No glimmer of GLIMIR yet
Earlier this year some people (starting with Stuart Weibel, and then for example Scribe and Kathryn Greenhill) were talking about GLIMIR, OCLC’s proposed Global Library Manifestation Identifier. It would, as you’ve already figured out, be a way of identifying manifestations. Usually people think of ISBNs as doing this, but publishers can do funny things and mistakes happen, and ISBNs have only been around for about forty years. A universally agreed-upon (well, even terrestrially would do) way of identifying manifestations would be useful. Of course, so would a way of unambiguously identifying works and expressions!
Anyhoo, I asked at the time if there was anything public about GLIMIR, and was told no. I haven’t heard anything more since then, and didn’t find any news after a bit of looking around. It was on my mind as something to follow up on, though, so this is a just a post about negative results.
The desire for a universal identifier seems to be endless. Think ISBN, DOI, LCCN, OCLC number, and a newer one on the scene, URI. The closest we seem to come is the URI based on the form of URLs. Realistically, I think this is about as close as we are going to get because we can not get *everybody* to agree to a *single* uniform system. The logistics are too overwhelming.
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Comment by Eric Lease Morgan — 9 June 2008 @ 9:27 amELM
In….ter….esting…..
Michelle McLean has published her wonderfully coherent notes from Stuart’s closing address at the VALA in Melbourne, Australia in February this year where he publically announced GLIMR :
http://connectinglibrarian.com/2008/02/07/vala-2008-conference-day-3-stuart-weibel-plenary/
NEWS!!! Pilot project by OCLC - GLIMIR - Global Library Manifestation Identifier which is global in scope, canonical, business neutral, provides the URL equity necessary to support the library brand, fits comfortably with the FRBR model. If its going to work, it can’t be an OCLC product, but it will be managed by them. It will require participation, buy in and support, all of which will be very tricky to achieve. Can a global community agree and adopt this when there are already so many identifiers - eg. ISBN. OCLC is launching this pilot to identify functional requirements and practicalities solicited review from technical specialists,moving forward will require a careful balance of use cases, business issue and more.
Identifiers are key to fulfilling the mission of libraries in a digital future, to compete ont he open web for recognition of our brand, to integrate our traditional bibliographic values with social networking content, to provides services and access to the digital tribe - our future constituency.
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If it’s any help, I’ve just found my notes from the same talk , which are not as coherent as Michelle’s …
GLIMIR: Global Library Manifestation Identifier
The library community needs a global manifestation identifier with is:
- Global in scope
- Canonical
- business neutral
- Provides the “URL Equity” necessary to support the library brand
- Fits comfortably within the FRBR model
…Unique identifier that allows a work to be cited etc.
(what about sections of journals ??)
(Guy next to me is asleep - after he played fridge poetry …)
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What about other identifier schemes
Can a global community agree and adopt a cononical identifier in an already identifier-rich market place??
- National Biblibographic numbers
ISSNS and ISB NS
DOIs
etc.
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Launching pilot to identify the functional requirements and practicalities for a community-based manifestation identifier
- Review from collection of technical specialists in several countries and sectors
- moving forward will require ..x, y, z [didn't get this down]
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What if you want a GLIMR and you are not an OCLC member
Can have one , need to support wide [somethingorother]
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1. Identifiers are key
Comment by Kathryn Greenhill — 9 June 2008 @ 10:54 am- to fulfilling the mission of libraries in a digital future
- to competing on the open Web for recognition of our community’s brand equigty
- to integration our traditional bibliographic values with social networking content
- to providing services and access …etc..
OCLC is currently laying the groundwork for a project to assign unique persistent manifestation identifiers to resources represented in bibliographic records in the WorldCat database. The intention is to make a clear distinction between the identification of the resource as opposed to the identification of the bibliographic metadata record that describes and provides information for the resource. In earlier decades the distinction was less important, but now that WorldCat frequently contains multiple metadata records for the same resource, e.g. institutional records or records with different languages of cataloguing, the manifestation identifier is necessary to correctly group these records. The manifestation identifier, in conjunction with identifiers for works, name (identities) and subject authorities, will be an important element in enhanced data presentation and navigation and in ongoing quality control of WorldCat. OCLC is also investigating how existing identifier services such as the xISBN service (http://xisbn.worldcat.org/xisbnadmin/doc/stat.htm) might incorporate the manifestation identifier.
Comment by Janifer Gatenby — 10 June 2008 @ 11:04 am