Hi Steven, thanks for the information and my (delayed) reply.
The standard database format I referred to was more an interchange
format.
I.e I might store things in the form:
Artist Name, Title, Cat Nr, Label and so on.
You may store things in the form.
Title, Artist, Label, Cat Nr and so on
and yet we want to share the information to a third party in a common
format so that it can be combined.
Now, of course, /we/ can export our information and recipient can
import and mess about with orders, but if there was a common "export"
we could make the "recipients" task easier and maybe automated.
Darren
On 13 feb 2009, at 05.06, Steven C. Barr wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "D P Ingram" <[log in to unmask]>>
>> Does anybody know (Google was not my friend, at least with what
>> "rubbish" I put in) if there is a common database/electronic
>> interchange format for linking electronic library collections?
>> I understand an institution may not be able to have a common
>> database format (fields etc) but there can be filters or things
>> applied to make it easy to share or link collection databases
>> together. Does such a thing exist?
> Closest thing to a "standard database format" is xBase...IOW data
> files using the (very) old dBASE format! Second-closest is MS
> Access; unlike xBase, the files are TOTALLY unintellagable to
> ordinary humans...nor can they be converted unless one happens
> to OWN a copy of Access (97 is preferable...?!).
>
> Steven C.Barr
¦ D P Ingram ¦ Ab Ingram Oy ¦
¦ darren at ingram.fi ¦ www.ingram.fi ¦
¦
¦ +358 6 781 0275 (FIN) ¦ +46 8 5511 4995 (SWE) ¦ +44 203 014 3839
(UK) ¦
¦ extn 8001
¦
|