Re: Identifying a book on the Web today

Makoto is talking my language!

On Wed, 2 Aug 2017 at 09:58, MURATA Makoto <eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp> wrote:

> 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
>
-- 
Regards,
Dave