On Tue, 2007-09-04 at 09:14 +0200, Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
> Conal Tuohy wrote:
> >
> > I agree that using human-readble names for identifiers is problematic.
> > This is perhaps another "thing that LIS can learn from CS". In >
> > database design, best practice is to use opaque tokens as identifiers.
> > Putting actual DATA about an entity into its identifier is a failure
> > of normalisation rules for database design!
> >
>
> In German catalogs, that's exactly what we've been doing all the time,
> always wondering why U.S. catalogs don't do the same. Or at least, to be
> fair, why MARC data doesn't include at least the authority number along
> with the name. IF Germany switches over to MARC, it will do just that.
It certainly puzzles me, as someone from a non-library background.
Is it actually allowed within MARC? Is it allowed in the AACR2 rules? Or
is just a question of convention? Do you know?
--
Conal Tuohy
New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
www.nzetc.org
Received on Thu Sep 06 2007 - 19:55:52 EDT