Hi Lisa:
We have not had a problem with this. Let me begin by saying that our
experience has been confined to the field of high energy physics, and the
Web sites there which users rely on are usually setup by stable
associations, laboratories and other institutions. We do not rely on
personal or student Web sites for example. Conference Web sites for
meetings which took place a couple of years ago, when this practice first
began, are still up and running, and in cases where addresses change, we
see responsible net use, in the form of pointer pages to new addresses.
But the broader question is why should the World Wide Web be singled out
for this type of concern? To some extent bibliographic records have always
been constants representing changing conditions. They point to books which
have been stolen, defunct publishers, and contain now out-of-date prices or
telephone numbers and addresses which lead to dead ends. (However with the
end of the 265 field, these last two may no longer be a problem. Let us
hope the solution to the current discussion is not along the same lines.)
A url for an auxiliary resource, which may work for some time or may not,
will be in the end, another dimension to this problem, but nothing lasts
forever. To remove or exclude one from a record because it might one day
not be there would be like receiving a kit to catalog and ignoring the
compact disk component because the equipment on which to play it might not
exist in the future (ask yourselves if you still have Beta or U-matic video
machines or 5 inch floppy disk drives on hand).
Rob Atkinson
Fermilab Library
[log in to unmask]
At 01:41 PM 12/16/97 -0800, you wrote:
>What about the transient nature of URLs? Is this not of concern? They are
>not as permanent as other bibliographic data. Maybe a date created/updated
>subfield should be included?
>
>Lisa Tansey
>EOSi
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