Comments on Benefits section

I wasn't sure who to send this to so I am sending it to the WG list...

I wanted to give more specific comments on the Benefits section, as we  
discussed yesterday on the call. Most of them are editorial.

The main sections are:
     2.1 Benefits of using globally unique identifiers
     2.2 Benefits to Researchers, Students and Patrons
     2.3 Benefits to Organizations

There are two topics in that list, the technology and "benefits to".  
Perhaps this is actually two sections?
1. Benefits of LD technology
2. Benefits to the LLD community

Presumably if we want to talk about benefits of the technology we  
should cover more than identifiers. There are benefits from defining  
ones data element set in RDF/OWL/SKOS, benefits to making it available  
on the Web, using "data" not text, etc. (I'm thinking of the 5 stars  
here.)

Most of the benefits in 2.1 are general benefits of the technology and  
are not specific to libraries. That's fine, and I think it makes sense  
to talk about general benefits (with library examples) because not all  
readers of the report will be aware of them.

The section on Benefits to organizations, I think, needs to be more  
specific. It should mention:
- greater visibility for cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) on the  
web, which is where most info seekers are
- facilitate re-use of library data in services to info seekers  
(automate citations, link from web resources to library resources)
- CHIs will be able to make use of mainstream technologies to manage  
their data (unlike today where they need to develop tech specific to  
their data format)
- expand discovery through linking
- would create an open, global pool of shared data that can be used to  
describe resources
- will probably be a first step toward an "in the cloud" approach to  
CHI systems technology, which we assume (?) will be more cost  
effective than individual systems in institutions
- the "in the cloud" technology will make it possible for small  
institutions or individual projects to be visible and connected (such  
as many of our use cases)

I'm sure there's more.... and some can be found in
http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/wiki/Draft_Benefits#Librarians.2C_Archivists.2C_Curators

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

Received on Friday, 6 May 2011 14:17:23 UTC