The Importance of Identifiers in the New Web Environment and Using the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) in Subfield Zero ($0): A Small Step That Is Actually a Big Step

While the future of library bibliographic description is currently in a state of flux, libraries have a number of opportunities to begin embedding and leveraging linked data concepts within their existing MARC-centric systems. Through the embedding of dereferenceable Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) into existing MARC data, libraries can begin to lay the foundation for the eventual shift to a data model that is more linked data friendly and begin to produce actionable metadata for consumption by services outside of the library community. This article will discuss a pilot project at the George Washington University Libraries to embed URIs into the local integrated library system and the toolset, MARCNext, which was utilized to simplify the entification of the Libraries’ legacy metadata records.