European Literary Bibliography
Challenge
The European Literary Bibliography (ELB) is a research infrastructure service collecting, harmonising and presenting bibliographical data on literature and literary studies from individual national sources through a unified interface. A key challenge is harmonising and converting MARC21-based bibliographic data into ECHOLOT’s linked open data (LOD) environment. Although MARC21 has long been considered a legacy format, it remains the backbone of data representations across the library sector. This case study will pilot a LODification process for ELB data sources with the use of the ECHOLOT system, including entity linking and enrichment tasks (e.g. mapping personal authorities to Wikidata IDs).
Approach
The case study will be carried out by the coordinators, ICL CAS & IBL PAN, in two main phases. First, data harmonisation will take place within the ELB environment. MARC21-based records will be cleaned and prepared for processing in the ECHOLOT system. In the second phase, the prepared data will undergo further cleaning, harmonisation and enrichment within ECHOLOT to improve interoperability and enable dissemination to connected platforms such as Wikidata and, where relevant, Europeana. Throughout the process, the project team will collaborate closely with experts from the case study participants.
Expected results
- A complete pilot demonstrating the LODification and harmonisation of multilingual bibliographic data using ELB and ECHOLOT.
- A fully LODified, harmonised, and enriched dataset ready for integration and dissemination via ECHOLOT to external systems.
- User feedback throughout the pilot and expert assessment of the quality of the achieved results and suggestion of improvements.
Case study participants:
European Literary Bibliography (ELB)
Currently, ELB contains over 4.5 million bibliographic records from the Czech Republic, Finland, Poland and Spain. These records include detailed, structured information about diverse types of documents, such as books, journals, articles and magazines. In addition to bibliographic data, the ELB incorporates authority data, offering structured information on various relevant entities such as persons, institutions, artistic works, and geographical terms. Where possible, the ELB records are enriched with Wikidata identifiers to support interoperability.
National Library of the Czech Republic
The National Library of the Czech Republic will contribute to the project with expertise in data mapping, in particular with respect to LODification of bibliographical data. The National Library’s collection includes >7M volumes. It provides services to more than one million users every year, including university or college students, teachers, academics, scientists, and scholars.
British Library
The British Library, one of the largest libraries worldwide with >170M items and collections spanning books, newspapers, maps, sound recordings, photographs, patents and stamps, will test and provide feedback to the results of enrichment processes performed on ELB data.
University of Alicante
The University of Alicante, established experts in LODification bibliographical data, will deliver skilled support in converting and enriching GLAM datasets for the purposes of data analysis and interpretation. The university hosts a wide range of open data resources, including the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, the largest open-access repository of digitised Spanish-language historical texts and literature from the Ibero-American world.