Date recorded: 18 April 2024
Session description: The British Library holds hundreds of thousands of catalogue cards with no equivalent in our digital catalogue. This talk will cover our efforts to reduce cataloguer workload by using the Metadata API to check for existing records matching works described on the cards.
During the talk, Harry will explain:
- The motivation for the project and an overview of the workflow used to generate records from the cards (mainly in our Chinese collection)
- Our initial efforts to use Z39.50 to query OCLC WorldCat for titles and authors on catalogue cards
- How we moved to using the Metadata API and the benefits and challenges that brought
- A brief description of the app we’ve developed to help cataloguers to choose between search results for each card
- Future development, including how we can use this process for cards with works in less well represented languages than Mandarin
Featuring: Harry Lloyd, Research Software Engineer, British Library
