2025
BIBFRAME WORKSHOP IN EUROPE, Naples 2025
University of Naples Federico II
BIBFRAME Workshop in Europe
The aim of the BIBFRAME Workshop in Europe is to be a forum for sharing knowledge about the practice of, production with, and planning of BIBFRAME implementation.
We bring together people working in the transition from MARC to Linked Data using the BIBFRAME model and related tools.
The workshop areas are strongly focused on the practical implementation of BIBFRAME, not a theoretical Linked Data / Semantic Web event.
Preliminary Programme
Tuesday, September 16
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The Library of Congress one year later
One year ago, at the 2024 Bibframe Workshop in Helsinki, the Library of Congress announced it had begun cataloging in and using Bibframe in production. At the time, only a handful of catalogers were working in Bibframe, but participation quickly expanded. By May 2025, more than 300 catalogers, scattered from Washington, DC to New Delhi, India, cataloging materials in over 400 languages and using 30 different scripts, had been trained to use Marva and were working in Bibframe. This was with the Library's Voyager ILS still in place.
Since the bulk of the Library's cataloging staff had been trained to work in Marva and since the Library had established a way to do this work independent of a MARC-based ILS, when, in July 2025, the Library switches its ILS to FOLIO, there was little impact to Bibframe catalogers. They will continue to work in Marva and in our Bibframe system. We are switching out the MARC system for a new one; MARC records will be exported to FOLIO, just as they were to Voyager.
LC's Bibframe system and its conversions, especially with respect to non-Latin support, have advanced enormously, all the while innumerable tweaks, enhancements, and, yes, bug fixes have been incorporated. At the same time, LC has smartly leveraged this transitional opportunity to enact long-desired cataloging changes and simplifications.
This presentation will describe LC's year-long journey from 5 Bibframe production catalogers to more than 300, while continuously being flexible and open to policy amendments and - when those two major aspects were not enough – all while also navigating a complete ILS replacement. Would we do anything differently?
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BIBFRAME Cataloging at Library of Congress
Why ABA catalogers were moved into BIBFRAME to work in the Marva Editor, special format catalogers status, faceted subject headings, changes to LC's approach to NARs, impact of move to LCAP/Folio catalogers, BIBFRAME manual for global use (Judith).
How the training was conducted; location of training materials and manual (Trina).
Wrap up (Judith).
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Scaffolding Transitions: Applying Lessons from Teaching Official RDA to BIBFRAME Training
In this presentation, we consider our experiences with teaching RDA as found in the Official RDA Toolkit and preparing colleagues and library and information science students for linked data readiness, with the goal of exploring how the lessons we have learned as educators and trainers can shape the way that we teach BIBFRAME. While RDA and BIBFRAME are different kinds of standards, both share a common goal of enabling library data to be interoperable with traditional and linked data environments.
Recognizing that some libraries have chosen to adopt BIBFRAME before implementing Official RDA, some have chosen to do the reverse, and still others are waiting before implementing either standard, we see significant but surmountable challenges to bring peers on board to learn about these new standards. Given the potentially significant overlap in RDA institutions that may one day move to linked data systems, we call on BIBFRAME communities to accelerate development of training with new learners in mind.
This presentation explores the value of a coherent conceptual model as a key learning and training support for Official RDA, and how that lesson might be applied to BIBFRAME training. Our goal is to demonstrate that an approach that spends time explaining terminology and concepts, and that makes no assumptions about what knowledge is considered "too basic" can help to create a constructive path towards comprehension, practice, and wider adoption of a standard.
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Bibliographic Database of Interactive Books
The "Bibliographic Database of Interactive Books" consists of bibliographical information about books, manuscript and printed, ancient and modern, and prints containing interactive paper devices. The expression "movable or interactive books" in fact refers to books created for a wide range of different purposes (teaching, mnemonics, play, divining, etc.) including mechanical or paratextual devices demanding or soliciting the interaction of the reader.
Volvelles and flaps were the two most common devices in scientific books between the 16th and 17th centuries: volvelles, or rotating discs, parchment or paper, shaped and superimposed, fixed to the underlying page with one or more pins, which allowed each disc to rotate freely and independently around its own axis; and flaps designed and used to cover and then reveal one or more images underneath, used especially in anatomy books. From the 18th century onwards, thanks to the ingenuity of brilliant paper engineers, interactive books found their most successful application in children's literature, inaugurating an extraordinary season of wonderful effects starting with pop-up books.
The database, which is not prefigured as a catalog, will act as a collector between bibliographic information from various international, primary and secondary sources (library catalogs, private collections, sales, editorial, auction catalogs, etc.). Its structure is such as to allow in a simplified way the entry of data but also its retrieval, either through the usual access points (author, title, place, publisher, year, subject, etc.) or by navigating by types of interactivity and paper inventions.
As a next step, the bibliographic data collected in the database is transformed into an entity-based structure and converted into the BIBFRAME format, using specific components of the LOD Platform developed by Casalini-Cult within the broader Share Family initiative. This transformation enables the semantic structuring of bibliographic records in accordance with linked data principles. Furthermore, the project enriches the BIBFRAME output by integrating the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF), allowing users to access and explore high-resolution images of the interactive works. This combination enhances both the discoverability and the visual experience of the materials, supporting advanced research and specialized applications.
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Not all library collections are books
As Bibframe monograph cataloging became more routine at LC, attention turned to other formats, notably music. Bibframe has flirted with the Performed Music Ontology (PMO) for years. Early experimentation with PMO 1.0 led to changes to simplify the extension vocabulary for use with the Bibframe vocabulary. PMO 2.0 was found to be more practical, usable, and implementable. In short, a highly compatible addition to Bibframe in support of music cataloging.
What did we add? Where were the rough spots? How will it work?
This presentation will expand on LC's use of and incorporation of PMO with its use of Bibframe. It will also discuss plans to manage PMO moving forward.
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Public Libraries and BIBFRAME in the United States: A Research Partnership
As progress continues toward implementing BIBFRAME, public libraries face significant obstacles to even participate in the conversation. BIBFRAME is now at the point where public libraries must prepare for change or risk having the long-term future of public library metadata be decided elsewhere.
Join us to learn about Equinox Open Library Initiative's recent research partnership with King County Library System to evaluate the BIBFRAME model and identify the unique needs of public libraries in the United States when considering the benefits and challenges of BIBFRAME. The presentation will also discuss BIBFRAME as an important opportunity for public libraries. If public libraries - all 9,000+ of them in the United States alone! - engage with BIBFRAME now, they will be able to help improve it by providing a focus on using metadata to support the broadest possible range of library patrons.
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Can and shall the open WEMI be bounded? Semantic omissions and misalignments in LRM, RDA and BIBFRAME primary bibliographic relationships
This presentation introduces a Reference Ontology (RO) developed to overcome IFLA LRM, RDA and BIBFRame interoperability problems, applying mediation methods that connect different ontologies at a higher level, without imposing a common central ontology nor recurring to mapping techniques such as crosswalks or application profiles, which are poorly scalable and not best suited for the Semantic Web.
The RO is the outcome of a PhD research on interoperability issues of bibliographic ontologies derived not only from misalignments in granularity and meaning of certain elements but also from their reduced application of semantic mechanisms (e.g., classification, equivalence, hierarchy or transitivity), as well as from the low level of interlinking among ontologies.
For a practical demonstration of the RO mediation potential, this presentation will focus on two interoperability problems: a) the lack of transitivity, values inheritance and other logical properties in Work, Expression, Manifestation and Item (WEMI) primary relationships; and b) the RDA and BIBFrame misalignment with the LRM WEMI disjointness.
The demonstration exercise is carried out using real-world bibliographic examples from datasets of the Library of Congress, which implements BIBFrame, and Biblioteca Nacional de España, which implements the BNE Ontology, whose elements are mapped to RDA.
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4 ways to LOD: Analysis of international implementation projects
The Documentation Center of the Hospices Civils de Lyon (France's second-largest university hospital) has taken part with the enterprise Tech'Advantage, developping the linked-data compatible ILS Syrtis and the migration tool CoM3T, in the LRM-Factory project forming the consortium ACASE (Access to Culture, Arts and Science through Entities). LRM-Factory aims to create the first metadata factory to facilitate the transition to the semantic web for bibliographic agencies through the mass migration of collections to vocabularies such as RDA or BIBFRAME.
The project has been going for over a year and we have taken responsibility in documenting our work but also researching on other similar initiatives. We take part in GitHub community and organize interviews, particularly with national libraries undergoing catalog conversion. In order to maintain a coherent and similar basis for these exchanges, we have drawn up a grid of questions to serve as a guide. It comprises several categories : context, project, implementation methodology, pitfalls and challenges encountered.
In this presentation, we will offer a cross study of three programmes, based on the interviews made with the British Library (United-Kingdom), the Kungliga Bibliotetek (Sweden) and IZUM (Slovenia). Then, we will focus on the perspectives offered by LRM-Factory and the possibilities offered by CoM3T to adapt library catalogues' data to the semantic web.
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BIBFRAME Discovery Using Generative AI
The principles of knowledge representation that underpin the BIBFRAME RDF/OWL ontology provide a powerful foundation for reasoning over bibliographic data and inferring new connections utilizing linked open data resources across the web. Earlier Semantic Web research relied on reasoning-based approaches from "Good Old-Fashioned AI" (GOFAI), employing symbolic logic and aspects of first-order logic for reasoning. Much of what was once considered science fiction in the era of symbolic logic-based agents is now poised to become science fact with advances in generative AI that can be used for powering the powering agents of the semantic web.
The departure point of this work is in bridging aspects of symbolic AI with generative AI for improving BIBFRAME Discovery Services.
This presentation explores how knowledge representation and reasoning principles can be fully exploited by integrating Generative AI into BIBFRAME-based discovery within libraries and beyond. Specifically, the talk demonstrates how retrieval-augmented generative chat models (RAG) enhance bibliographic exploration by surfacing the interconnections within BIBFRAME resources along with linked open data endpoints (demo video and screenshot). The RAG approach is designed to drive use of collections, services, and expertise within the library.
Current experimentation utilizes GraphQL endpoints from Share-VDE (BIBFRAME data) and SPARQL queries for grounding LLM knowledge with Wikidata. This is done by careful curation of prompts that direct the RAG agent in the LLM to 1) refer follow up questions to librarians and the librarian-based library chat service; 2) acknowledge limited access to data (both Share-VDE and Wikidata may be incomplete); 3) utilize the user context of the author page where the chat widget is embedded; and 4) use the context of the chat widget as the starting point for BIBFRAME graph exploration.
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Managing BIBFRAME Work Entities at Scale: Reconciliation and Visualization Approaches
Transforming MARC metadata into BIBFRAME results in the creation of BIBFRAME Work data for each individual BIBFRAME record. However, some of these records can (or should) share the same BIBFRAME Work or Hub data by referencing a common work or hub identifier.
This presentation demonstrates what a batch reconciliation process looks like for transformed BIBFRAME data, using the Library of Congress BIBFRAME Work and BIBFRAME Hub databases. It also explores an alternative approach for generating work-level data at the local system level and shows how a visualization service can enhance user interaction with BIBFRAME data.
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Analyzing Missing Mappings Between MARC21 and BIBFRAME
In the MARC to BIBFRAME 2.0 mapping, some MARC fields and subfields are excluded from BIBFRAME conversion. These exclusions are labeled as "ignore", meaning they do not need to be converted, and "NAC" (no attempt to convert).
However, unconverted MARC data may need to be mapped to BIBFRAME for future use. Xu, Hess, and Akerman (2018) suggest that fields 031, 034, and subfields $u in 1xx and 7xx should be mapped to BIBFRAME.
Therefore, this study aims to analyze the "NAC" and "ignore" mappings and propose new mappings tailored to the specific local or community needs for BIBFRAME conversion. This study will contribute to other institutions that need to map unmapped MARC fields and subfields to BIBFRAME.
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The Shape of Open
On April 5, 2025, Stanford posted its first Open Metadata Policy. The focus of the Policy is on the open sharing and reuse of our metadata under a CCO license but goes further to stress our support for open infrastructure as well. The shape of this open ecosystem, however, is complex and the transition to it even more so. Even with BIBFRAME at its core, issues such as metadata creation and sharing, discovery, and resource sharing must be resolved.
How can a single institution make the transition to open metadata and open source services while remaining committed to a national and international community of peers?
The proposed presentation will outline Stanford's solution to the most pressing issues and share the sequencing and timeline for our transition.
Wednesday, September 17
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The Metadata Matrix: BIBFRAME's Integration Saga in Alma and Primo
Recent advancements in integrating Linked Open Data and BIBFRAME within Alma and Primo have significantly enhanced library metadata management capabilities.
This session will delve into these innovations, highlighting how Alma and Primo have evolved to support a hybrid environment that seamlessly accommodates multiple metadata formats.
Key highlights will include a demonstration of the new Work Search and Linked Data Editor, both designed with a user-centered approach to meet the needs of Alma users in their daily workflows. These tool empower libraries to transition smoothly to linked data frameworks, ensuring they can fully leverage modern metadata standards. Additionally, the session will address how these advancements meet the goal of BIBFRAME in production, moving beyond just the metadata format standard to tackle new challenges that arise in real-world implementations.
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Connecting the Dots: Modular Design for BIBFRAME Implementation with Blue Core
Blue Core envisions a new library metadata environment with linked open data at its core. Libraries participating in the Blue Core project aim to realize this vision by developing and implementing a shared BIBFRAME cataloging environment built on a Postgres back-end data store that integrates with popular, open-source linked data editors like Sinopia and Marva and with local library systems like FOLIO and Alma.
As the Library Services Platform enables a modular design approach to metadata workflows and dataflows, balancing shared cataloging practices for externally managed data presents new challenges and opportunities. Considerations for bibliographic data sources, staff workflows, and data flow design have come to the fore.
In this presentation, we will provide an update to the community while sharing our questions and emerging solutions. In addition, we will describe the steps Stanford is taking internally to integrate Blue Core into its workflows.
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MARC and BIBFRAME: Practical Coexistence
For the foreseeable future (certainly the next ten years), MARC will remain a foundational component in library ecosystems and the broader community. Yet, BIBFRAME, with a model that more closely aligns with those found outside of libraries, and with its focus on entities and relationships, enables a connectivity and flexibility unavailable from MARC. Both those actively transitioning to BIBFRAME and those yet to begin need to understand that BIBFRAME is not an all-or-nothing proposition.
How can libraries bridge this divide to deliver enhanced services and benefits to end users through newly organized and linked library data, even during partial transitions? And since data transformations involve significant costs alongside their benefits, how can we minimize those expenses?
This presentation will explore these practical questions, focusing on FOLIO implementations but offering strategies applicable to other systems.
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Sinopia: A Plug-and-Play Environment for Linked Data Cataloging
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as part of the second phase of Linked Data for Production (LD4P), the Sinopia linked data editor is an open-source, cloud-based collaborative linked data cataloging environment used by libraries around the world, free of charge. Once a sketch of what a linked data cataloging tool could look like, Sinopia now supports thousands of users from 48 different countries and 55 institutions.
The Sinopia ecosystem has expanded in recent years to include the Sinopia ILS Middleware, which allows Sinopia to integrate with local library systems like Symphony, FOLIO, Alma, and TIND. The Sinopia Graph Explorer and the Sinopia BIBFRAME Interoperability Validation Tool, developed in service to the BIBFRAME Interoperability Group (BIG), further illustrates Sinopia's versatility.
This presentation will glance back at Sinopia's history, and provide an overview of Sinopia's growth as a plug-and-play linked data editor that can be adapted for a variety of needs, meeting users at each stage of BIBFRAME implementation, with the linking of Sinopia to FOLIO & the Blue Core environment as an example.
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Share Family linked data editors: practical experience of JCricket integration with third parties
Since the launch of version 3.0.0 of the LOD Platform, the Share Family infrastructure has introduced substantial changes to the technology framework supporting the system.
JCricket entity editor has undertaken important enhancements, including the ability to integrate with ILS/LSP such as FOLIO and Alma. The practical experience of using JCricket to curate and create linked data entities within the Cluster Knowledge Base is being complemented with features supporting the integration of such data within local installations of ILS/LSP.
The presentation will address updates on this work strand.
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Integrating BIBFRAME into current cataloging workflows
The library community has come a long way over the past few years with BIBFRAME support: continual development of the data model and mapping tools, development of applications for BIBFRAME data creation and editing, and best practices for BIBFRAME data management and interoperability.
All these advancements are leading to the reality of wide BIBFRAME adoption. The final piece to the puzzle will be integration of BIBFRAME into existing library data management workflows. Building on OCLC's linked data work over the past 3 years, we are excited to share progress and demo OCLC's BIBFRAME editor.
We will highlight the editor's integration with other linked data resources and authorities, as well as the ability to seamlessly manage bibliographic data in both MARC and BIBFRAME. We'll also discuss ways libraries can start to work with WorldCat BIBFRAME data.
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The Hub role in bringing resources together
No changes to Bibframe Hubs have happened for a few years now, but LC's move to Bibframe in production has crystallized their role in the ecosystem. When first publicized, Hubs were described as points of aggregation. That basic idea has held for more than 5 years now.
With Bibframe in production at LC, explaining the important role of Hubs to catalogers while also having to create as clear a working environment for catalogers so that the application of Hubs was as straightforward as possible has proven challenging. The result: a refinement of what classifies as a Hub, at least with respect to LC cataloging, and an overhaul of the Hub dataset. This included a tweak to post-converted bibliographic data. In short, Hubs, like title and name/title authorities before them, assist with collocation.
This presentation will detail how LC views its Hubs, which it treats as bibliographic resources (i.e. not authorities), and describe how its Hub dataset (and bibliographic data) was modified to support the long-standing need for aggregation and collocation. It will position Hubs considering the long history in library science of bringing together "like things", which remains as essential today for the library patron as it has been for decades.
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Assessing the Suitability of BIBFRAME 2.0 as a Schema for Exchanging and Sharing Diverse Descriptive Metadata in External Affairs Libraries
This study evaluates the feasibility of adopting BIBFRAME 2.0 (Bibliographic Framework Initiative) as a next-generation metadata schema for External Affairs libraries, which manage complex, multilingual, and multinational bibliographic resources. Traditional metadata standards like MARC 21 are increasingly inadequate for modern linked-data environments, necessitating an assessment of BIBFRAME's capabilities in enhancing interoperability, semantic richness, and cross-institutional data sharing.
The study addresses three key objectives:
1. Comparing BIBFRAME 2.0 with MARC 21 in terms of expressiveness, interoperability, and adaptability;
2. Identifying barriers to adoption (technical, organizational, linguistic);
3. Proposing a framework for implementation in diplomatic library settings.The literature review examines:
- MARC 21: Dominant since the 1960s but limited in semantic granularity (Tillett, 2004);
- Dublin Core: Simpler but lacking bibliographic depth (Hillmann, 2005);
- Linked Data & BIBFRAME: Enables web-compatible metadata (Miller, 2016).Using a mixed-methods approach -including comparative schema analysis, stakeholder interviews, and case studies- this research identifies:
Advantages: RDF-based flexibility, improved resource discovery, and compatibility with UN Digital Library etc.
Challenges: Training gaps (68% of surveyed librarians lacked RDF expertise), vocabulary limitations (e.g., treaty classifications), and high migration costs ($200K–$500K per library).
The findings suggest that while BIBFRAME 2.0 aligns with IFLA's Library Reference Model (LRM) and enhances semantic searchability, its adoption requires:
- Pilot projects (e.g., focused on treaty collections);
- Training programs (partnering with IFLA and the Library of Congress);
- Hybrid systems (retaining MARC during transition).
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Consolidating the Ever-Evolving Categories of Bibliographic Resources
The National Library of Sweden is working on a new search and discovery service for the Swedish library union catalogue. In this work, the need for improving the categorization of works and instances has become increasingly apparent. These improvements are a crucial step towards our broader aim of closing the gap between the data in our catalogue and what our users see.
To tackle this need, we have been working on reconciling the notions of “type” in BIBFRAME with the notions of content, media, and carrier types in RDA, of work and expression category in LRM, and the sometimes broader, sometimes narrower, sometimes complementary genre/form terms (our own Swedish concept schemes of genre/form terms as well as those from MARC21 and LCGFT). This will be the focus of this talk.
Our initial approach, presented last year, was to consolidate these categories into one, expressed as the (RDF) type of the resource. We have now adjusted this approach. The type of work is reduced to one of monograph, collection, serial and integrating; the type of instances is either physical or digital resource. Then we categorize the resource further, using one category property with terms that are clear, rich in meaning and familiar to end users. This approach is more flexible than defining a fixed set of classes, and can be continuously refined as we continue to evaluate the usability of these terms in search, discovery and cataloguing.
To ensure the usability of this model, we are working closely with both the team developing the new search and discovery service, its users, librarians and cataloguing experts.
BIBFRAME Round Up
Proceedings
Registration
Registration is open.
The meeting is free to attend, but registration is required. Please register here.
For inquiries regarding in-person attendance, please contact us at conference@bfwe.eu.
Registration is open.
The meeting is free to attend, but registration is required. Please register here.
For inquiries regarding in-person attendance, please contact us at conference@bfwe.eu.
Practical Information
The conference will take place in the splendid setting of the Complesso dei SS. Marcellino e Festo, Largo S. Marcellino 10, one of the historical buildings of the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.
The venue is a 5-minute walk from the Duomo subway station (line 1).
This is a list of hotels in order of distance (please note that Naples is very attractive to tourists in September, so it is advisable to book your hotel early):
- Hotel Naples, 10 minutes walking distance from the conference venue
- Hotel Mercure Centro Angioino, 15 minutes walking distance from the conference venue
- Hotel NH Napoli Panorama, 15 minutes walking distance from the conference venue
- Hotel Palazzo Caracciolo, 20 minutes from the conference venue
- Hotel Starhotel Terminus, 20 minutes walking distance, close to the train station
- Hotel Royal Continental, further away, on the seafront
A list of the major tourist attractions in the historic centre of Naples can be downloaded here.
The conference will take place in the splendid setting of the Complesso dei SS. Marcellino e Festo, Largo S. Marcellino 10, one of the historical buildings of the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.
The venue is a 5-minute walk from the Duomo subway station (line 1).
This is a list of hotels in order of distance (please note that Naples is very attractive to tourists in September, so it is advisable to book your hotel early):
- Hotel Naples, 10 minutes walking distance from the conference venue
- Hotel Mercure Centro Angioino, 15 minutes walking distance from the conference venue
- Hotel NH Napoli Panorama, 15 minutes walking distance from the conference venue
- Hotel Palazzo Caracciolo, 20 minutes from the conference venue
- Hotel Starhotel Terminus, 20 minutes walking distance, close to the train station
- Hotel Royal Continental, further away, on the seafront
A list of the major tourist attractions in the historic centre of Naples can be downloaded here.
Organiser Group
Andreas Andersson, National Library of Sweden
Roberto Delle Donne, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (2025 Host)
Matias Frosterus, National Library of Finland (Spokesperson)
Michele Casalini, Casalini Libri and Share Family
Nancy Lorimer, Stanford University Libraries and LD4P
Hannes Lowagie, Royal Library of Belgium
Sally H. McCallum, Library of Congress - NDMSO
Bjørge Vestli, National Library of Norway
Andreas Andersson, National Library of Sweden
Roberto Delle Donne, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (2025 Host)
Matias Frosterus, National Library of Finland (Spokesperson)
Michele Casalini, Casalini Libri and Share Family
Nancy Lorimer, Stanford University Libraries and LD4P
Hannes Lowagie, Royal Library of Belgium
Sally H. McCallum, Library of Congress - NDMSO
Bjørge Vestli, National Library of Norway
Contacts
For further information please contact us at conference@bfwe.eu.
For further information please contact us at conference@bfwe.eu.