OCLC's Internet activities

[Stu Weibel]

> With all this discussion about how to organize web information, I've
> yet to see any mention or discussion concerning OCLC's current project
> to catalog the Web.

OCLC is engaged in a range of activities in an effort to respond to and
shape the evolution of Internet information services.  Some of these
are listed below, and, as a membership organization we are always eager
to hear from our constituents.  We welcome your comments and
criticisms.

Close examination of these activities reveals a variety of perspectives
and approaches that range from conventional library practice to radical 
automated approaches.  The diversity of these activities reflects the
diversity of the challenges as we perceive them, and a belief that the 
solutions will be a mixture of old and new and yet-to-be invented.

We may not be sliced bread, but we ain't chopped liver, either ;-)

Stuart Weibel
Senior Research Scientist
OCLC Office of Research
weibel at oclc.org
http://purl.org/net/weibel

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OCLC Internet Resources Cataloging Project

  A US Department of Education funded project to explore the applicability
  of MARC Cataloging practices to library-selected Internet resources.

  http://purl.oclc.org/net/intercat

Metadata Workshop Series
 
  Organization of metadata workshops to bring together librarians,
  text-markup and Internet technologists to explore new models of
  electronic resource description.

  http://purl.oclc.org/oclc/rsch/metadataI
  http://purl.oclc.org/oclc/rsch/metadataII
 
PURL Project

  Implementation of the only deployed system for URN-like naming of Internet
  Resources. 

  http://purl.oclc.org

Scorpion Project

  Experimental systems to explore automated cataloging of Internet resources

  http://purl.oclc.org/scorpion

Spectrum Project

  Exploration of tools to support author-generated metadata for network resources.

  http://www.oclc.org:5061/spectrum.html

IETF Participation

  Active participation in Internet Engineering Task Force working groups on
  Internet standards on HTML and URIs.

International Conference Organization

  OCLC's support and organizational contribution to the International
  World Wide Web Conference series and the Internet Society's INET
  conference have helped keep the library community's Internet agenda 
  visible and relevant.

Task Force Participation

  OCLC research staff have been active as members or consultants to the
  NSF/NASA/ARPA Digital Library Initiatives, the CPA/RLG Task Force on
  Preservation of Digital Information, the ALCTS Task Force on Meta Access,
  and the Nation Digital Library Federation.