Re: ALA Session on MODS and MADS: Current implementations and future directions

From: Bernhard Eversberg <ev_at_nyob>
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:27:14 +0200
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Ashley Sanders wrote:
> 
> Warming to my theme, should anyone be remotely interested...
> 
> ...
> What would be nice is to be able to encode it something like this:
> 
> <mods>
>  <originInfo>
>   <dateIssued encoding="marc">1840</dateIssued>
>  </originInfo>
>  <title><name type="corporate">Birmingham and Derby Junction 
> Railway</name> Time Tables.</title>
>  <name type="corporate">
>   BIRMINGHAM AND DERBY JUNCTION RAILWAY COMPANY.
>   <role type="text">creator</role>
>  </name>
>  <note>In : <name type="corporate">Midland Counties’ Railway</name>. 
> <work relation="In"><title>The <name type="corporate">Midland Counties’ 
> Railway</name> Companion</title>, etc. <dateIssued>1840</dateIssued>. 
> <format>12º</format></work>.</note>
> </mods>
> 
Do you have software to facilitate the input and editing of structures
like this?
And could it be handled with XSLT? (BTW, is it XMSL 1 or 2 you are using?)
Frankly, I can't think of anyone who would like or be able to
input raw XML. In relation to raw MARC, I'd say it is much more
cumbersome, bulky and error-prone. (More tagging than text, sometimes.)
To fully outdo MARC - which would be a requirement eventually - cannot
be very easy with XML, and esp. not with something as you envision here.

Of course, MARC is non-recursive and could not deliver something along
your line of thinking. So, it is inherently not complex enough for
contemporary ideas. OTOH, complexity can be self-defeating: it requires
a complex body of rules and then you may end up with a lack of time to
learn them and to get stuff right.

B.Eversberg
Received on Wed Jun 23 2010 - 08:32:40 EDT