On Nov 30, 2007 5:41 AM, Bernhard Eversberg <ev_at_biblio.tu-bs.de> wrote:
> In current MARC, there are no reliable means at all to link
> bibliographic records with each other! We are badly in need of this
> for whole-part relationships, like multipart records, and then all
> the other work - expression - manifestation relationships envisaged
> by FRBR and RDA.
Yes, you're are spot on, and in fear of repeating myself, let me again
clarify that the library world *must* undertake a joint effort of
persistent identification if we are to add value to the future. I'm
not saying this lightly ; you can't simply promote a standard and
assume the problem of global identification will be solved. We
*cannot* solve it through standards, and we *cannot* solve it through
infrastructure ; it can only be solved through intellectual efforts on
top of solid standards, no less. And who better suited to such tasks
than friggin' librarians?!
Here's a few things that we currently use (or misuse), in WikiPedia
order ; ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), CODEN (serial
publication identifier currently used by libraries; replaced by the
ISSN for new works), DOI (Digital Object Identifier), ISAN
(International Standard Audiovisual Number), ISMN (International
Standard Music Number), ISRC (International Standard Recording Code),
ISSN (International Standard Serial Number), ISWC (International
Standard Musical Work Code, see http://iswc.org ), Library of Congress
Control Number, SICI (Serial Item and Contribution Identifier). I'm
sure there's other more library world specific stuff as well, in
addition to how we all use our vendors ILS record numbers as localised
identifiers. It's a big mess.
As we all know, many of these standards fail terribly as persistent
global identifiers, especially our beloved ISBN which is a bleeding
global mess. Further, what doesn't seem to exist (at least in any
global persistent way) is similar global identifiers for authors,
publishers, libraries (although national standards exists), bodies
(organisations, companies, etc.), artists, and so on.
The Semantic Web (through URI and rdf:about), Topic Maps (through PSI
[identifiers/locators]), and, heck, even the blogging and web
standards movements (through things like FOAF and lately OpenID), have
been working really hard on these issues for the last 10 years or so.
The efforts have been many and varied, but most of them fail under
global trust scrutiny.
I'll jump heavy on my soap box now and proclaim that in fact the
*perfect* ideal conceptual organisation to lead this sort of work is
indeed the library world. It would build on the trust we already have
in the world as a trustworthy "organisation" (or collection of such)
of knowledge management, and it would give us seriously added value,
*and* would solve many, many of our various problems. I'll go further
and claim that FRBR is a failure without it, and possibly every other
large effort we undertake along with it.
We need to take the issue of global identity a *lot* more serious,
folks, we really do. I know a lot of librarians out there already do
take it seriously, some know a lot about this, but it really needs to
be pushed as *the* number one thing we jointly should do in order for
solving these huge challenges.
Alex
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Received on Thu Nov 29 2007 - 19:22:44 EST