Re: Introductions

Hello, everyone.

I'm Asaf Bartov, founding editor of Project Ben-Yehuda[1], a volunteer-run
digital library producing digital editions of public domain Hebrew works
(inspired by, but unaffiliated with, Project Gutenberg[2]).  I design
software for a living, and my academic training is in classics (Greek and
Latin).  I am also very active as a board member of Wikimedia Israel[3], the
Israeli chapter associated with the Wikimedia Foundation[4].

Some years ago, while thinking about building a proper catalog for Project
Ben-Yehuda (PBY henceforth), I began studying bibliography and cataloging
practices, in order to not re-invent the wheel and use best practices.

I soon realized this is a time of change in the world of digital
bibliography, and I was fascinated by the richness and expressive power
offered by the FRBR conceptual model.  I remain convinced that simply the
separation of the conceptual WEMI entities is a huge step forward toward
21st-century library and information systems.

Looking into ways of implementing FRBR, I soon realized it was far from
obvious, and yet, my digital library not having any legacy metadata to
migrate (there currently is no catalog at PBY), my primary concern was the
lack of centralized/standard Work and Expression numbers, to use for
federating and interchanging FRBRized metadata.

I have been mulling over this problem for a couple of years now (PBY not
being my day job), and have been preaching the FRBR gospel to various
organizations I have come in contact with in Israel, from the local Google
R&D center, through the Center for Educational Technology[5], the Hebrew
Language Academy, and up to the National Library of Israel (NLI)[6].

I will be sending a Use Case for PBY in a couple of days, to better describe
my concern.  PBY "lives in the future" in the sense that we are not
committed to any legacy software system or metadata.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to help change the world.

    Asaf Bartov

[1] http://benyehuda.org
[2] http://www.gutenberg.org
[3] http://www.wikimedia.org.il/en
[4] http://wikimediafoundation.org
[5] http://www3.cet.ac.il/english/pages/Home.aspx
[6] http://jnul.huji.ac.il/eng/
-- 
Asaf Bartov <asaf.bartov@gmail.com>