Jim,
I see everything you've said below pretty much with an opposite view.
First, for now the best way for libraries to share their bibliographic data is clear and non-controversial: MARC21 and MARCXML. These are the best currently available ways to make our bibliographic data available for others to use.
Second, I think we are meeting TBL's recommendation to just put your data on the web: library bibliographic data is and has been publicly available from almost any library with an online catalog in a well-documented and well-understood non-proprietary format (MARC) that anyone can use and transform should they want to. In general, libraries are doing nothing to prevent others from using our date. Really, libraries are giving it away.
Third, the difficulty and uncertainty is about what to do next. Here I think we agree on some things. The key issue is that library data as it now exists as bibliographic records is a textual and not a formal data format. Our records are more mini-essays than a structured packet of data points, and that makes them readable as records by human beings but not by our machines or usable in aggregations at the data point level.
Fourth, FRBR as a formal conceptual model of the bibliographic universe is a huge improvement over the traditional discursive understanding of the domain. It marks a fundamental shift _toward_ rigorous and formal articulations (models) that can be acted upon reliably with computer applications that treat bibliographic data as data and not as more or less free text statements.
Fifth, RDA attempts to re-write cataloging rules to achieve two contradictory aims. 1. Large-scale compatibility with existing bibliographic data which is largely textual (essayistic) and 2. Large-scale compatibility with formal data models for bibliographic data that more or less don't exist yet.
Sixth, developing, discussing, testing, and using a formal bibliographic data model that addresses at least the domain of FRBR is a necessary focus for librarians and information professionals, but this important effort is not an excuse to stop RDA or denigrate FRBR. It is a longer-term effort that in key ways is underway as we use the FRBR model to stimulate our thinking about bibliographic data and work toward agreement on cataloging rules that begin to be based on formal conceptual models like FRBR. The DCMI efforts led by Diane Hillman on RDA vocabularies are a surprising (to me) and delightful advance on how we think about bibliographic data and work to make it highly useful in a networked, data-centric user environment, e.g. the Internet.
Matthew Beacom
-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of James Weinheimer
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2009 3:47 AM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: [NGC4LIB] Tim Berners-Lee on the Semantic Web--Missing His Main Point
The discussion here concerning how to fit into the Semantic Web has gone all
over the place, and while it certainly has been interesting, one thread
seems to link it together: there is very little agreement about what is the
best way to share our records; and the subtext appears to be: there probably
won't be any agreement for some time. How long do you think it would take to
get agreement on the format(s) and even agreement on WEMI (which I think is
incorrect, based on outdated 19th century thinking, and not what people want
anyway!). Implementing linked data, although it would be great, is years and
years away from any kind of practical implementation, especially in this age
of financial crisis, which will probably get much worse before it begins to
get better.
Tim Berners-Lee addressed precisely this situation in his talk when he
mentioned the project of trying to get government data on the web. His
emphasis was: just put your information on the web in whatever form you
have. People will change it anyway. As he said, if we all have to wait for
the government bureaucracy to make a real decision by creating and convening
committees, endless discussing, reaching "consensus decisions," the
government information that people really want would never be shared. But
since some people have put the information they have on the web in the forms
they have now, others have taken it, changed it for the own purposes and as
a result, some wonderful things have been made.
The information world could be working with our data *right now* but since
we feel it's not in the "best" format using linked data, in effect we are
preventing people from using our data at all. As Berners-Lee said, what is
absolutely vital is that your data exists out there, even if it's only in a
CSV. I agree that only putting up the "text" before it is transformed into
linked data is much inferior to what it could be, but otherwise, we provide
people with nothing at all.
The longer we make people wait for our information--which is really what
people want--while we argue and discuss and after a generation or two come
to some kind of agreement, the more we isolate ourselves and we become less
and less relevant to the world of information.
I think we should do what Berners-Lee said. It's quick, cheap and can be
done right now.
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Fri Oct 23 2009 - 09:49:56 EDT