Introduction

XOBIS endeavors to restructure bibliographic and authority data in a consistent and unified manner. We have chosen to broaden the scope of the "bibliographic" system in an attempt:

  • To address problems that digital libraries are facing due to a broader array of content
  • To recognize that the "community information" format is not inherently different from those for bibliographic and authority data
  • To provide a potential vehicle for unifying museum and library information--too similar to remain forever separate

This also has the potential to facilitate improvement in the correlation of cataloging rules with the data encoding structure. XOBIS endeavors to address complex bibliographic problems while providing a sturdy foundation to support future, integrated, advanced information retrieval and presentation systems.

Status

A beta version of XOBIS is being developed on this site. Ongoing issues, related to the beta version of the XML Organic Bibliographic Information Schema, will be tracked, discussed, and resolved in the ticketing system of this website. Snapshots of the schema in various stages of development will be available through the browse source feature of this website. There is also a scratch space for thoughts and issues that aren't specific enough for tickets.

The alpha version of XOBIS is still available on the Stanford site: xobis.stanford.edu For those looking for more in depth information about XOBIS, this is where you should look.

History

XOBIS was created by Dick R. Miller, Kevin S. Clarke, and staff at Lane Medical Library, Stanford University, in 2001. Development continued from December of that year until September, 2002. At that point, an alpha version of the schema was released and feedback solicited from the library community. Since 2002, other priorities have competed for the project members’ time. However, a beta version of XOBIS is underway; we expect it to address some of the issues left unresolved in the alpha version and solve several new issues that have arisen since XOBIS' creation.

During the 2001-2002 timeframe, many people contributed to the development of the alpha version. There were many meetings during which the people from the XOBIS working group (listed below) discussed issues involved with the development of the schema. The group also brought in experts from outside Lane, when needed, to inform the group about issues related to domain specific cataloging and the latest developments in authority control.

Below is a list of the initial XOBIS working group members. We also owe a great deal of gratitude though to others, not listed, who have assisted in various ways with XOBIS’ development.

  • Dick R. Miller (Associate Director Resource Management)
  • Kevin S. Clarke (Digital Information Systems Developer)
  • Mary Buttner (Digital Materials, Collection Development)
  • Maria Feng (Cataloger)
  • Ying Li (Systems Analyst)
  • Pam Murnane (Information Services Librarian)
  • Jo Wang (Metadata Management Librarian)
  • Randy Woelfel (Systems Analyst)
  • Rebecca Wesley (Digital Materials Librarian)
  • Charles Yates (Digital Information Systems Programmer)
  • Danjin Zhu (Head of Acquisitions)