Re: LD and Redundancy

*On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 1:18 AM, Neubert Joachim <J.Neubert@zbw.eu> wrote:

I'm not sure that a centralized model for building clusters (like VIAF) or a
pre-declared central hub ("everybody maps to WorldCat/OpenLibrary/whatever")
could work.*

A centralized model is essential if global bibliography is to be an
important part of the Web.  Sure, there are work-arounds involving declared
or inferred equivalence.  These all require additional work on the part of
systems and people, which will rarely be expended, with the result that link
potency will (continue to) be diluted to insignificance.

Is it important enough for the global library community to expend the
resources to consolidate meaningful global bibliography?  Can the political
impediments be overcome?

I continue to believe that OCLC is the only likely candidate with a chance
to make this happen, and it appears that the business cases are too weak,
and constituent demand too feeble for that to happen in the current
environment.

I just Googled the book closest to hand, and on the first page, Wikipedia
was number one, and there were two Amazon links in the top ten.  No library
link of any sort appeared on the page.

Linked data isn't going to change this without a centralized identifier
infrastructure.

stu



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