Hiya,
Weinheimer Jim <j.weinheimer_at_aur.edu> wrote:
> We have to give the web designers out there a genuine reason to put
> in a link to our tools, otherwise, they won't do it.
Amen! I think this is so important it needs some special love and
attention right now. What's the whole point of linked data? The point
is of course to have people link to them. I know in my own views on
library identity management I usually run in an automated kinda
fashion, because I work in this field (ontologies, SemWeb, Topic Maps)
where huge amounts of meta data is used in inferencing, but Jim is
absolutely right (and the Web itself proves it) ; give people a reason
to link to your pages, and they will, and that will add value to both
sides.
Yeah, I know it's trivial and simple, but for the library world right
now - with so much ground to cover before you catch up to the
"competition" in the meta data business - it should be the number one
priority to give people *reasons* for linking to you. Being available
is not enough, nor is being correct or have the most rigid meta data.
Maybe we all can think of some good reasons? Are these ideas worth
promoting, beyond the usual channels?
> But, I believe that LCSH can potentially provide users much more useful browsing,
> using the great syndetic structure, so long as people do *not* have to navigate it as
> they did in the card catalog, where it worked a lot better. I think the see alsos are
> great, so that when I think I want "Authority" I find the exceedingly helpful:
> Narrower Term: Divine right of kings.
> Narrower Term: Example.
> Narrower Term: General will.
> Narrower Term: Power (Philosophy)
> See Also: Authoritarianism
> See Also: Consensus (Social sciences)
Well, that in itself is good stuff, but the problem is; what - if
anything - is at those endpoints? Will a book that potentially *could*
have been classified as "Power (Philosophy)" be classified as such? If
I rely on this rigid system, will I miss out on books if I trust it
too much? I also know in modern days people are more liberal with the
number of categories per book, but there's a 100 year backlog which is
a bit more scant. And then, just because we got "Power (Philosophy)"
attached to a book, what part of it deals with it? Big part, small
part? Why is it categorized as such?
These are all human questions that cannot be solved by computers on
*our* side, apart from wide speculation. But a realize that this isn't
LCSH criticism, this is just me asking for some infra-structure or
methods that could be shared with our users in order to improve, and
get away from the rigid nature of the beast. There is some balance
between useless junk and rigid hierarchy where I suspect you *should*
be with LCSH that will halt its popularity.
> For example, we could put from the URIs to the id.loc.gov in dbpedia. I
> don't know what good that would do, but we could.
Ok, so a) what harm can it do, b) what good can it do, and c) how much
would it cost you to do it?
Regards,
Alex
--
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Mon Nov 16 2009 - 17:20:31 EST