On 1/20/2011 4:12 AM, Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
And in fact, XML (an SGML incarnation!) was designed as a textual markup system, not as a database syntax. So, using it for bibliographic data, would perpetuate that historic misconception.
I think this is mis-leading. XML by itself isn't much of anything, it can be used in a 'textual markup way', or it can be used in a 'data' way. There is no problem with using XML for good data, neither is there a magic solution simply by switching exactly the same data we have to XML.
What we need is a "data schema" (aka "data dictionary", aka "data vocabulary") that actually semantically captures what we need to capture. That's the hard part, and it neccesarily will not be round-trip backwards compatible with MARC. If we have that, whether we put it in XML or something else doesn't matter. The serialization format itself is, to a large extent, an implementation issue. This is my contention.
If you have that, then you can, as Behrnard says 'make it a snap to extract the "title" of the piece represented, unambiguously and independent of context inside the record that only a human reader can unravel.' And, sure, you can do that from an XML format. Just not AACR2-style MarcXML.
Jonathan
In the light of this, what we need is a real data format. It may look not all that different from MARC, but it needs to be understood in a markedly different way (and RDA supports this view more than AACR2 in that it clearly leaves textual display (ISBD) outside the rules). What we do not need, however, is an RDB sort of format, consisting of a set of interrelated tables. This seems to be what Thomale understands best. And for many developers, RDB is synonymous with "database". And that's the other trap into which we ought not fall. A true format must, for one thing, make it a snap to extract the "title" of the piece represented, unambiguously and independent of context inside the record that only a human reader can unravel. OTOH, it will never be easy to say and pin down what the title of a thing is, no matter what syntax you use to record it. In MARC, the 245 is the most confounded element - no, textual paragraph. B.Eversberg
