Hilmar Lapp wrote:
Yeah, because they are URLs. But don't almost all of the databases you
have listed there use identifiers (accession numbers, etc) for
identifying their objects?
I wish :-)
Some databases are just a bunch of static web pages, and many like to use
something nice like gene names as identifiers. Also, for quiet a few
databases that do have proper identifiers, we do not even know them,
because for various practical reasons all we can do is reference them using
our own identifiers (which can then be used to retrieve the appropriate
entries on their web site).
Obviously, each one has their own (and
volatile) way of translating their identifiers into a URL. That's (part
of) the problem. So, yeah, they share a common thing, namely having a
website and serving their holdings through HTTP, but they're not using
URLs to identify their digital objects, are they?
Identify in what context? In the context of the Web, I'd say yes.
