at www.svde.org, other advancements have been done particularly to the system infrastructure and to the features that leverage the API layer orchestrating the query of SVDE data. Among others, the content negotiation mechanism used for serving different representations of a resource, and the Provenance that supports the tracking of the data source. More information is available, don’t hesitate to ask for details about API queries.
To provide feedback on the new version of www.svde.org, do report bugs and suggestions reaching out through the forum https://forum.svde.org/.
The new year is very promising as far as upgrades to the Share-VDE 2.0 linked data management system and discovery portal.
We are working on several important objectives and it may be useful to anticipate some that we hope will be of interest to the members of Share-VDE and to the wider community of the Share Family of initiatives.
The recent huge improvements to the system infrastructure will support the operations for the incremental import of SVDE libraries catalogues that will populate the entity discovery.
JCricket, the module for the editing of linked data entities, will be developed throughout 2022 and will benefit from the developments done for SVDE 2.0. Also, the functional analysis done by the SVDE dedicated working groups has framed the interaction with external data sources to be incorporated into JCricket, and we look forward to start working on the inclusion of Wikidata and ISNI data, after the main features of the editor will be completed.
The working group devoted to entity modeling will consolidate the definition of Share-VDE Instance entity properties and will review clustering and conversion rules to optimise system processes, as part of the regular group activities. This is one of the added values to the management of a union catalogue such as Share-VDE.
Developments will continue to complete customised skin portals and SVDE localisations.
After the analysis done by the SVDE working groups dedicated to authority management, the initial release of the authority control features (through both automated and manual processes) for MARC-based environments is being refined, and Stanford University Libraries is early adopter. The next step will be the implementation of BIBFRAME-based authority workflows.
We are very happy about the progress of the new working group dedicated to National Bibliographies that has been meeting regularly since early September. The involvement of SVDE members and external institutions enriches the discussion of interesting input for the creation of an ad hoc Share Family tenant hosting national bibliographies data.
Connected to this, we will be working to the Share Family tenant infrastructure that allows configurability and flexibility of the data grouped and presented according to each specific library or library consortia domain needs.
Various strands of cooperation have been continued and new ones have been activated within the community of institutions that adopt linked data.
Our commitment with the PCC is proceeding to feed the open pool of PCC-quality BIBFRAME data available as a trusted data source for cataloguers.
The collaboration with LD4P3 continues to be an important part of SVDE community work, e.g. as far as the harmonisation of SVDE conversion vs. Sinopia data and connection with Sinopia environment is concerned.
Working Groups involving the Library of Congress, Stanford, OCLC and SVDE stemmed from the PCC BIBFRAME Data Exchange meeting held in September 9-10 2021: the output of this activity will be crucial to reinforce the role of the BIBFRAME nodes in the library community and to foster interoperability among them.
Among the other initiatives and projects based on the same LOD Platform technology framework as Share-VDE, it’s worth mentioning the Kubikat-LOD pilot project where important components emerged that serve the whole Share Family infrastructure. Work is currently progressing for the release of the specific Kubikat tenant.
The Share-Catalogue project is working on the alignment of their processes to SVDE, for example through the update of UNIMARC - BIBFRAME conversion.
All the results achieved and the forthcoming ones are possible also thanks to library members of Share-VDE and Share Family Working Groups and parallel projects that support this initiative and are constantly contributing with the competences of their Subject Matter Experts.
The input that we gather from the linked data community as a whole is also very precious to improve our work.
For further information on any of the above, do not hesitate to contact us at info@svde.org or consult this wiki site.
The new version Share-VDE 2.0 is live at https://svde.org with an enhanced Entity Discovery Portal and Linked Data Management System. The previous version at https://share-vde.org/ will be active in parallel to Share-VDE 2.0 until the migration of libraries’ data on the new system will be completed. The load of Share-VDE libraries’ data is being done progressively and currently the new web portal hosts a subset of the data available on the previous version.
If you want to discover the advanced functions of Share-VDE 2.0, the web portal at https://svde.org is the place to go.
To provide feedback on the new version, report bugs and suggestions reach out through the forum https://forum.svde.org/.
This news has also been published in a dedicated Share-VDE press release.
An important aspect to underline is that the Share-VDE and Share Family components are supported by the LOD Platform technology framework. Among these components, it’s relevant to mention the services for the authority control, that we have developed based on the analysis carried on by the Share-VDE working groups, and the Share Family tenant infrastructure that allows configurability and flexibility of the data grouped and presented according to each specific library or library consortia domain needs.
The Share-VDE Statement has been distributed widely to give context on Share-VDE position in the linked data ecosystem. In light of the work that Share-VDE is carrying on and of its involvement in several international initiatives, the SVDE Advisory Council has approved and published an official statement that is the explanation of position of the initiative in the broader context of Library Linked Open Data.
Several events over the last weeks have marked significant steps for Share-VDE and for knowledge sharing in the library community:
- the NLN – National Libraries Now 2021 conference on 16th – 17th September was a fruitful event where Tiziana Possemato delivered a speech about Experience of International Cooperation: Towards a Collective and Global Catalog of National Bibliographies.
- On the subject of national libraries, a new working group has been formed in Share-VDE and in the Share Family of initiatives dedicated to practical cooperation among institutions managing National Bibliographies. Considering the important presence of several National Libraries in the Share-VDE community and in the broader network of institutions that follow the progress of this initiative and of other Linked Open Data projects, this working group has been launched in order to study and address the needs of National Libraries and institutions that hold National Bibliographies in the framework of a shared entity discovery environment such as the Share Family of initiatives.
If you are interested in this new group, don’t hesitate to contact us at info@svde.org. The materials of the first meeting are available: agenda and notes https://bit.ly/SVDE_National-Bib-WG_2021-Sep-01 and meeting recording National_bibliographies_WG_2021-09-01.mp4.
- The semi-annual SVDE workshop on 20th September was the occasion where the new version of the system was presented. The major achievements are included in the SVDE Workshop agenda https://bit.ly/SVDE_workshop_2021-Sep-20. Among the workshop materials:
- SVDE workshop 2021-Sep-20_progress_status.pdf (this presentation was delivered also at the BIBFRAME Workshop in Europe on September 21st);
- as mentioned above, the new SVDE 2.0 is now live at https://svde.org, you are welcome to have a tour of the beta system (some information about it is available at https://www.svde.org/about/about-share-vde);
- the recording of the SVDE Workshop can be useful to see a thorough demo of the new systemShare-VDE Workshop September 20 2021.mp4.
- The BIBFRAME Workshop in Europe from September 21st to 23rd engaged a large community of BIBFRAME adopters and professionals working in the transition from MARC to Linked Data using the BIBFRAME model. The first afternoon was focused on implementations (including Share-VDE), the second afternoon on new developments, and the third one on a vast data exchange topic including a panel on RDA/RDF. The presentations and links to the recordings of the sessions are available at https://2021.bfwe.eu/.
As the year comes to an end, several important updates on Share-VDE in 2020 are worth sharing. Those of you who follow the initiative very closely are already informed about the major achievements so far, but I am pleased to share our progresses with the whole Share-VDE community.
This year has been complex for everyone because of the consequences of the COVID pandemic, but that didn’t stop us from moving forward: as announced earlier this month, Casalini Libri and its technological partner @Cult joining forces is the most recent of many steps taken on the Share-VDE path.
From the modelling of Share-VDE entities, to the outline of the main functions of the Cluster Knowledge Base editor JCricket, we feel that the outcomes of the intense activities carried on with the Share-VDE working groups are of high scientific value for the advancement of Linked Open Data for the library community and the cultural heritage sector. In the same time, we are working with complete dedication to the technical enhancement of the Share-VDE back-end and front-end components and we are eager to apply the tools that we have designed with your precious contribution and collaboration.
We are confident that the results will greatly increase the benefits that linked data offer to libraries, and the progress report attached is an attempt to sketch the development strands that are running simultaneously and the main accomplishments (the report is also available at https://bit.ly/SVDE_WG_progress).
For the future, we hope that the Share family will expand and we are very grateful to every single institution involved and to Linked Data for Production for the fruitful and constant cooperation.
The following document includes the most relevant achievements of the Share-VDE initiative over the 2019: Share-VDE major achievements in 2019.
