Re: Comments on LLD from ExLibris

Quoting Ross Singer <ross.singer@talis.com>:


>
> Like Jeff pointed out, the real wins are the shared vocabularies and
> identifiers; those shouldn't be terribly controversial ideas.  What, then,
> about that message isn't getting to people and how can we improve that?  I
> think it's easy to bury the the story in lot of FUD around how we'll need
> entirely new technology stacks and unproven methods of sharing data (which,
> of course, is nonsense, but, certainly, the details would need to be worked
> out) while if, instead, the focus was on the parts that people can
> (theoretically) agree upon we at least improve the status quo and begin
> priming the pump towards a better future.

I agree with this. I also think that the "semantic web" and "linked  
data" actually get in our way at times. I'm developing some seminar  
materials and I am trying to stay away from those terms until long  
after the seminarees have had some exercises in creating statements  
and working with identifiers. Even without a "full-blown" semantic  
web, these changes could make a huge difference in how well our data  
works.

In terms of disruption, the huge disruptions coming at us right now  
are FRBR, RDA and a replacement for MARC. The scary thing is that we  
have no idea how to implement the first two, and no guidance on what  
the last one should be. I see the semantic web metadata standards as  
one possible answer, and I'm more comfortable with ANY answer than  
none at all. (I would welcome a larger set of answers to choose from.)  
However, I don't think that the case has been made that LD is a  
*response* to these disruptive technologies. It seems to come from  
left field, and we need to do a better job of putting it in this  
context.

I also think that a non-technical version of the Singapore Framework  
would be helpful. In casual conversation there is a lot of confusion  
between data models, data elements (properties, vocabularies),  
ontologies (sets of properties), and instance data. We need a clear,  
non-technical way to talk about these and a better understanding of  
the pieces we need to develop so as to have a coherent metadata  
environment.

It's a huge education task, really. We have a profession (or a group  
of professions) that does not have a common understanding of a key  
technology. That's a huge hurdle.

kc


-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

Received on Monday, 8 August 2011 14:24:57 UTC