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* Search and discovery interfaces for public access to collections
* Search engine optimization
==Chicago Underground Library’s Community-Based Cataloging System==
* Margaret Heller, Chicago Underground Library/Dominican University (mheller@dom.edu)
* Nell Taylor, Chicago Underground Library (nell@underground-library.org)
http://www.underground-library.org (until November 15, you will need to add /catalog to see the actual catalog)
We have developed a unique cataloging and discovery system using Drupal, which we eventually hope to provide as a standalone module that any organization can implement as both a technical and theoretical template to start an Underground Library in its own city. Chicago Underground Library (CUL) is a replicable model for community collections. It uses the lens of an archive to examine the creative, political, and intellectual interdependencies of a city, tracing how people have worked together, who influenced whom, where ideas first developed, and how they spread from one publication to another through individuals.
Cataloging is done by members of the community, and so the system is designed to be intuitive for non-librarians. Our indexing method captures every single contributor (authors, editors, typesetters, illustrators, etc.) and catalogers create exhaustive folksonomy lists of subjects so that users can see how publications are linked by threads of influence. Users are able to search all of the individuals and subjects, click on contributors’ names and find everything else they’ve worked on throughout their careers, look on a map at where each publication came from and see what’s been published in their neighborhood, and also provide their own historical notes and additions to any catalog entry. Many of the publications in our collection have incomplete data sets because the people who made them never expected them to wind up in a library. We will be proactively reaching out to people in the community to share their knowledge of different publications in the catalog. For instance, they will contribute stories about where a magazine might have been distributed, who we’re missing from the masthead, where the publisher’s office might have moved to, which publications hosted readings together, etc. Our catalogers will use these contextual comments to glean more metadata for the catalog entry, but will leave up all the comments and anecdotes as part of the record. In effect, we want to create a social network that builds a library catalog, and vice versa.
At Code4Lib, we will present our current system, discuss the challenges we face, and our future development plans.
