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

Alex,

On 7/15/2010 7:57 PM, Alexander Johannesen wrote:
> Hiya,
>    
<snip>
>> 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.
>
>    
Well, true, the problem always comes back to some user, a person, saying 
what some entry means.

As far as librarians not making their "...non-normalized untype prose 
understandable to the rest of us..." I suspect that many librarians 
could say the same things about CS literature.

I don't think complaining about what other people are failing to make 
transparent to us is a useful tack.

Maybe building tools to help others make such fields transparent might.
> 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.
>
>    
Why is that a familiar refrain?

I have heard the claims that community X should spend its time and 
resources on Y because group Z thinks it will lead to democracy, 
innovation and save the planet, all by changing human nature. Yeah, right.

So what is the difficulty in making a topic map from what we do 
understand or can map and allowing others to contribute what they will?

Or to put it more bluntly, why is this all or nothing?

Part of being "dynamic" is that the knowledge a topic map represents can 
be refined over time.


>> 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.
>
>    
You mean the lack of someone else to clean up the data to our liking.

But, what if everyone cleaned up the part of greatest interest to them? 
I spend a lot of time with older CS literature so I might try my hand at 
some of those records. Other people have other areas of interest.

Could be the some areas lack anyone with enough interest to clean it up. 
Guess what? Just like the Greek dramas that *were not preserved by 
copying,* we won't have easy access to that data. If no one cares, why 
is that a problem?

Rather than seeing the problem as an all or nothing Mount Everest of 
data conversion, all I am suggesting is that as people use a topic map 
based on such data, some of them would have enough interest to improve 
the topic map by contributing to it. Whether than would be enough or 
not, I honestly don't know.

I do know that waiting for a library messiah to come along and convert 
decades worth of data to some unspecified level of quality is even less 
likely to be effective.

Hope you are having a great day!

Patrick

> Regards,
>
> Alex
>    

-- 
Patrick Durusau
patrick-Q/[email protected]
Chair, V1 - US TAG to JTC 1/SC 34
Convener, JTC 1/SC 34/WG 3 (Topic Maps)
Editor, OpenDocument Format TC (OASIS), Project Editor ISO/IEC 26300
Co-Editor, ISO/IEC 13250-1, 13250-5 (Topic Maps)

Another Word For It (blog): http://tm.durusau.net
Homepage: http://www.durusau.net
Twitter: patrickDurusau