"We can't possibly make a radical change until someone has demonstrated
that it will work by making a radical change."
That's obviously not what you mean, Bernhard. Maybe you are looking for
an example of RDF user from a non-library context? I would be interested
in that too. The problem of course, as we all know, is that we do have
some special needs in the library context.
Jonathan
Ross Singer wrote:
> The problem with this argument is that it's difficult to make a
> radical change to the infrastructure when the plumbing is still all
> MARC based.
>
> -Ross.
>
> On 5/22/07, Bernhard Eversberg <ev_at_biblio.tu-bs.de> wrote:
>> Ross Singer wrote:
>> >
>> > Well, Richard's examples show the underlying RDF, but, at the end of
>> > the day, it's still MARC in the background (or DC or whatever the
>> > institution supplied).
>> And why not RDF?
>> >
>> > The point, though, is the /potential/ of RDF, not the existing
>> > practice in libraries.
>> >
>>
>> Sure, and I do think I understand that much. The theory is wonderful.
>> But my question was, where is it demonstrated (after 10 years) that the
>> potential is more than a theoretical one? What we learn about Talis
>> still doesn't make that abundantly clear. An answer would need to be
>> such that it at once grips you by its crispness and clarity so you can
>> have no doubt it can sweep MARC away.
>> And even from there to a universally recognized and applied standard
>> would still be a long way to go. Which is, however, what we need, for
>> interoperability will be key.
>>
>> OTOH, quantum mechanics is better than Newton's mechanics although
>> there's no quick and easy eye-opener for its beauty...
>>
>> B.Eversberg
>>
>
--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu
Received on Tue May 22 2007 - 08:19:49 EDT