At 06:29 AM 6/27/2003 -0800, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
>So it seems like MODS is being used a lot in digital library projects.
>Why?

Because digital library projects are starting to use XML (for a variety of
reasons) so that old MARC format, which is "proprietary" to the library
world, is not convenient.

>Also, I saw an interesting note on the LoC SRW site that suggested MODS
>files were likely in the future to be served over this protocol. A lot
>of bibliographic applications (desktop, of the sort I'm interested in)
>have z39.50 access and file download. Currently MARC is the dominant
>format these records are distributed in, but isn't MODS a good candidate
>(maybe better?) for this as well?

Because Z39.50 came out of the library world, it handles MARC well. And
there are web services that do what Z does for non-library data, so I don't
see a burning need to convey XML over Z39.50 unless it's the only hammer
you have.

kc