Re: Slightly OT: MARC

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 5:49 PM, Patrick Durusau <patrick-Q/[email protected]>wrote:

> Lars,
>
> On 7/19/2010 7:28 PM, Lars Heuer wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>  Well, one question remains: Where are the subjects? Where are the
>> global identifiers? If there are no global identifiers, all attempts
>> to create a topic map from MARC are pretty useless. If neither ISBNs
>> nor any other global identifier are given, who could we assume that we
>> talk about the same subject?
>>
>>
>>
> Shocking answer: There are *no* global identifiers. (In my opinion there
> never will be. People are just too imperfect for a variety of reasons to
> make that work.)
>
>
I agree with this statement, and I feel compelled to point out that it's not
just true for books or libraries.  There are no global identifiers for
movies.  There are no global identifiers for musical works.



> What we can make work is using ISBNs, for example, for a rough cut on
> merging for the same subject, perhaps with some minimal check of other
> properties, author for example, and rely on human users to say when we got
> it wrong despite all our care.
>
> After all, when *one* user corrects it, then that correction percolates
> forward to benefit the next user.
>
> That is to say that unlike search engines that "do over" every search, a
> topic map can accumulate the insights of its users and grow more accurate
> over time.
>
> Our judgments about whether we are talking about the same subject is
> provisional. If the data is very, very clean (highly unusual) then some
> criteria will get us pretty close. If the data is less clean, then we will
> be farther away. But if we are using a topic map, then corrections are going
> to benefit other users down the line.
>
> ******
>
> Whether we should create a topic map from MARC data, with or without the
> MARC metadata as first class subjects should not depend upon a mythic
> translation into a perfect topic map. Mappings are always going to have a
> certain degree of inaccuracy and so what we need to develop for topic maps
> is a well recognized notion of "correction" by users.
>
>
> Hope you are having a great evening!
>
> Patrick
>
>
>
>
> --
> 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
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