Building a Better Knowledgebase: A Community Perspective

Kate Hill, NCSU Libraries FellowMaria Collins, Head of Acquisitions & DiscoveryNorth Carolina State University Libraries

Or Joining the Goat Rodeo!

Outline of Talk

• Introduction and Context for Survey: GOKb

• Methodology• Where KBs stand now• KBs and the Future: Movement in the KB

space• Take-aways

Why?

• Build a picture of the current methods of KB management

• Understand the mindset of the Goat Herder (ER Librarians)

• Learn improved ways of Community Wrangling/Building

Rounding up the Herd: Data Gathering

• Make up:– 19 questions, multiple choice/open answer– Three categories

• Targeted listservs and librarians who care about KBs

• Interviewed five volunteers

The goats who came back: Data analysis

• 64 Respondents• Coding, Categorizing, and Graphing.• Questions for interviews to further

elucidate findings

How many goats do we need anyway: Defining a KB

The keyword is Comprehensive

“Include Streaming Media and Other Non-Book, Non-Journal E-Resources”• Streaming Media/ Digital music and scores• IR/locally hosted content• Data sets• Standard IDs• Publisher information• OA content• Article level metadata• Local catalogs

“All of our Information is in One Place”

The Global and the Local are equally importantAccess again rises to the top

Defining a Knowlegebase

“It knows everything that is online and has a link to everything that is online to get the

user there, it provides access and the metadata of title, date, url, package and publisher about all electronic resources.”

Goats on the move: Services we want to use our KB data

• Providing Access is highly important• ERM/Discovery-newer or not used

“The Link Resolver is in Constant Use”

Access again!

The Grass is Always Greener: A Caveat about KB Problems

“It's Hard to Say, It's a “Goat Rodeo" Out There.”

Not consistent because certain formats are a messAs librarians, we often only see the problems, not the successes

Problems with the Data

“Our Serials are a Mess”

“Content Vendors are unable to tell us what they are selling”

Librarians feel out of the data loop

“Bad data, bad data, bad data”

“The data is not updated frequently, if at all”

“Faulty vendor-supplied metadata”

Most inaccuracies reported=categories tied directly to patron access (not titles this time!)

“There are title inconsistencies even within an aggregator’s own content platforms!”

Titles continue to be problematicPart and parcel with Change Tracking issues

“Ebook data is sketchy.”

Much smaller data set/types of fields noted - harder to draw conclusionsMany of these would be brand new to KBs

Solving KB problems: What the community would like to see

improved

“Improvement of any or all of the above problem”

“Greater Ability to Fix Errors Without Going Through Cumbersome Reporting Process”

Relates directly to issues with slowness, title tracking, and communication

Importance of Tracking Changes over Time

“more consistency in quality of data across publishers”

“Notifications When Updates Have Been Made to Certain Collections”

They are all important; Choosing the best

Importance of metadata for Managing Journals

Importance of Metadata for Managing Ebooks

One size does not fit all!

• Additional data elements needed to describe other formats• Ebooks• Streaming

media

Streaming Media: Beyond the usual Metadata desired

•Date (year, start/end dates)•File types (media/content type)•Length of film (run time)•Author•Section level URL •Source name•Equipment needed

•Usage restrictions•Sub start/end dates•Director, creators and actors•Studio•Authentication type •Database URL

Movement in the KB space: Future Direction and Possibilities

Integration with the ILS: No longer an isolated service

Standards

ONIX

Join the KB rodeo: KB+, GOKb, and National KBs

KB+: Balancing Act

• Mellon Grant, April 2012-Dec 2013

• Knowledgebase for Kuali OLE

• Build a Global Open Knowledgebase (GOKb) that will be community maintained

• Focus on data management and integration services

Community Source Projects: Better Together

GOKb Partners

Initial GOKb scope

• Knowledgebase for Kuali OLE• Community managed data• The “managed collection”• Not a replacement for vendor Kbs• Open dataset available to all• Way for libraries and vendors to share

identifiers

GOKb Timeline

GOKb and KB+ collaborate on data

model

GOKb Phase I:Proof of Concept

Release

GOKb funded by Andrew W. Mellon

Foundation and Kuali OLE Partner libraries

GOKb Public Release

Continued community development with support of Kuali OLE, JISC, and future Project Partners

GOKb Phase II:Partner Release

Concerns about GOKb

• Quality of data• Amount of work/time required• Training• Managing multiple

kbs/integrating data• Managing varied local data• Size of the community/adequate

participation• Provider/Publisher Cooperation• Timely updates• Admin Support• Need to see utility to daily work

• Understanding global data/changes

• Comparison to Commercial KBs• Consistent decision-making• Auto vs manual updates to

data• Varied community expertise• Tracking who performed

changes/Source of changes• Money• Use of standards• Competence of permanent

staff involved at GOKb

Principles

Community Data Management

Roles•GOKb editors•OLE partner editors•Other editors•Data contributors

Co-referencing Service: Building a bridge between identifiers and resources

International Cooperation and National KBs

Also in this space: LOCKSS, Keepers• LOCKSS: Preservation

of content; concern with entitlements

• The Keepers Registry: knowing who is archiving content; also concerned with entitlements

Take-aways • KB’s are considered core systems for providing access to e-resources.

• The community expects a KB to include everything electronic and licensed.

• Strong concerns exist about the information supply chain – speed, accuracy and standards adoption.

Take-aways•The community is strongly interested in accurate data related to the title, not only title normalization but also title history. •There are strong concerns about data quality, the community is hopeful that projects like GOKb will make a difference.

Wondering….Can we do it?

Take-aways• People want systems that

integrate and want to solve the problem of siloed data.

• The community values both global and local data, which expands the scope of KBs beyond access to management

• There is movement in the KB space – solutions and new directions will soon follow. Relying on each other

Questions?

• It may be a goat rodeo out there, but imagine the possibilities!