On 22/04/2011 18:33, Karen Coyle wrote:
<snip>
Quoting "J. McRee Elrod" <m...@slc.bc.ca>:
So these identifiers link to *inhouse* files? "Shakespeare" once
rather than repeated as author, added entry, and subject, in multiple
bibliographic records?
Again, separate linking from identification. Identifiers identify.
That's what they do. There is great importance in identification for
sharing, as we know from library authority work. The difference
between identifiers and creating authorities, however, is that
authorities in libraries today are represented with text strings, thus
making them language dependent. Also, if you wish to change your
display you also change the string that identified the entity -- and
that breaks a fundamental rule of identification, which is that the
identifier must not change.
</snip>
There is another way of looking at our headings than solely as textual
strings, which is not entirely correct, but rather as identifying
something *unambiguously*. This is exactly what our headings are
designed to do. An identifier does not have to be composed only of
numbers, but any string. This is why I have suggested reconsidering our
headings *as* identifiers, since catalogers have worked very, very hard
for a long time to keep them unique, or unambiguous. We can see how this
works in VIAF, which allows you to search exact name in the LCNAF form
for, e.g. Tchaikovsky's heading, e.g.
http://viaf.org/viaf/search?query=local.names+exact+%22Tchaikovsky,%20Peter%20Ilich,%201840%201893%22+and+local.sources+any+%22lc%22&stylesheet=/viaf/xsl/results.xsl&sortKeys=holdingscount&maximumRecords=100,
or for the Swedish form,
http://viaf.org/viaf/search?query=local.names+exact+%22Tjajkovskij,%20Pjotr,%201840%201893%22+and+local.sources+any+%22selibr%22&stylesheet=/viaf/xsl/results.xsl&sortKeys=holdingscount&maximumRecords=100.
This works for all forms. I think it would only take a change in mindset
for this to work.
There is a VIAF api right now, and I would like to try to implement it.
Has anyone done so?
--
James Weinheimer weinheimer.ji...@gmail.com
First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
