You're asking for a change in the way we control LCSH headings; I think
what you're asking for is a good idea, and possibly necessary.
But the goal of id.loc.gov is not to change the way we control LCSH, but
instead to expose things as they exist now, in a machine-readable linked
data way. This is quite a reasonable and welcome goal, and is worthwhile
to do even without signfiicantly altering the nature of LCSH (which is a
much more difficult task, since it has more 'dependencies').
Weinheimer Jim wrote:
> Ross Singer wrote:
> <snip>
> The sole reason id.loc.gov/authorities exists is to provide linked data. It's purpose is to provide /defreferenceable identifiers/ - that it is all. The fact that there is an HTML view that is returned at those locations is mere convenience (and they also provide the same RDF, just realized through RDFa).
> </snip>
>
> I understand this. I was (and am) looking at the matter as a web designer and seeing that because it is a "dead page" the id.loc.gov reference is essentially useless as it now stands. (I realize that this may not be a very popular thing to point out), while the dbpedia page is highly useful. Why? Because of the links that the one provides, both internal and external, while the other winds up in a dead-end.
>
> One of the main reasons the id.loc.gov version is so dead is that it takes conflates 3 separate parts, thereby turning this into a strange type of RDF-ized "textual string."
> Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Authorship--Oxford theory actually *is* http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85120839
>
> when it should be (and easily could be) broken up semantically, so that at least the internal links will work. As I consider this some more, I cannot believe that such a treatment is even correct in theory. Shakespeare as a topic should not be completely divorced from Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Authorship--Oxford theory, but it is an integral part of it. Still, it is separate in id.loc.gov, while it is not done this way in dbpedia, as there is a link to Shakespeare.
>
> The lack of flexibility in this unwieldy string makes me think that once again, we are replicating the card catalog online, forcing people to go to the beginning of the string before things can make sense. Very, very unfortunate.
>
> The dbpedia page for Amharic also links into some other useful, similar pages:
> http://sw.opencyc.org/concept/Mx4rvVjlN5wpEbGdrcN5Y29ycA
> http://rdf.freebase.com/ns/guid.9202a8c04000641f80000000000a43f2
>
> Faced with these choices, why would any non-library developer choose to work with id.loc.gov, except perhaps in only a theoretical way? And if people won't work with it, who will use it as a reference? So, certainly we can put these things on the web just like anyone else, but if our tools are dead-ends, and theirs "have links" so that people can actually use them, then it's a no-brainer, as it seems to me. Still, yes, if everybody used http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85004449#concept to code their pages for Amharic language, matters would be better. Using http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85120839 for Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Authorship--Oxford theory is less satisfactory. Still, for the moment, I think in both cases, I would bet my money on dbpedia.
>
> James L. Weinheimer j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu
> Director of Library and Information Services
> The American University of Rome
> Rome, Italy
>
>
Received on Thu Nov 12 2009 - 14:00:56 EST