Abbas, June M.
Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:10:10 -0700
But, in light of all of these insightful discussions, is linked data even going far enough? Is it really providing users with useful representations of the objects in our collections? Is MARC + FRBR (encoded by whichever standard the community settles for) BUT released from relational database structure constraints = Enough? Are we yet capturing attributes that our users search for? that they naturally use to organize their own collections (see Flickr, YouTube, LibraryThing Common Knowledge project)? I humbly submit, NO. Throw in years of user behavior research with an emphasis on the newer research on Web 2.0 and libraries and user-centered design with these users in mind, and what do we have?
June June Abbas, Ph.D. Associate Professor School of Library and Information Studies College of Arts and Sciences The University of Oklahoma 401 W. Brooks, Bizzell Library Norman, OK 73069 405-325-3921 jmab...@ou.edu Check out this new publication from Neal-Schuman that explores this issue in depth. http://www.neal-schuman.com/bdetail.php?isbn=9781555706999 ________________________________________ From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [rd...@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] on behalf of Karen Coyle [li...@kcoyle.net] Sent: Friday, September 03, 2010 12:43 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Time and effort Quoting Matthew Short <sho...@illinois.edu>: > I can definitely say from experience that the users I work with are > often >frustrated by our online catalog. They don't understand why > it is so >complicated to find, for example, a Spanish translation of > Camus' The First Man >or why there are so many different records for > what seems to them to be >essentially the same item. FRBR might > make such things easier. That said, it >is much too early, I think, > to tell if it actually will. I don't think we need FRBR to accomplish this (although it might help), just a better use of the data we already have. However, first we have to define this kind of case as one of the ones we want our data to address. Then we need to organize our data in a way that we can derive these kinds of relationships. There's no reason why we couldn't have: Camus, Albert Premier homme (original text) (language: French) (ID:123) Primo uomo (language: Italian) (is translation of --> (ID:123) First man (language: English) (is translation of --> (ID:123) Primer hombre (language: Spanish) (is translation of --> (ID:123) and have these display such that from any point you get a link to "other language versions". (That is, anything with: "(is translation of --> (ID:123)") A direct search for a Spanish translation would be: ((is translation of --> (ID:123)) + (language: Spanish)) Note that this is a "verbal" example of something that would be more machine-like under the hood. Why don't we have this now? In part it's because our data is locked up in records, and the records are stored as units in our databases. That's not because the people designing those databases are stoopid; it has a lot to do with how we update our data (full record replace: MARC doesn't allow any other option, by design) and related issues of efficiency. It also simply because of our reluctance to give up MARC. What I have given above is an example of "linked data" -- a way of organizing information so that it is easier to pull out information based on relationships. It is what some of us see as the current best "next data carrier" for library data. It wouldn't have to change the meaning of our data, but would definitely change its form. kc -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet