On Mon, 2004-06-14 at 12:35, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
>
> The more I think of the possiblities, the more I see parallels with the
> RDF/semantic web stuff.
The MARC Authority record is very "semantic" (in the sense of Semantic
Web). The reference fields are particularly interesting. If you have:
100 Smith, John F
400 Smith, John Franklin
510 Smith Family
The 4XX fields are known as "see from", that is there will be a "see"
reference from the 4XX to the 1XX. The 5XX's are "see also from" meaning
that there will be a "see also" reference.
You could express this as:
Smith, John F (authoritative) *hasSeeReferenceFrom* Smith, John Franklin
(non-authoritative)
Smith, John F (authoritative) *hasSeeAlsoReferenceFrom* Smith Family
(authoritative)
>From there you can see how you create the references such that:
Smith, John Franklin (non-authoritative) *hasSeeReferenceTo* Smith, John
F
Smith Family (authoritative) *hasSeeAlsoReferenceTo* Smith, John F
(authoritative)
which would display as:
Smith, John Franklin *see* Smith, John F.
Smith Family *see also* Smith, John F.
What is interesting about the authority record, and what makes it
compatible with the Semantic Web in my eyes, is that all of the
information about a heading is contained in relationships within the
record for that heading, including the fields that point to it. What
that gains you is that when you bring a new author name into your
catalog you bring along its references, and if you remove the author
name from your catalog you (should) also remove the references because
they are contained within the same record. This means that every "see"
reference actually points to something, or it would have been removed
with the authoritative heading. (In fact, in database designs those
relationships between the main heading and the references often get
broken apart, but the means to keep them in sync is provided in the
authority record structure.) It's as if a web page somehow "contained"
links to it rather than links out -- there would be no more 404 not
founds.
--
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Karen Coyle
Digital Library Specialist
http://www.kcoyle.net
Ph: 510-540-7596 Fax: 510-848-3913
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