Re: Z39.50 on the web (and in print)

On Fri, 22 Feb 2002, Mike Taylor wrote:
> > From: Robert Sanderson <azaroth@liverpool.ac.uk>

> Wow, that was quick!  I don't know enough XML to critique this
> intelligently (yes, Virginia, I am one of those recidivists who insist
> on continuing to believe that GRS-1 is A Good Thing) but I would

Description, Copyright, Title(!) and so forth are intentionally left out
of this as there are competing schemas for how one should describe
different collections.

For example EAD, Ukoln's Collection Level Description, Spectrum, RSLP has 
its own Collection Description schema IIRC, MARC has a collection 
scheme as well and so forth.

The wonderful thing about XML is that this isn't a problem, you just chuck 
them all together with the appropriate namespaces and it's valid. :)
To recast in an SGML framework, just include the DTD inside a wrapper 
element. 
As probably the people describing the content of the database are not the 
same people as describing the technical specs, this also means that they 
can be two completely separate records if desired.

Personally, I would recommend using EAD, but that's just because I've 
blown too many unrecoverable braincells on writing software for it.

Rob

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Received on Friday, 22 February 2002 12:04:08 UTC