Karen Coyle wrote:
<snip>
Trying to model these strings in the linked data world is difficult,
in part because the other players in the linked data world do not have
these kinds of data structures. It *may* make sense to have an
identifier for each translation of a work, but doing that through the
headings that we create is not the way to go.
</snip>
While I won't argue that my suggestion of making the links that we are able to right now may not be the "best" way to do it, but at least it is *one* way to go that can be done right now, with no retraining costs and creating an interface that can work with it. Wouldn't it be useful for the public? On the other hand, how long would it take to get agreement on whch other ways to go? Years, at a minimum, as we all continue to sit on our hands. If we are then to wait for the "best" way, it will never happen at all. And as Berners-Lee pointed out, people will just reformat your information for their own uses, anyway.
This is becoming especially urgent in view of that LC report "Study of the North American MARC Records Marketplace," with some conclusions I find inescapable (i.e. that the authors don't make but only allude to), I think it is absolutely imperative that something be demonstrated soon concerning how our records can be used and are useful, not only within library systems, but outside them as well. The main obstacle to all of this is the MARC format, that nobody uses except libraries, and libraries can't use anything but MARC. Again, libraries can stick with MARC for internal purposes, but the unspoken conclusions from this report seem to be that we must "push" our products out into the bigger information world so that not only libraries are using the records for their own internal purposes.
There is such a wealth of links, of information, and of knowledge locked inside our records. It's just a shame that we won't let it out into the world!
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Wed Nov 11 2009 - 13:51:07 EST