Abstract

The chapter examines the reliability and quality of traditional online public catalogues made available by libraries. It discusses the potential and limitations of online catalogues as a source of data and information about authors and monographs for research assessment. The second part addresses the emerging sector of discovery tools, which are often offered alongside digital catalogues, or as separate software tools for bibliographic search and reference work. It examines the structure, commercial interests, algorithms and delivery formats of data. Finally, the chapter discusses the changes associated with the emergent linked data technology for displaying catalogue data on the Web. The advantages offered by LOD technologies, for instance the identification of authors and interoperability with other data of different provenances, are addressed.