Ross Singer wrote:
Agreed. The same is true, of course, of MARC and, by extension, MARCXML. Part of the "format" is that it can be one record or multiple. I don't think this a particularly strong argument against using the namespace as an identifier.
Actually, the MARC format (not MARCXML) is very much a single-record format. There is a standard for "tape headers" but no wrapper for MARC (Z39.2) records, since the MARC format doesn't have a way to do that. Having worked for way too long with MARC, I had a lot of trouble with the "collection" concept in MARCXML and MODS, and am still not sure I see the utility of it beyond what a file of records provides. I'm assuming its main purpose is to provide valid XML when you have a file with more than one bibliographic record. However, it seems that the collection and the records within the collection are part and parcel of the same schema, making the things we think of as "records" subordinate to the collection, even if it is a collection of one.
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