John,
Your idea is big and ultimately I think that everyone wants there to be more connection between a given Wikipedia article and resources available outside of Wikipedia.
My first thought about your template is that I wish that it could be better developed and more neutral. I do not feel that the project ought to be expanded now, because it is so US-centric and Wikipedia is an international project. For the box you used on Singapore, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore#External_links
It seems strange to me as a Wikipedian to so heavily push users to check the holdings of libraries in the United States. This is happening both because of lack of access to technical tools and also because of lack of user interface in the directory.
That said - I conceptually understand what you are trying to do and if you ever made a project proposal to make a strong connection between Wikipedia articles and libraries, and if people like Max also agreed that it was feasible to design a tool to do so, then you would have my full support in moving forward and I would also tell everyone I could about the project. I think that the connection between Wikipedia and libraries is much to weak and I would work hard to support any project which I thought would get people at libraries and on Wikipedia to work with each other.
Thanks for making your proposal. If you want more community attention then let me know and maybe I could help you get it.
yours,
On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 2:12 PM, Klein,Max kleinm@oclc.org wrote:
John,
It seems as if you have a very sensible approach. If you'd like to inquire about getting any of this unspecified OCLC data let me know. I can advocate internally for opening data for compatibility with Wikipedia projects.
Max Klein Wikipedia in Residence kleinm@oclc.org +17074787023
-----Original Message----- From: John Mark Ockerbloom [mailto:ockerblo@pobox.upenn.edu] Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 4:43 PM To: Wikimedia & Libraries Subject: Re: [libraries] Linking from Wikipedia articles to local library resources
Thanks for your note. WorldCat Registry does look like a useful place to record the library-specific data I use in my application; in fact, I've been indexing libraries in my own databases using ISIL and OCLC identifiers partly with the thinking that this might make it easier to integrate with systems like the Registry down the road.
I'm already manually consulting WorldCat Registry for some information like identifiers, and things like probable ILS when it's not clear from the library website. There are some things I use that don't seem to be captured in the Registry at this point in quite the form I need for this application, and other things that I can't now get at (but that OCLC seems to have); but it seems possible to bridge the gap between our data schemes and share the data more readily.
I don't have time at the moment to go into more detail in this message, but I'd be happy to discuss this further when it's convenient.
Thanks,
John
On 3/5/13 1:31 PM, Klein,Max wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: John Mark Ockerbloom [mailto:ockerblo@pobox.upenn.edu] Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 7:42 PM To: Wikimedia& Libraries Subject: Re: [libraries] Linking from Wikipedia articles to local library resources
On 3/4/13 9:35 PM, Asaf Bartov wrote:
Hi, John.
This is pretty nifty! Thanks for creating it.
I wonder: would it make sense to connect it to some of the open resolvers out there? (or are those only useful at the item level, whereas this produces searches?)
It depends on how the resolver is set up. Most OpenURL resolvers
are
primarily designed to link to known items, whereas this is trying to link to groups of items by or about someone or something. But the OpenURL 1.0 specification is pretty open-ended, and could encompass this sort of thing. I decided not to use it to implement this particular service, but if someone's library would provide better results via their OpenURL resolver than via their catalog or other discovery system, I could link to it.
(If anyone would like me to try linking to their library that way, you can let me know when you request service for the library at
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/olbpcontact?type=library
Tell me about your wishes in the "Anything we should know ..."comment space, and leave your contact details in case I have any questions.)
Thanks,
JohnJohn,
What a fantastic idea! Conceptually this is the (ahem) missing link,
to realign GWR (Google> Wikipedia> References) to GWL (Google> Wikipedia> Libraries). That's the party line we've been delivering for a long time but without software or practice to materialize the promise.
With that in mind, I quite agree with Asaf that your notion of
Forward to Libraries could benefit from using preexisting linking technologies. With all necessary disclosure of my OCLC-partisanship I think that instead of registering libraries through this new UPenn database, it'd make more sense to use the already populated WorldCat Registry[1] . There thousands of libraries are already registered with ties into their Online Catalogs, OpenURL Resolvers, and Virtual References. Just look at the entry for UPenn [2].
This is a tremendous proposal which is theoretically complete. I'd
really like to help volunteer time and code to make it work as best as possible.
[1] http://www.worldcat.org/registry/Institutions [2] http://www.worldcat.org/registry/Institutions/2583
Max Klein Wikipedia in Residence kleinm@oclc.org +17074787023
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