On Feb 22, 2016, at 8:33 AM, James Weinheimer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I completely agree that the library community doesn't fully grasp the nature of the transition. We are only at the beginning of a "long, strange trip"--and the resources of some libraries (and librarians themselves!) are almost exhausted already… All of this in the pursuit of a highly abstract goal: an interlinked bibliographic graph…
At the risk of splitting hairs, and to my mind, the goal is not to create an interlinked bibliographic graph, but instead to increasingly enable and empower students, scholars, and life-long learners in the acquisition and development of knowledge. Things like RDF are simply one of the more recent means to facilitating this goal. Graphs are not the end but the means. Moreover, considering today’s networked environment, a library’s catalog needs to go beyond the idea of a (mere) inventory list if the library wants to participate in this global environment. Yes, MARC is a part of the problem, but so is the assumed purpose of the library catalog. If all you want is an inventory list, then that can be done using a flat file with columns for authors, titles, dates, publishers, and location information. But the second any type of subject analysis is performed, the library starts down the path of knowledge development and acquisition.
I’m past whether or not to use RDF as a means to make explicit to the network library holdings and collections. I’m also past whether or not to use BIBFRAME as the ontology. I’m more interested in how to read, write, and maintain bibliographic data in the form of triples.
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Eric Lease Morgan
Artist- And Librarian-At-Large
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