Developing the BIBFRAME environment & transforming the data from MARC has to focus on User Experience for search & display, as well as for cataloguing.
Legacy metadata is a challenge - metadata standards & practices evolve over time, introducing inconsistencies in the database #bfwe2026

BIBFRAME migration required assess the existing database and establish rules and policies for transformation. Staff required training to learn how to catalogue with the new BIBFRAME structure and prepare for data migration and transformation. #bfwe2026

"From MARC to Linked Data: Institutional Strategies
and Lessons Learned from a Large-Scale BIBFRAME
Implementation in Latin America" - Álvaro López Bustamente,
EBSCO.
University of Concepcion, Chile, used a 3 step process to migrate to BIBFRAME
#bfwe2026

Kevin Ford of LoC indicates that support for MADS/RDF (Metadata Authority Description Schema in RDF) should help to close the gap between BIBFRAME environments and Authority Control #bfwe2026

BIBFRAME does not model the class Agent and its subclasses, meaning that Authorities have to be managed outside of BIBFRAME #bfwe2026

The Polymath Virtual Library environment necessarily straddles multiple standards in a hybrid environment of coexistence of different metadata schemas and ontologes. #bfwe2026

Authority Records for Persons as Agents include connections to Related Works as well as identifiers to external sources such as VIAF, ISNI, Wikidata.
#bfwe2026

The technical infrastructure of the Polymath Virtual Library relies on MARC21, Dublin Core, and MODS from METS files
This needed to be transformed into 'Modern Marc' incorporating URIs as Linked Data elements to enable connections with Europeana & Wikidata #bfwe2026

"From MARC to BIBFRAME in a Hybrid Metadata
Ecosystem: The School of Salamanca Digital Library as
an Enriched Linked Open Data Case using Marva Editor" - Xavier Agenjo, Fundación Ignacio Larramendi.
A compilation of digitized works in numerous libraries harvested via Hispana & Europeana
#bfwe2026

The hope is that Partners of the National Bibliographic Database in Australia will start to catalogue in native BIBFRAME in their own environments - but there will likely be a hybrid MARC and BIBFRAME environment for some time #bfwe2026

1 year later and the environment has had to evolve to take into consideration:
- Rare books and non-print resources
- Variable metadata quality
- The need to 'copy catalogue' into local systems
Partners are starting to engage more meaningfully & think about local BIBFRAME adoption #bfwe2026

The new infrastructure takes data from 3 sources into a MARC to BIBFRAME conversion process. There is a single merged 'record' in the BIBFRAME database.
Metadata can then be exported in MARC to libraries and/or discovery layers #bfwe2026

The training avoided becoming too technical because that is what the community feedback indicated was needed #bfwe2026

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar" was used as an accessible example in 'BIBFRAME Downunder' training via webinars and self-paced learning resources that focussed on the 'why' and the benefits of BIBFRAME in short and long term #bfwe2026

Operational staff do most of their work in MARC and change was daunting - add to this the shrinking of budgets and reduction in the number of cataloguing staff across Australian libraries, and the migration to BIBFRAME felt very difficult #bfwe2026

Migration required analysing MARC field frequency and benefit for the mapping to BIBFRAME.
Local requirements of Australian cataloguing related to ILL, National eDeposit, & literacy programmes, meant certain fields needed to be preserved as intact data-points in BIBFRAME #bfwe2026

Moving to BIBFRAME from MARC meant a brand new system. The Trove Ecosystem is complex - with data transfer across stakeholders and applications.
All staff involved in running and using this infrastructure need to understand BIBFRAME #bfwe2026

"BIBFRAME in Trove Metadata Manager: Future Proofing the Australian National Bibliographic Database" - Michela Goodwin, National Library of Australia.
~900 Partner Organisations across Australia contribute to the National Bibliographic Database, a MARC-based Union Catalogue. #bfwe2026

Interested in practical implementations of #LinkedData in #Libraries ? Check out posts from the #BIBFRAME Workshop in Europe 2026 at #bfwe2026
www.bfwe.eu/barcelona_2026
#metadata #cataloguing

Restrictions on metadata sharing will be challenging as libraries move to linked open data & connect library data to the open web - technical development is focussed on open metadata 'pools' but the majority of library metadata hasn't been leveraged because it hasn't been asserted as open! #bfwe2026