Bernhard Eversberg wrote: > Although it can still be a big help. How does, for instance, Google > Booksearch do its job of bringing together what belongs together? It > has got nothing but textual strings to go by. Therefore, it will miss > many references out there that use idiosyncratic forms of names and > titles. I think we need more tools for interoperability than > pie-in-the-sky URIs which are still very far from being ubiquitous > and not likely to be used much in citations and quotations at all. > I'm getting the impression, with all due respect, that you have yet to > overcome a certain main entry phobia that was rampant some years ago > and that was eager to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is > still, let me repeat, very helpful and thus a Good Thing to have a clear > and consistent name for as many entities as possible. As for RDA as it > stands now, it would otherwise have to be rewritten in a major way.
But here is exactly where everything begins to disintegrate: which will be the preferred form in the universe of the World Wide Web? Will everyone be expected to use the English form? (I doubt that very much) The German? The Czech? If we rely on preferred forms, then interoperability will be limited only to those who share those forms. This is the situation as it is now. But I want my users to use your records for discovery; I want to be able to use your records for copy. I also don't think that people will ever search separate databases to discover the myriad versions of the "preferred forms" for Leo Tolstoy, not to mention subjects that are used in different databases. Why? Because they don't search separate authority databases today--why will they search something that is even more complex? For me, I think it's great that we do have the "pie-in-the-sky" URIs available as a possible real solution. Can they be implemented tomorrow? Certainly not, it would take years of development if not longer, but some places are really trying with the Semantic Web, and at least it does allow for the promise of real interoperability. I haven't seen any other genuine proposals out there, although I may be missing something, but in this economic climate, we absolutely must work together. How would citations work in such a system? I don't know, but from my experience with reference work, it certainly isn't done very well today. Figuring out citations often needs some pretty amazing acts of imagination! One thing I am sure of: someday, perhaps sooner or later, all of the bibliographic records will be dumped together somewhere and there will use automated methods for finding duplicates and so on. We should all keep in mind that Google is working very hard to mine the "hidden web" which includes us, and I'm sure they will eventually succeed. Where will our preferred forms be then? What purpose will they serve? It would be nice to have a clear and consistent name (although very few people use a clear and consistent name concept today). In the world of print, it was done with text strings and organization of records and cards, but today there are other options which may even be simpler. If all we are aiming for however, is to come up with unique text strings, AACR2 does that right now. And by the way, Bernhard, you did catch me--I do have a "main entry phobia" ;-) but to be more precise, it's a "single main entry phobia," since the purpose of the single main entry died with the end of the card catalog. Some changes to the MARC format (preferably the XMLMARC version) would allow for the strange idea of "multiple main entries," or in DC terms: creators vs. contributors. (But that's another topic) Jim Weinheimer
