Re: Identifying a book on the Web today

Benjamin,

Thank you for posting this.  I am wondering if permalink, PURL, or  w3id.org
is useful.  See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistent_uniform_resource_locator

Regards,
Makoto

2017-08-01 3:15 GMT+09:00 Benjamin Young <byoung@bigbluehat.com>:

> Hi all,
>
>
> I've mentioned in other threads that I'm currently exploring from the
> existing state of book(s) on the Web and hunting for openly licensed and
> easily fork-able/edit-able books to iterate from.
>
>
> Right now, the one I look at most is CouchDB: The Definitive Guide, and
> below are a list of things that can be used to both identify that
> publication and/or locate an instantiation of that publication (on my
> shelf, via my browser; or your shelf or your browser). Here goes...
>
>
> CouchDB: The Definitive Guide
>
>  - identifier
>
>  - *not* a locator...but useful for searching a shelf or the Web to find
> the location of an instantiation)
>
>  - does not include clarification of rendition, language, or format
>
>
> guide.couchdb.org
>
>  - identifier (similar to the above)
>
>  - *not* a (direct) locator of the publication
>
>  - useful to humans ("visit guide dot couchdb dot org to get the book) and
> browsers (type it in, seach for it)
>
>  - lands at a promo page dedicated to routing to distinct instantiations
> of the book...but is as close to a "webby" non-rendition-specific
> identifier+locator combo
>
>
> http://guide.couchdb.org/editions/1/de/index.html
>
>  - identifier and locator
>
>  - specific instantiation--exact rendition, language, and format
>
>  - locates the Table of Contents of this rendition (etc) on the Web
>
>
> http://guide.couchdb.org/editions/1/de/
>
>  - identical instantiation returned (ToC) as with the above...but
> completely different identifier (i.e. they're not programmatically
> equivalent)
>
>
> http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596155902.do
>
> (also http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596155902)
>
>  - identifier
>
>  - *not* a locator
>
>  - similar to guide.couchdb.org (but less useful to humans)
>
>  - provided routing to distinct instantiations ("buy now")
>
>
> https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/couchdb-the-
> definitive/9780596158156/
>
>  - identifier and locator
>
>  - specific instantiation--exact rendition, language, and format
>
>  - (current English version for me...might language negotiation for
> you...not tested)
>
>
> http://www.powells.com/book/couchdb-the-definitive-guide-
> 9780596155896/61-1
>
>  - identifier
>
>  - *not* a locator
>
>
> ISBN13: 9780596155896
> ISBN10: 0596155891
> OCLC: 935422678
>  - identifier
>  - *not* a locator
>
> 9780596155902
>  - identifier -- presumably (given the URLs above) an O'Reilly specific
> product identifier
>  - *not* a locator
>
> urn:x-pdf:b65cf356c8b20307000445bd151b8017000000
>  - identifier
>  - *not* a locator
>  - used by Hypothes.is for finding annotations about the publication
>  - generated by PDF.js using this code: https://github.com/mozilla/
> pdf.js/blob/58c3ea08202becf007c304512c44726719acb508/src/core/core.js#L513
>
> https://www.dropbox.com/home/Apps/O'Reilly%20Media/CouchDB_
> %20The%20Definitive%20Guide
>  - identifier
>  - *not* a locator
>  - folder that contains my personal, digital instantiations (epub, mobi,
> apk, pdf) of the publication
>
> https://www.dropbox.com/home/Apps/O'Reilly%20Media/CouchDB_
> %20The%20Definitive%20Guide?preview=CouchDB_+The+Definitive+Guide.epub
>  - identifier and locator
>  - returns the English, First Edition, EPUB format rendition of the
> publication
>
> C:\Users\byoung\Dropbox\Apps\O'Reilly Media\CouchDB_ The Definitive
> Guide\CouchDB_ The Definitive Guide.epub
>  - identifier and locator
>  - but it only works for me...offline
>
> Obviously...there are many other identifiers and locators for both the
> publication or it's instantiations.
>
> Some of these identifiers are used inside of locators. Other locators make
> no mention of the other identifications (ISBN, for instance isn't
> referenced from the guide.couchdb.org site...strangely).
>
> So. Which one of these should my Web Browser use when identifiying the
> publication and/or the instantiation? It has (now) seen all of these in
> some fashion (location bar, human-readable page contents, machine readable
> content). Is there one that can be considered "canonical"? Given that
> domains are *rented* can any URL be considered "permanent"? Does that even
> matter?
>
> >From a user perspective, I have activities I want to accomplish (search,
> annotate, read, discover), and some amount of identification (a URL, an
> ISBN, a PDF fingerprint) to start the process. In the end, I only care
> about accomplishing my activity--and I want all the technology to which I
> have access to come to my aid to help me accomplish it.
>
> Defining the technical details and requirements to facilitate end user
> experiences is what we're here to accomplish.
>
> For those interested in exploring what options we collectively have to
> solve these issues, please feel free to contribute your own personal
> explorations of identifiers and locators.
>
> There will be Pros and Cons to all of the things we pick among, and my
> hope is that we can collectively begin defining them when implementation
> ideas are put forward.
>
> Thanks for reading all this (if you did ;) ). I look forward to many more
> such explorations as we move forward.
>
> Thanks, all,
> Benjamin
> --
>
> Information Architect
>
> John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
>
> --
>
> http://bigbluehat.com/
>
> http://linkedin.com/in/benjaminyoung
>



-- 

Praying for the victims of the Japan Tohoku earthquake

Makoto