We have structure. What now?
A question asked by most of the library information systems developers who have already started to work on the implementation of entity-relationship cataloguing (ECR).
As a rule, the major issue is (in)compatibility of new structures with the existing data. Some developers have been solving this problem (with varying degrees of success) for almost a decade.
We have come to similar observations when developing the COBISS system and – before starting to implement entity-relationship cataloguing – we will have to:
• eliminate inconsistencies between the shared database (COBIB) and local records in databases of individual libraries;
• link all the unlinked bibliographic records with records in the CONOR database;
• determine how to convert the existing CONOR authority database into entities compliant with the IFLA LRM model (Agent, Delo/Work, etc.);
• ensure that future changes in cataloguing will not worsen or corrupt the operation of other parts of the COBISS system.
All these issues represent considerable challenges from technical and implementation aspects. We will present briefly how we intend to deal with them.
