On 10/7/13 3:35 PM, "James Weinheimer" <weinheimer.jim.l_at_GMAIL.COM> wrote:
<snip>Simply going into linked data will not make the
catalog (no matter what form it may take then) much more--if any
more--coherent to the untrained person than it does now. It could very
well make it even less coherent.</snip>
I don't think the point of moving to linked data is to make the catalog
more coherent, or relevant, or useful. In my own opinion:
1. The goal of getting library data into a linked data format is to
contribute library data to the information environment.
2. The benefit of such contribution is not that libraries' tools get used
more but that libraries themselves get used more, directly or indirectly.
3. Moving data from our catalogs into linked data format(s) may cause the
catalog to disappear as a distinct search silo at the same time that it
brings library data to more people.
Just as "the child lives for our sakes not for his own"[1], the library's
data does not live for its own sake, nor for the sake of the libraries
themselves, but for the users - and they're increasingly out there in the
information environment instead of inside our buildings.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
Joe Montibello, MLIS
Library Systems Manager
Dartmouth College Library
603.646.9394
joseph.montibello_at_dartmouth.edu
[1] From the Eddie Murphy movie, "The Golden Child."
http://bit.ly/goldenchildclip
Received on Tue Oct 08 2013 - 11:20:31 EDT