The local in the global: universal bibliographic control from the bottom up

The paper discusses the application of universal bibliographic control (UBC) in the environment of the Semantic Web and linked data. Attempts to implement UBC as a worldwide system for the control and exchange of bibliographic information using top-down methodologies have only partially succeeded at global scale. These attempts have included monolithic standard approaches for specific areas of bibliographic control such as metadata encoding using UNIMARC, content creation using ISBD, and identification of authority headings in GARR and FRAD. The abandoning of the last of these initiatives was partly influenced by the emerging technologies of the Semantic Web, specifically to link and re-use data from heterogeneous sources and allowing local approaches to be merged into ever larger communities of common practice to global level. The paper describes some of these new techniques which allow local metadata to be shared with non-local applications, and global metadata to be used in local applications. The paper discusses issues raised by these methods for bibliographic control. The fundamental difference in approach, within a linked data environment, is the refinement of a global set of description and relationship element to meet the needs of local applications versus the aggregation of existing local elements and subsequent emergence of global common points of view from local practice. The paper uses real examples from IFLA and non-IFLA standards such as RDA, Dublin Core, BIBFRAME and schema.org. The paper concludes that the vision of UBC developed over many years by IFLA remains valid and does not need to go into terminal decline, but a basic shift in point of view to the local from the global is required if the future is to benefit from the investments of the past.