Introduction

The National Bibliographic Knowledgebase (NBK) is a merged database of library catalogues, drawn from university, specialist, and national libraries across the UK, plus Trinity College Dublin. It is being developed and run by Jisc (https://www.jisc.ac.uk/), a membership organisation who provide digital solutions for UK education and research, working with OCLC. The NBK aims to bring together the catalogues of all Higher Education libraries in the UK, along with many specialist research libraries and research collections held in other libraries, to provide a picture of the national collection and enable libraries to more effectively manage and develop their collections.

NBK and Library Hub

The data from the NBK underpins some forthcoming Jisc Library Hub services: Discover & Compare, and Cataloguing. Pilot interfaces for Discover https://libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/discover and Cataloguing are now available, and the full services will be available from the end of July 2019. These services will replace the current Jisc services of Copac, CCM Tools, SUNCAT, and the RLUK cataloguing database.

The Discover service is a freely-available service which allows users to search across all of the data that has been contributed to the NBK, to facilitate the identification and location of items for learning, teaching, and research.

Compare is a collection management service, which will allow libraries to compare their collections to those of peers, benchmark libraries, and fellow regional or consortial members. This will help to facilitate collection development at a local, national, and regional level. This service is available to NBK contributors and Jisc members.

The Cataloguing service allows for the download of MARC records for use in a library’s local catalogue. This service is available to NBK contributors and Jisc members.

Database model

To participate in the NBK, we ask libraries to send us a full export of all records that appear on their local library catalogue, including serials and eresources, but excluding any Patron Driven Acquisition/Demand Driven Acquisition material which they don’t own. This should then be kept up-to-date to ensure an accurate reflection of the library’s holdings, by regular updates of new, amended, and deleted records.

All data that is sent to the NBK is gathered in a data lake. Data that is sent in MARC format is stored as supplied; data provided in a non-MARC format (such as XML, excel spreadsheets) is converted into MARC for storage in the data lake.

From the data lake, the data flows out to two databases: one for resource discovery and collection management (Discover & Compare), and one which allows download of MARC records for import into local catalogues (Cataloguing).

This database model was arrived at following extensive community consultation, which revealed the differing requirements of resource discovery and cataloguing. For example, For Discover & Compare print and electronic versions of items are being merged into the same records; whilst feedback from cataloguers during the development of the NBK told us that this did not fit with how most institutions catalogue their material. Another request from cataloguers was for separate AACR2 and RDA records, which in a resource discovery interface would produce unnecessary duplication and confusion.

Coverage was a significant factor in the design of the database model. For Discover & Compare to meet their remits, they must provide as complete and accurate as possible information about the holdings of UK libraries. The Discover & Compare database is also being used by the British Library to support the UKRR (UK Research Reserve, https://www.bl.uk/ukrr) which relies on accurate holdings information. Thus, to maximise coverage, we accept data in non-MARC formats, and the bar for record inclusion is low: we require only that the record is well-formed/processable and contains a non-blank title field.

For the Cataloguing database, comprehensiveness is not so important, and there is a requirement for higher-quality data. This means that Cataloguing database contains less data than the Discover & Compare database: there are some exclusions on the grounds of licensing (records obtained under licence from data suppliers who do not permit reuse in MARC format); and some on the grounds of data quality. Cataloguers have told us that they would prefer that the non-native ‘converted MARC’ be excluded from the Cataloguing database. Libraries may also specify if they want to exclude part or all of their catalogue from the Cataloguing database.

The Discover & Compare database is being run at Jisc, and uses Elasticsearch, a flexible open-source technology, with significant inbuilt analytics capabilities.

The Cataloguing database is being run on the OCLC CBS system. From the data which may be loaded onto the Cataloguing database, OCLC are running a data sync to WorldCat. This is optional, and is available to Jisc member libraries as a membership benefit. For libraries who were previously providing separate data loads to Copac, SUNCAT, and WorldCat, NBK development has given those libraries the option to gain the same amount of data exposure from a single data upload to the NBK.

Interfaces

Pilot interfaces for the Discover and Cataloguing services were released in February 2019. The designs for the Discover and Compare interface stem from UX and design work done as part of a Jisc project, Transforming Library Support Services, which has led to the development of the Library Hub.

Users of the pilot Discover interface are encouraged to submit feedback on the service’s design and functionality, and we are taking this into account as the interface is developed. At the time of writing, the advanced search and refine functionalities have yet to be implemented, and feedback so far emphasises how important these are to users of the Discover service.

The use of Elasticsearch means that we are able to offer search options that weren’t available in Copac, including Boolean and fuzzy searching. More information on the search functionality available can be found on the help pages: https://libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/discover/help/.

The Cataloguing service is available through a web interface, which we plan in future to integrate into the Library Hub UI, and a Z39.50 connection, allowing users to search and download through their library management system.

Community engagement

Development of the NBK has relied heavily on the involvement and input of the UK library community. We run regular roadshows (4-6 times a year) in venues around the country where libraries can come to hear about the latest developments in the NBK, discuss issues with peers, and give us feedback on aspects of NBK and Library Hub Discover & Compare and Cataloguing.

We owe a great deal of gratitude to our NBK Community Data Groups, a collective of around 30 members from UK HE institutions who, as well as helping to guide NBK development, have done important research and community work. A survey run by the community data groups in June 2018 yielded valuable information from 99 UK libraries, and provided the foundation for much future work. A headline summary of the survey responses can be found here: https://blog.mimas.ac.uk/ccm/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2018/11/NBK_Headlines.pdf

Support currently being provided by Community Data Groups members includes the formation of a group of library management system experts, available to give help and advice to users of particular library management systems on exporting their data to the NBK. This assistance is much appreciated by the community, and demonstrates the community collaboration which the NBK project hopes to inspire and facilitate.

Future developments

Development of the NBK and Library Hub Discover & Compare and Cataloguing services will not end with the release of the services at the end of July 2019. We are committed to ongoing development and improvement of the services. Currently planned development and enhancement work includes:

• Interface enhancements, including personalisation options
• Continued loading of new libraries and data sources
• Investigation of ebook metadata: quality, sources, and possibilities of central metadata distribution
• Data quality and error reports for contributing libraries
• Tools to help libraries improve data quality
• Continued investigation of licensing and metadata record ownership and reuse
• Inclusion of more article-level data

As with the NBK development so far, all of this work will be undertaken in close collaboration with our community, and we are grateful for their enthusiastic participation in helping to realise the benefits of the NBK for the UK’s library, research, teaching, and learning community. Esther Edwards from Manchester Public Libraries, recently added to the NBK, describes the benefits: “NBK is a wonderful discovery tool and for me it fulfils a lifetime ambition to integrate and provide access to Manchester Public Libraries special collections (book rarities) together with other academic institutions in one place… It transforms resource discovery to those collections making knowledge and understanding equally accessible to all”.

References:

• Jisc: https://www.jisc.ac.uk
• OCLC: https://www.oclc.org
• Library Hub Cataloguing: https://cataloguing.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk
• Library Hub Discover & Compare: https://libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/discover/
• Transforming Jisc Library Support Services: https://libraryservices.jiscinvolve.org/wp/
• UKRR: https://www.bl.uk/ukrr