RE: URIs for Physical Items

No, URLs are not appropriate for designating physical items:
1. A physical item may exist in multiple copies.  ISBNs for example do not
refer to a specific copy of a book; they identify the class of all copies in
an edition.  It is useful to identify the class not a specific instance of
it. 

2. A user may well wish to differentiate between a website (URL) -e.g. for
maintenenace, administration; and the entity currently avaiulable at that
website.  If the URl is used for one it cannot be used for the other.  

3. For management of contnent many people require a persistent identifier. 

....etc.

See the indecs model (Framework) for a lucid discussion of all these points
(http://www.indecs.org/results/archive.htm)




-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Swartz [mailto:aswartz@upclink.com]
Sent: 13 October 2000 22:47
To: uri@w3.org
Subject: URIs for Physical Items


With the increasing popularity of URIs, especially with their increased
importance in RDF, it becomes more important than ever to have URIs for all
sorts of items. Already, protocols like isbn: allow the use of some types of
physical items, but this still leaves quite a lot left.

Would it be appropriate to use the URLs to the websites of such items? For
example, if I wanted to talk about my iBook, pointing to
http://apple.com/ibook/ or does this refer to the homepage, rather than the
item itself?

I hope this is an appropriate topic of discussion for this list. If not, my
apologies, and suggestion for a better place would be appreciated.

Thanks a lot for your help,
-- 
Aaron Swartz <aswartz@upclink.com>|       The Info Network
<http://www.swartzfam.com/aaron/> |     <http://theinfo.org>
 AIM: Jedi of Pi | ICQ: 33158237  | knowledge is power, drink it up

Received on Monday, 16 October 2000 04:45:31 UTC