Re: Subjects, sets and identifications was: Slightly OT: MARC

Murray,

Good to see you!

I only have time to reply to one part of your post, more later:

On 7/20/2010 9:16 AM, Murray Altheim wrote:
<snip>
> I think part of my confusion in following this discussion is that it
> seems sometimes people want to actually mirror the contents of the MARC
> record in the Topic Map rather than just pointing at it (i.e., mapping
> it). Or perhaps I'm reading things wrong. But that seems like a fool's
> errand. All that's really needed to generate the map is to be able to
> canonically identify an entity and then be able to address it. The
> less in the map the better; I don't think we're trying to *replace*
> the library's system. Given that the library system already has a way
> of addressing the entity for at least the short term, the requirements
> for mapping via a Topic Map are there laid out on the table for us to
> work with. The librarians have left us quite a lot to work with
> compared to many domains, cf. zoology or law.
>
Surely you aren't suggesting there may be semantic confusion in an email 
discussion about semantic confusion?

;-)

More seriously, the issue of conversion into a topic map versus 
"pointing" into a system or a virtual topic map is a complex one as you 
know.

My sympathies are with the virtual topic map side, mostly because with 
large data sets (think Lexis/Nexis), there isn't any place to put the 
data while we convert it. And conversion carries its own hazards and 
dangers. Much better to allow the data to reside wherever it is and to 
point into it.

Not to mention that would allow us to show a value add for a minimum of 
investment.

Consider the permalinks to Library of Congress records. What if we were 
to use those and the fields in those records to create a second language 
interface to LOC holdings. One that is searchable in a second language 
but resolves to the LOC record, with the second language information as 
the primary information.

Should not be that difficult to generate a form for the short entry 
version that would enable volunteers to enter second language data for 
the subject classification. One that is in parallel to the Library of 
Congress information.

Don't have to replicate the LOC information at all.

I suspect there are any number of language communities who would 
appreciate being able to better access library catalogs, not just in the 
US but elsewhere.

Not the "ultimate" solution but a project that would have a real benefit 
to a specific community, that could be done by volunteers and that would 
reflect well on topic maps. What more could you want? (Well, ok, a 
$Trillion dollar open ended contract to convert all libraries by force 
if necessary to topic maps but I don't have the DoD contacts to make 
that happen. ;-) )

Hope you are having a great day!

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)

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