 |
 |
Joachim, Using xlink:href as you describe is considered the proper way in MODS to reference an authority. A related example is in the MARC 21 to MODS mapping (http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/mods-mapping.html), which shows that subfield 0 (zero) in MARC 21 is equivalent to use of the xlink attribute in MODS. However, xlink can be used in a MODS record for a variety of external linking purposes, some of them having nothing to do with authority records or authority URIs. That seems to me to present problems for processing a MODS record. I wonder if MODS users will find they want a more specific attribute defined that can only contain an authority URI. So, I'm not convinced that use of xlink is the best practice in the long term for encoding a link to an authority URI. I will raise this issue with the MODS/MADS Editorial Committee. Joe Altimus Arizona State University Libraries On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 1:51 AM, Neubert Joachim <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > We are mapping data to MODS record structures (from a PICA library system > via Marc21 interface) . This includes various kind of authority data, eg. > subjects, persons etc. For subjects, the authority data is in SKOS. > (Thesaurus for Economics, preview on http://www.zbw.eu/beta/stw). It is > based on concepts with an URI as persistent identifier. The concepts have > prefered labels in German and English, which should be present in the MODS > records for display and indexing convenience. > > What we figured out as a possible solution is this: > > <subject authority="stw" xlink:href="http://zbw.eu/stw/descriptor/19664-4" > lang="en"> > <topic>Financial crisis</topic> > </subject> > <subject authority="stw" xlink:href="http://zbw.eu/stw/descriptor/19664-4" > lang="de"> > <topic>Finanzmarktkrise</topic> > </subject> > > (We don't really like the de-normalized form. Much better would be: > <subject authority="stw" xlink:href="http://zbw.eu/stw/descriptor/19664-4 > "> > <topic lang="en">Financial crisis</topic> > <topic lang="de">Finanzmarktkrise</topic> > </subject> > However, that's invalid in MODS 3.3) > > What do you think - is it ok to use xlink:href for the reference to the > authority record? > > Since we are new in the MODS field, we wonder if there is are other > solutions or best practices for this we may not be aware of. > > Cheers, Joachim > -- > Joachim Neubert > IT Development > German National Library of Economics (ZBW) > >