Rather than argue over who has "real world" experience, let's look at
simple metrics of how library standards are faring outside of
library-land. With apologies to the Atlantic Magazine:
Web sites currently using Amazon bibliographic data: 100,000+?
Web sites currently using MARC bibliography data: 3
Books currently in print about programming with Amazon Web Services: 5
Books currently in print about programming with MARC: 0
Google pages about using Ruby with Amazon*: 9,400
Google paes about using Ruby with MARC21 or MARXML: 507
Date when Z39.50 support was removed from the standard PHP
installation: July 13, 2004
Total messages on the SRU/SRW ListServ in August: 12
Number of messages posted by a single Amazon AAWS forum member; 1,820
"Cool" SRU/SRW implementations cited on the SRU website: 1
Number that are actually cool: 0
Libraries should be at the heart of book data, wherever it shows up.
Twenty years ago they were. Now, they're not even at the table.
Antiquated, over-engineered standards and closed data have
marginalized them.
Tim
*ECS, now renamed Amazon Associates Webservices and often just called
"Amazon Web Services" until other services were added.
Received on Wed Sep 24 2008 - 14:30:26 EDT