The Smithsonian’s (In)Visible Women Project, based at the National Museum of the American Indian, is developing pan-institutional data practices within Wikidata to support the disambiguation of artists, designers, scientists, etc. documented across fourteen Smithsonian repositories. This work seeks to connect siloed internal collections information systems (ArchivesSpace, TMS, EMu, etc.), an issue that has compounded with gaps in existing authority identifier sources (LCNAF, ULAN, etc.) and historical Smithsonian information practices to obscure the achievements of women.
Our lightning talk will focus on our work to date and reflect on our successes, but also lessons learned from managing a collaborative, pan-institutional, linked data project. Specifically, we will discuss: 1) the process of developing our collaborative, Smithsonian-specific Wikidata data model; 2) the challenges we have encountered in existing Wikidata structures; 3) our approach to managing the privacy of those represented in Smithsonian datasets; and 4) the uptake of Wikidata editing by Smithsonian staff and our strategies to build Wikidata editing skillsets.
The transition toward linked data environments, entity-based models, and interoperable metadata ecosystems is reshaping cataloguing into a dynamic, collaborative, and distributed practice based on shared cataloguing. To respond to this change, the Share Family community has developed JCricket, the Linked Data Entity Editor designed for collaboratively curating entities in a multi-institutional, shared space. Drawing on over ten years of developments within the Share Family Ecosystem, this presentation will show the concrete implementation of JCricket and how it streamlines libraries’ operational workflows and real-world cataloguing practices. Through granular cataloguing, Provenance-based data management, and integrations with FOLIO and Alma library services platforms (and others to come), data entered in libraries’ ILS/LSP is reflected in the central Cluster Knowledge Base underlying JCricket and vice-versa. These new copy cataloguing features allow for a full roundtrip of data transitioning from record transfer workflows to collaborative, entity-based data management. In JCricket, bibliographic entities are no longer isolated local records or static imported copies, but interconnected data objects continuously enriched, synchronised, corrected, and reused across institutions. Since JCricket operates on a multi-Provenance dataset, its inherent complexity requires guidelines: a set of best practices is being elaborated to consolidate shared cataloguing workflows and ensure consistent data integration with external systems.
Part of the task force for the second revision cycle of the Art and Rare Materials (ARM) BIBFRAME ontology extension, the Manuscripts Subteam has been working to define the role of unique items, such as manuscripts, within the conceptual framework BIBFRAME is built from. Describing manuscripts poses challenges as it requires sets of definitions that can be adapted to objects that, by definition, do not always fit in standardized categories. These unique works and the relationships they may have to other works must be described in such a way that their metadata remains unique but also serves discovery to other resources. Our goal is to extend the ontology to create a system that is flexible enough to be collapsed in on itself when the boundaries between work-instance-item are less distinct but also supports these distinctions where valuable. This presentation will explore the meaning and ontological implications of "uniqueness," the overlapping definitions of manuscripts, and how some of the distinctive characteristics of manuscripts can be expressed within the BIBFRAME ontology.
Libraries around the world are at various stages in their transition to BIBFRAME. Some are learning the impact and benefits of leveraging BIBFRAME data; many are experimenting with BIBFRAME data in their cataloging and discovery workflows; and others are ready to fully productionize BIBFRAME data across their metadata management ecosystems.
When it comes to widespread adoption and implementation, the need for scalable, consistent, and quality data becomes the cornerstone. And while the data formats and workflows evolve, the global infrastructure to support such an important transition already exists. For nearly 60 years, WorldCat has provided the foundation upon which the global library community creates, manages, and shares knowledge—evolving every step of the way as library collections and needs of the communities they serve change.
Building on OCLC’s history of collaboration with the library community on metadata management and linked data innovation, we’re excited to share the next phase of WorldCat’s evolution. In this presentation, we’ll share updates on WorldCat BIBFRAME interoperability, workflows for managing data in both MARC and BIBFRAME, and feedback from our latest library partnership on cataloging in BIBFRAME.
The Blue Core project successfully completed its prototype development in 2025, establishing a community-operated and owned BIBFRAME data store. This prototype has served as a critical testing environment for integration with two open-source linked data editors: Sinopia and Marva. Following comprehensive scalability testing, metadata operations validation, and integration assessments with local Library Services Platforms, the project has advanced to its second MVP (Minimum Viable Product) work cycle. The current MVP incorporates agentic AI capabilities designed to enhance cataloger workflows. The project team is now preparing for a phased BIBFRAME implementation scheduled to begin in early 2027. This session will provide an overview of the project's background, current development status, and planned future activities.
The Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) aims to reduce costs associated with producing bibliographic and authority records to support discovery within public catalogs. The PCC meets this aim by developing metadata application profiles and implementing an apprenticeship-style training scheme within its global membership. The PCC launched a new program in spring 2025, the Entity Management Cooperative (EMCO). The EMCO program aims to empower library staff to manage linked data entities from any source for use in descriptive metadata practices, thereby significantly lowering barriers for participating in the PCC, while fostering the development of the technical expertise needed to forge new paths for linked data adoption within the PCC as a whole. Working in communities of practice, participants have learned to create and describe linked data entities in ISNI, WorldCat Entities, and Wikidata. This panel brings together EMCO participants and organizers to explain why and how the EMCO program was created, explore its work and impact, and discuss what we have learned in our attempts during EMCO’s inaugural year to corral over 250 data enthusiasts into an organized program.
Metadata and Access Librarian, University of Pittsburgh
Hello! This will be my first conference and I'm extremely excited that I have the opportunity to attend. I'm interested in learning as much about Linked Data and BIBFRAME as possible in transitioning from MARC. Electronic resources are also another area of interest. And, I'm in the... Read More →
Metadata Librarian, University of Toronto Libraries
Kyla Jemison is a metadata librarian at the University of Toronto working with special formats. She is interested in music and audiovisual cataloguing, and how metadata affects discovery.
As part of two larger projects in 2025 I identified four articles about bibliometrics published in journals identified as sources of racial hereditarian research. These four articles are relatively insignificant in the larger bibliometrics literature, but they form a natural experiment for both testing the scope of what is available in the bibliometrics data sources and the impact of racial hereditarian research on bibliometrics as a field.
An outlier paper in the study is the most highly cited paper for all of the authors in the paper. While the total number of citations is small, the impact on these particular authors is large. This unique linked data set identifies a new problem with the naive use of citation counts as a basis of quality in scientific communication.
