Here, we demonstrate how such challenges can be overcome by specifically tailored data analytical ecosystems that provide scalable tools for data processing and analysis. Furthermore, we show how external sources of metadata, for instance, on authors, publishers, or geographical places, can be used to enrich and verify bibliographic information.
reliable and efficient use of bibliographic information has been challenging
This type of ecosystem has potential for wider implementation in related studies and other bibliographies. In particular, our systematic approach provides a starting point and guidelines for more extensive integration of national catalogues. National bibliographies are essentially about mapping the national canon of publishing, but integrating data across borders should be managed in a way that takes into account specific local circumstances while also helping to overcome the national view in analyzing the past. Such integration can help scholarship to reach a more precise view of print culture beyond the confines of national bibliographies. Open availability of the raw data as well as the analysis methods is central for efficient, collaborative, and transparent research use of bibliographic collections in modern society. Whereas traditional data management policies do not support open sharing of these digital resources, the time for change is ripe. Open availability of bibliographic data collections and supporting data sources can foster innovative and nontraditional research use of the catalogs, as demonstrated in this article. In this rapidly changing field, the development toward more collaborative development of research methods can advance the transition from data management towards collaborative quality control and research.
Deals with the historic setting as well as with the contemporary.
This combines theory and scholarly research with practical applications.
Large-scale temporal and spatial dynamics of the evolving publishing landscape.
We present an analysis of the overall publishing landscape in the period 1500-1800 based on comprehensive harmonization and joint analysis of four large bibliographic catalogs. This has allowed us to assess publishing activity beyond what is accessible by the use of national catalogs alone. In addition to the historical analysis of knowledge production trends, we are releasing the openly licensed source code for catalog harmonization, and a notable improved version of the Finnish national bibliography, Fennica. This code and data release demonstrate the potential of our approach for research use of library catalogs, and the essential role that data harmonization and integration plays in this process.
This demonstrates how comprehensive data harmonization is essential for accurate and useful data retrieval tasks and relevant for the overall usability of the catalogue information, and how the available classification and subject analyses, geographical information, and other data can be utilized, augmented, enriched and validated based on auxiliary information sources.information sources, such as digital maps for instance. Integration of national bibliographies, special collections, and archives is relevant for international aspects of digital cataloging. As such the work highlights specific bottlenecks and shortcomings in the available cataloging and classification information, and can therefore provide relevant information for education, training, and management of cataloguing. Finally, we demonstrate how bibliographic catalog records can be used as a digital research resource, rather than a mere information retrieval tool.