Apologies for posting this twice - must slow down...
Jonathan:
"An authority record is _data_ (or metadata, anyway), a web page is a
_particular presentation_. We can not replace authority work "with web
pages"...
And 'a web page' is certainly not a substitute for an authority control
practice! So I know what you mean, but please stop saying that! It
only makes people who think you DO mean it scared that you are trying to
dismantle authority control, which seems to be the response anytime
anyone brings up modernization ideas."
Jonathan, maybe you could go into more detail about what you mean here -
about why this is important. The purpose of authority control is to
provide a unique way of identifying something, so as to distinguish it
from other things. A simple (simplistic?) way of looking at things
would seem to suggest that a "barcode" could do this just as effectively
as a proper name.
"See" and "See also" references come in here of course - is this the
key? Even getting to a point where you can "see" or "see also" presumes
that, in your search process, you either thought of or recognized a word
that at least potentially makes some sense, in this context or that, to
you and others. This of course can't be done with a URL, which by
itself makes no sense at all (unless the "end all" authority record -
words, dates in case of persons, etc - was contained in the URL itself?)
The lights are only beginning to come on for me here... I haven't
thought about this a ton. Does this sound right? Does anyone else have
thoughts about this?
Nathan Rinne
Media Cataloging Technician
ISD 279 - Educational Service Center (ESC)
11200 93rd Ave. North
Maple Grove, MN. 55369
Work phone: 763-391-7183
Received on Tue May 15 2007 - 07:08:56 EDT