On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 07:59:32 -0800
Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On Tue, 2004-11-30 at 07:31, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
>
> > > the SAME identifier by different people/databases, and there
> > > is no universal identifier that currently is one-to-one with
> > > the article.
> >
> > Well, DOI.
>
> Far from universal -- there have been DOI's assigned to many
> articles, but nothing like the whole universe of articles.
> Remember that the D in DOI is "digital" and it is mainly used
> for items in digital formats. Many citations will be to articles
> that are in print formats only.
>
> > And what of isbns or lccns?
>
> The ISBN is essentially a product number for publishers. Every
> publisher that has put out a version of Moby Dick has given it a
> different ISBN. It's not unique to the work. It's only for
> books. (Well, and the occasional teddy bear, but that's another
> story.)

But for citations that is exactly what is needed, yes? Because
when I cite "Moby Dick", I AM citing a particular version of that
work (print or digital, etc). Every publisher that has published
Moby Dick has done so with their own unique pagination, after all!

All we need is for isbn (and issn) to be registered as info uri
namespaces and we will be halfway there!

Oh, and get all the bibliographic software tools to use info uris
 as keys in their databases!<grin>

Doug

--
Doug M-C
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