Quoting Karen Coyle <[email protected]>:
Quoting [email protected]:
See, for instance, the newly-formulated BIBCO standard record
<http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/BSR-Final-Report.pdf> -- a formula
less than core in terms of content required -- where the prescription
for the uniform title states (for 240, i.,e. uniform title under
author's name): "Supply if known or can be easily inferred from the
item being cataloged."
One key difference between library cataloging and the web-based
concepts in the semantic web work is that the latter sees metadata
as being built up as information becomes available. So metadata in a
networked environment is additive -- it's not a one-time creation.
If one contributor knows the uniform title (Work title), then all
linked Manifestations now have access to that title.
Yebbut... there's that linking process. I wonder how far OCLC will
let participants go in supplying these kinds of links: there seems to
be still considerable emphasis on levels of entitlement to modify
existing records already tagged at a certain level; there are, I
believe, restrictions on modifying records tagged with a PCC code in
042 -- since I don't work in the WorldCat database, I'm not familiar
with these restrictions and how they work. Such restrictions don't
apply to those registered to work in the Australian National
Bibliographic Database (Libraries Australia) but not many participants
choose to do that; the effects though seem no more troublesome to data
quality than the flood of trivially-variant duplicates that arises
from batch loading subscribers' files. I think that either we have
high-quality databases to which only a restricted number of certified
participants may contribute (and the same are entitled to edit too),
or we allow a free hand to all.
As a comparison, the National Library has a newspaper site, where the
scanned images are accompanied by sometimes rough-and-ready OCR text;
all and sundry may, if they choose to take the time and trouble, amend
the text online. In a relatively short time, hundreds of thousands of
lines of OCR text have been edited.
I certainly endorse the notion of cooperative improvement of data.
The "dynamic record" notion (which was intended in principle to allow
enhancement of core records with additional data, wasn't it?) is one
approach. I remain sceptical about building a record by tying
together pieces of disparate data, though. Whether one wishes to take
the work, the expression, the manifestation or the item as the primary
focus of cataloguing, what we have to deal with is something that has
its own defined, bounded existence (physical or virtual or conceptual)
and is individual either as a single object or as a set of what's
common between objects. And as for doubts about WEMI, I think it's as
good a model as any other scheme I've encountered, not that I think it
accounts for everything we deal with, but it does for most.
Hal Cain
Dalton mcCaughey Library
Parkville, victoria, Australia
[email protected]
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