In 2012, Zepheira was engaged by the U.S. Library of Congress to lead the design of a linked data replacement for MARC, the very successful but half-century old library catalog format. We made sure to begin every part of the discussion by considering user stories and the tangible problems they represented, but we already had ideas about the bigger challenges libraries were facing and how our work might help. The result is BIBFRAME, a bibliographic framework meant to provide basic concepts to support flexible metadata for catalogers. BIBFRAME’s ambitious goal is to support the library community of the future, building on lessons learned from the past without being locked into the past.