BIBFRAME

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Ex Libris Developer Network Alma Documentation Integrations Linked Data BIBFRAME

The Bibliographic Framework (BIBFRAME) Initiative is a Library of Congress project for defining a bibliographic data model. Based on linked data principles, BIBFRAME has been designed to make bibliographic data more useful both within and outside the library community.

Alma exposes BIBFRAME2 in RDF xml format in the following places:

  • API
  • Publishing
  • Export bibliographic records
  • Alma Resource management UI

BIBFRAME defines 3 main entities: Work, Instance and Item. The current Alma BIBFRAME implementation exposes Work and Instance. Instance is parallel to the Alma BIB record. Alma groups several BIB record into a single Work based on the bibliographic information.

See also Resource Management – RDA Linked Data and BIBFRAME in Alma.pptx.

Alma translates the BIB record to BIBFRAME2 using Library of Congress XSLT converters. See BIBFRAME record sample here. Note: BIBFRAME is currently supported for MARC21 records only.

API

Two APIs are available:

  • GET Instance
URL: https://open-na.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/alma/<institution code>/bf/entity/instance/<mms id>
The API returns 2 levels of the information: Work and instance. Each level has its own URI.
See sample here.
  • GET Work
URL: https://open-na.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/alma/<institution code>/bf/entity/work/<work id>
The API returns Work-related fields. In order to know the work id, you should call the GET Instance API first and retrieve the related Work ID.

See sample here.

Publishing

Alma enables you to publish records to third-party systems in BIBFRAME format. This is done by creating a publishing profile with “BIBFRAME” output format:

This process creates a file containing Instance and Work information for each BIB record in the set. The file has “RDF” wrapping tag.
Note that BIBFRAME publishing is currently supported with FTP protocol only.
For more details regarding the General Publishing process see Alma OLH.

Alma Resource Management UI

Alma exposes BIBFRAME representation of a BIB record in the record simple view:

BIBFRAME format appears in a separate tab, next to the MARC simple view of the record. See Alma OLH for more details regarding Record simple view.