Re: What _should_ we be doing with bibliographic data (Was: Slightly OT: MARC)

  Stuart,

On 7/28/2010 7:38 PM, stuart yeates wrote:
> Patrick Durusau wrote:
>>
>> On 7/20/2010 5:47 PM, Murray Altheim wrote:
>>
>>> Just put *one* URL into the metadata, one that points to an online
>>> record. If you treat that URL as persistent, that record won't grow
>>> stale (as would any URLs included in the published eBook), and you
>>> can update it as necessary. You can also improve and update the
>>> service behind that URL at any time. It's also easier for the user
>>> in that their only option is to resolve one URL, which can point
>>> to a page with further actions and suitable documentation.
>>
>> Not to mention that users who can consume more information can 
>> resolve the URL to obtain additional information, including 
>> additional identifiers.
>
> There are problems the 'use a pointer to a full record on the web' 
> approach:
>
True but recall that your original post was asking the question with 
regard to including information that could grow stale in an epub or that 
would be too much overhead to include in an epub.

In that context, a persistent URL is a reasonable solution.

You are now shifting that basis of the discussion to another set of 
legitimate concerns but they weren't the concerns in your original post.

Different concerns could lead to different answers. Because there are 
always tradeoffs.

> 1) ePubs can't assume that consuming devices have internet access
> 2) The ALA's Freedom To Read Statement implies that accessing a third 
> party service when reading a work is a bad idea (since it reduces the 
> ability to read anonymously). Since our ePubs are redistributable 
> under a CC license, a service we ran would be a third party service in 
> many scenarios.
> 3) It is our intention and hope that ePubs will be durable in the long 
> term (i.e. have an independent lifetime beyond the issuing 
> institution) which implies a lookup service is unlikely to still be 
> working.
>

Certainly can "assume consuming devices have internet access." If I were 
developing an ePubs system for use inside a library with some ereader 
device, that is a reasonable assumption.

With proper system design you could read anonymously but you are 
introducing a restriction based on your assumptions about a particular 
delivery mechanism. Not to mention there are proxy services for that 
very purpose.

We all hope that ePubs will be durable but I don't see the implications 
for lookup services for URLs. No doubt it will evolve into something we 
won't recognize 100 years from now but either people will migrate ePubs 
or they won't. Hopefully ePubs will be useful enough that migration will 
occur.

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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