[Web4lib] University of Rochester eXtensible Catalog (XC) project

[Jennifer Bowen]

With apologies for duplicate postings...

University of Rochester Receives Mellon Grant 
for eXtensible Catalog (XC)

The University of Rochester's River Campus Libraries have received a
$283,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to begin planning
and requirements analysis for the development of an open-source online
system to unify access to traditional and digital library resources. The
new system, known as eXtensible Catalog (XC), has the potential to allow
future library users to get more out of academic library collections,
and to give academic libraries more control over how best to help
library users gather information. 

The first phase of the analysis will produce a plan that will include:

§	A survey of related projects that will assess the feasibility of
bringing together and building upon work being done at other
institutions 
§	An analysis of freely-available source code that could be
incorporated into the development of XC 
§	Outreach to other academic institutions doing similar work at
libraries 
§	Recommendations for the metadata requirements of the new system,
informed by data models that focus on how metadata helps people gather
and understand information 
§	An analysis of existing user studies and recommendations for
additional studies of user practices to guide the development of XC 
§	An analysis of needs for the XC system within academic
libraries

The complete press release for the project is available at:
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2518.  For additional
information, please contact one of the XC Co-Principal Investigators:
David Lindahl, Director of Digital Initiatives
(davidl at library.rochester.edu)
Jennifer Bowen, Head of Cataloging (jbowen at library.rochester.edu)
Nancy Fried Foster, Lead Anthropologist (nancyf at library.rochester.edu) 
  



Jennifer Bowen
Head of Cataloging, University of Rochester Libraries
Head of Technical Services, Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of
Music
jbowen at library.rochester.edu
(585) 274-1370

Rush Rhees Library, Box 270055
University of Rochester, 
Rochester, NY  14627-0055
or
Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music
27 Gibbs St., Rochester, NY  14604