With electronic resources dominating library budgets and collections, the knowledge base has quietly deposed the catalog as the center of the management and discovery universe. Knowledge bases provide libraries with an inventory of their e-resources holdings and describe the materials that a library has purchased at a more granular level than the traditional bibliographic record. Knowledge bases power key tools such as link resolvers and unified search platforms, support management needs across the e-resources lifecycle, and more recently have evolved to intersect with areas such as linked open data, community contribution models, and next-generation library management platforms. They have truly become the hub from which our most vital services operate.
This presentation will provide an overview of the ALA Technology Report (https://journals.ala.org/ltr) assesing the state of knowledge base technology. Topics covered will include an overview of the current product landscape, an exploration of new directions, and case studies from libraries and vendors using knowledge bases in innovative ways.
