Alexander wrote :
> Hope I was making sense,
Yeah OK, I get what you were saying, if that's what you
mean -- but you did write :
> We need the library world to be mapped. Not
> extensively, but enough for us to define, model
> and define that world, and we need to do that
> for ourselves but also for those who wishes to
> cooperate with us.
Here I couldn't agree with you less. That's the last thing
we need, for "a serious attempt by all to actually save
the library world from being forgotten by the future",
or for anything else, or for any other reason I can imagine
-- except maybe for a nice exhibit in some museum later
on showing people how there once was this funny thing
everybody used to call a "library" and look, this is more
or less how it worked. Otherwise, "modelling the library
world" seems a pretty useless exercise. Why should one
bother to do *that* ? I don't get the point. Seems like an
imbecilic sort of navel-staring.
If we should be talking about mapping or modelling or
defining *anything*, we should be talking about
mapping or modelling or defining the ( entire ) universe
and ecology of document and information use -- an
ecology within which the library and the "information
profession" used necessarily to occupy an essential place
and to play a vital role ( though not a place and not a
role that we as an information profession really ever well
understood, let's not delude ourselves ). Only through
modelling that *whole* documentary/information/
communication ecology can we imho hope to have any
realistic chance left of determining whether our profession
as we more or less know it today will have a future role to
play within that ecology -- and if so, how.
I'm not even sure it's possible to do something such as
this, in practice. But I'm sure that if it *is* possible to do
it in a meaningful way, it's going to be a very very very
demanding undertaking. I wouldn't myself put any money
on the chances for success. We haven't in the last many
decades shown much collective enthusiasm or competence
to do this kind of job. Why should we think it's going to
happen now ?
Of course we can on the other hand just keep waiting
around and just see what actually happens.
Think I'll just go out and take a walk now. I need some
fresh air.
- Laval Hunsucker
Breukelen, Nederland
----- Original Message ----
From: Alexander Johannesen <alexander.johannesen_at_GMAIL.COM>
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Sent: Thu, June 24, 2010 11:00:07 AM
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] ALA Session on MODS and MADS: Current implementations and future directions
Excuse me, coming through, pardon me! *shove* *shove*
Bernhard Eversberg <ev_at_biblio.tu-bs.de> wrote:
> But exactly "what is needed" is what we still don't know or
> can't pin down.
No, that's not true. We can pin down a lot of the things we need, and
we have, in all sorts of documents and websites and reports and
whatsnot. We talk about it, talk it to death, write reports about it,
fill websites with it, mailing-lists with miles and miles of prose
about our needs and wants and yearnings.
What you *haven't* done is written it down in such a way that we can use it.
Think about it; all those models, formats, needs, wants and cries for
help, they're all documented, written about, talked to death, and then
we all return to MARC / AACR2 / RDA and keep going because no one has
created The One True Thing That Encompasses All What We Need [TM]. You
people need to get your head out of the format cloud and into the
model cloud! You're *all* talking about a shared platform for
librarianship, for sharing resources, meta data and whatever tickles
your librarian fancy, yes? Well, the truth is that that model doesn't
exist in a *format*, but in a *model*.
Let's go over just a smidgen of our needs, like that of title. How
many ways can we slice and dice the concept of "title"? Let's just
give it an arbitrary number that's not true but will work for this
example; 100. So we've got 100 ways of conceptually capture this
"title" thing. What's the next step? It is *not* to create some XML
for it, nor is it to create any other format record of it, because
that stuff isn't important, it means nothing, it's just binary fluff
and technological smoke and mirrors instead of what you actually need.
You can bitch and argue for the way you build an XML or MARC record to
represent your thing, but no matter how complex we document how that
format shall capture it, there will always be some use case it won't
capture (and we must all wait for the errata, or live with faults, or
hack around it, or ...), or, probably even more correct, there's
always a point at which the formats complexity overshadows its
usefulness. (And I thought we invented the computer to help us out, to
make our lives easier. Hmm)
Let's make it a bit clearer. Instead of doing ;
<format>
<datafield tag="245" ind1="1" ind2="0">
<subfield code="a">Arithmetic /</subfield>
<subfield code="c">Carl Sandburg ; illustrated as an anamorphic
adventure by Ted Rand.</subfield>
</datafield>
</format>
.... create concepts out of them, document them, and agree to them.
Just write prose; short, concise prose. If special cases are needed,
create them and document them in the same place. Put up a darn Wiki,
for heavens' sake! Join forces, and agree on what the heck you need
right now, and let's create a model out of it, because it's TONS
easier to extend a model than to extend an infra-structure!
But let me dig into that of identifiers a bit more, as they are
terribly important ;
<controlfield tag="001"> 92005291 </controlfield>
<controlfield tag="003">DLC</controlfield>
I'll be blunt and go straight for the jugular; what about that
identifier? What the heck is that? Some internal identifier, an id
from an OPAC, or external DB, or some serialisation process, what? You
see such numbers being tossed around a lot, and some of them, like LOC
numbers, gets used as persistent identifiers, yet you still got to
hack your systems to give them meaning. And *this* one, the DLC, when
we search for it (although this one we all know by heart) gives us ;
2035 DLC, normalized: dlc, obsolete code: DNLB
United States, Library of Congress
Variant name(s): Library of Congress, Congressional Library, United
States, Congress, Library
What is this supposed to mean? What does it mean that LOC issues this
item the number "92005291"? It is meaningless at this point! Sure, we
can, through the magic of "done it before", pop that number into any
LOC service and possibly create some direct link to it (because we all
assume it's part of LOCs union catalog, or some such) We still don't
really know what that number is, we can only guess it.
Why?
For organisations that pride themselves on the bucket-loads of
documentation, process and strict rules these *essential* questions
about the meta data are rather absent. What do these numbers mean? How
can we use these identifiers? Where are they applicable? Who can use
them? How can we use them?
Why aren't we coming up with an identity management plan that we all
can use? Even FRBR sucks in this respect (concepts defined in a
document that isn't addressable is not a good basis for persistent
identifiers), and don't get me started on AACR2 / RDA. Why on earth
isn't there better dialog about what concepts can be entities,
enumerated values, or some such? Lots and lots of meta data is
shareable, not as text, but as concepts! And, a crazy thing maybe, is
that concepts are, again, easier to share than infra structure and
formats!
Here's a concept ;
* book
I'll write up a definition in my Wiki ;
"A collection of sheets of paper bound together to hinge at one
edge, containing printed or written material, pictures, etc." (And
don't nitpick on this definition; it should be more specific, better,
longer, crafted by more, agreed and discussed, blah, blah, blah ...)
I'll link it to a definition ;
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/book
What happens here is that the concept "Book" has two identifiers ; one
to our Wiki, and one to Wiktionary. The prose of both might and will
change over time, but the two (or more) together make up a thing that
most people would agree is a "Book."
Libraries have a rich language that needs to be formally defined and
identified so that we all can use and reuse them. Why hasn't this
happened? Well, I suspect librarians are happy to talk their language
and don't see the need for writing this stuff down, they're happy to
*use* their language to document *other* things, like processes, meta
data, documentation, systems, and so on, but you've forgotten to
define your language *itself*. The need for this is *huge*, and let me
clarify this with the example I usually give ;
* Stacks
No one in the whole world can use this concept except librarians.
People read "Stacks", and have no understanding of what it means (do
they mean what is physically sitting in a stack? Is it a synonym to a
shelf? Or is it their stacks of stuff? A collection? Or all their
collections in one?), neither orally from a library nor from a library
system. But look, we can define a new concept ;
* Collections
Now we can edit the prose of that, and create a link ;
Stacks
is_really_another_word_for
Collections
We need the library world to be mapped. Not extensively, but enough
for us to define, model and define that world, and we need to do that
for ourselves but also for those who wishes to cooperate with us. We
need these definitions to work as translations between systems. Right
now, all we've got now is (mostly) MARC records doing the translations
of computer records between systems, so the *model* we're basing our
systems on are whatever is defined in, probably, MARC21! We cannot
escape MARC through FRBR / RDA if these things don't do a better job
of identifying the stuff they're trying to save us from.
So what I'm really saying is that this discussion shouldn't really be
about formats, but about a collaboration between all librarians to
build up a system of identifiable concepts that can be reused in all
sorts of weird and wonderful formats, systems and applications.
I think Karen Coyle and her posse is doing something lightweight for
the FRBRizing RDF thingie, right? How about we escalate this into a
serious attempt by all to actually save the library world from being
forgotten by the future, like some old ancient language no one speaks
or understands anymore?
Hope I was making sense,
Alexander
--
Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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Received on Thu Jun 24 2010 - 15:24:32 EDT