On Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 7:21 PM, Lars Aronsson<[email protected]> wrote: > ... > For example, a new project might download the database dump from > OpenLibrary and start to weed out the "junk records". But that > junk sorting could also take place inside OpenLibrary. Why not?
Because metadata without digital objects are next to useless. Worldcat already provides a directory of where physical books are held. A database of metadata with lots of duplicates and no means for the reader to fix them, and discuss them, is disrespectful. > If a new project goes to a library to ask for a copy of their > catalog, they might get the question "we already gave (or didn't > give) that to OpenLibrary, so how is your project any different?" > And what should the new project answer to that? See above. I dont see any value in going back to the libraries. Doing that would only end up with the same result that OpenLibrary has; it would be simpler to take the OpenLibrary dump. > I want to encourage wikipedians and wikisourcerers to join the > OpenLibrary project, just like you should also join OpenStreetMap > and other good projects for free knowledge and information. Bring > your experience. If you get tired of one project, as I do > sometimes, work on another one for a while. Tell me _one_ thing that I can do at OpenLibrary that I can not do at Wikisource. > OpenLibrary has author pages for 6.5 million author names. Some of > these are "junk" duplicates that should be merged, but still there > are quite a large number of authors there. These have a field for > a Wikipedia URL, but only 1100 records have a value. Connecting > author pages in OpenLibrary to Wikipedia biographies is just one > way where we can do a lot, without needing to start a new project. _Most_ of them are duplicates. http://openlibrary.org/search?q=Jules+Gabriel+Verne I have an account at OpenLibrary, and I am responsible for 0.2% of the Wikipedia links :P I am not keen on becoming attached to a project that is littered with so much crap, especially when I am not given the tools required to fix the crap, nor do I have any say in whether more crap can be imported. http://openlibrary.org/user/jayvdb These two need to be merged. http://openlibrary.org/a/OL2296708A/Charles-C.-Nott http://openlibrary.org/a/OL2544127A/Charles-Cooper-Nott Both of them look terrible, because I have no control over the presentation of the pages. Dups, lack of sorting, etc. I haven't found the OpenLibrary coolaid; I'll stick with Wikisource, for good or ill. -- John Vandenberg _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
