Plan M is a very wide-ranging discussion that has been going on throughout the second half of 2019 involving many different stakeholders across the library community. The ‘M’ stands for ‘metadata’. In a nutshell, the way that metadata for academic and specialist libraries is created, sold, licensed, shared and re-used in the UK needs a … Read more
At 10.00 on the morning of Wednesday 31st July 2019, the Library hub discover service will take over from its predecessor Copac and will start providing libraries and their users with the ability to do fast searches using a fresh new interface across the merged catalogues of 110 UK academic and specialist libraries. But that’s just … Read more
In just over six weeks time, we will retire the Copac and SUNCAT services. Always good to try and catch the attention of the blog reader with an attention-grabbing first sentence! For anyone who knows these services and how long they have been around, it may focus the mind and prompt some questions. As I … Read more
Since work on the NBK began in 2016 we have had many conversations with stakeholders, including current and potential contributing libraries, data suppliers, and those with an interest using the services we are building. These conversations have addressed a wide range of issues, including complex questions around data ownership. We have also been spending time … Read more
Whether you want a quick and simple search, or something more complex and specific, the newly launched Discover pilot service, part of the new Library Hub service, will meet your needs. The Discover pilot allows you to easily and quickly cross-search the catalogues of (currently) 49 UK HE, specialist, and national libraries, with another 62 … Read more
For the NBK Programme to fulfil its stated aim of providing a comprehensive view of the UK national collection and for libraries and researchers to get the most value out of using it, the database must be (as far as possible) an accurate and up-to-date reflection of all the holdings of university, national and specialist … Read more
We are very pleased to announce that the launch today of the first two Library Hub pilot services, Discover and Cataloguing. The Library Hub Discover service is a resource discovery interface, giving users free access to search and discover holdings of a subset of the library catalogues contributed to the National Bibliographic Knowledgebase. This pilot uses the initial elements … Read more
This coming Monday (February 4th 2019) we are intending to make two new NBK pilot interfaces available. Discover will give users free access to search and discover holdings of library catalogues that have been contributed to the NBK; this will initially have limited data coverage and will offer an early view of the new interface. Cataloguing will … Read more
We have been busy working on the National Bibliographic Knowledgebase (NBK) project over the last few months, and would like to update you on some key areas of progress. Updated NBK Data Model As part of an evolving strategy to optimise prospects for delivering the best possible functionality that the NBK can provide we have … Read more
Who owns your library catalogue data? And what are you allowed to do with it? During the last few decades, many libraries have adopted a strategy where they have decreased their reliance on in-house cataloguing effort and have preferred to purchase the majority of their bibliographic records from a range of service providers. While sometimes … Read more