Three posts. Three opinionated responses:
> Just a thought concerning Jonathan's observation that few among us have a lot of "free" time:
I hope I'm not hated for this, but do programmers have a lot more free
time than librarians? Do most open source projects get grants? When an
idea for a new open source project comes up among programmers, does
anyone suggest a grant? Seriously. Computer people have spent the last
decade learning the enormous value of amateurs. This structuring of
work has now spread through large parts of productive society. Open
source is one flowering. Blogs are another.
> So what might work for a pilot would be an open web-interfaced database
> that provides a means for users to enter new headings and citation data,
> provides means for self-selected catalogers to edit those headings as
> well as add cross-references, control field information, and update the ...
I'm a big fan of a "fielded wiki"-approach. But I know of no perfect
answer, and I don't think we should underestimate unstructured data.
Wikipedia, for example, has lots and lots of structured data--take the
citation format, for starters. But it's structured by choice, not by
user-interface force. The rules are words, not code.
That said, I *really* think you start with assigning LCSH, not changing them.
>I really think it would be short-sighted to create a system and not pay
attention to the fact that centralized housing is what got us into this
mess in the first place, with both LC and OCLC.
Using peer-to-peer here strikes me as a technical solution to a social
and legal problem. There can be no question that the data must be
free, downloadable and forkable at will. Does baking that into the
technical structure really add that much, except complexity?
Tim
Received on Thu May 24 2007 - 10:00:54 EDT