Re: Dynamic vs. Fixed World Views was Re: MARCXML to Topic Maps? MODS to Topic Maps?

Hiya,

Patrick Durusau <patrick-Q/[email protected]> wrote:
> Aren't most large data sets going to have varying degrees of "highly
> unnormalized" data and "...*no* notion of identity management"?

No, any data set with a smidgen of typed data and / or public
identifier would be better (which means putting it out there with
backlinks on the web already makes them better; with MARC you might
get it out there, but no way of linking it back in, and don't get me
started on OpenURL ... *grrrr*). And I was being _polite_. :) My
regard for the MARC data model is, um, abysmal at best, not from
effort and meaning, but from technical implementation and how it makes
future innovations practically hopeless without some serious
rearranging the deck-chairs of their beloved Titanic.

> Unless you subscribe to the "fixed world view" which ascribes to any data
> set, normalized or otherwise, one and only one "correct" interpretation.

This has very little to do with it, and more to do with the fact that
trained catalogers and librarians have over the last 50 years created
an astounding amount of meta data that is almost unusable by modern
standards, and there are no real efforts in the library world to
rectify the situation (and the RDFying of FRBR / RDA does not count as
no system *in* the library world can support it). Talking about a
fixed world view where knowledge *is* books, and information is a
hack.

> That a data set has "huge amounts of prose data" is an opportunity for topic
> maps to demonstrate that handling multiple views of the subjects found in
> data, is *routine* for topic maps. Even though *unthinkable* in fixed word
> view paradigms.

Topic Maps have no opportunity nor technology nor want to fix that
particular problem in and by itself. People writing Topic Maps
software might write some conversion *using* TM, and that's fine and
dandy, but you still have to deal with hundreds of fields with "34 p.
IX 12th, [reg], hc." in it, stuff that may or may not be parsable.
This is the effort that is *not* happening in the library world;
making their own library specific non-normalised untyped prose
understandable to the rest of us. MARC is MAchine Readable Cataloging,
not Machine Understandable Cataloging, which means I can read it in
but there's little hope in understanding it. I'm sure you know, but
what is the most frequent questions on AUTOCAT (the prominent global
cataloging mailing-list) if not questions about some arcane prose and
in what field (of many, many that are similar but with subtle
difference only a nitpick can love) it belongs.

I don't really want to bang on this door, saying bad things about
those lovely librarians (honestly!) who have worked their butts off to
create probably the worlds richest meta data set over all these years,
but there *are* reasons it isn't out there yet, and it ain't
reluctance to openness (although there is that, too). It's that it is
really hard to clean it up and make it *useful*. I'd love to see the
library world actually take this problem seriously, but it seems most
librarians are in denial of what impact this little problem have on
their relevancy to society.

> Topic maps offer a *dynamic* world view that has no one correct view of
> subjects.

Yes, Topic Maps do. MARC / AACR2 / FRBR / RDA /
whatever-the-library-world-thinks-up-next doesn't.

...

> Having multiple views into library data
> simply creates more "access points" to use library terminology. Topic maps
> have the potential to enrich current library data by adding the views of
> users of library data.

Indeed, and there is even the Topic Maps 4 Libraries mailing-list;
this *is* a really, really interesting thing to do, and working both
in and outside of the library world with librarians and catalogers
just underlines that this is something worth doing, something
librarians want *very* much, the world would be a better place if it
happened. Yet the library world is mostly void of understanding Topic
Maps, little less implementation of it. I have many online friends in
the library world, and they are all as frustrated as me with the lack
of a MARC cleanup job that might enable this "many access points"
dream. If there *was* such interest I know a handful of very smart
people who would jump on it straight away! Alas, there is a distinct
disjoint between what the library needs to do and the management that
runs it.


Regards,

Alex
-- 
 Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps
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