RE: Proposed text for provenance section

Hi John,

Actually the text below came more-or-less straight from MacKenzie (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-dspace/2003May/0117.html).  MacKenzie, do you agree with John's suggested text below?

> * Or is it more reasonable to say that "(any)one who actually
> manages archives" thinks that maintaining the provenance of 
> metadata across an archive over time might well be useful, 
> but adequately maintaining provenance data is viewed as 
> difficult given current tools and mechanisms.

My own tuppence's worth:  The reason I used these comments (apart from the fact that MacKenzie is the domain expert here) is that they back up a concern of mine:  I'm getting quite concerned about the complexity this "metadata provenance" issue is bringing.  The libraries domain is relatively closed compared to the Web as a whole.  I just don't think the open Semantic Web scenario of trawling a tonne of triples from lots of sources and sifting through them to see which ones you believe is one we have to deal with on this project.  If a source of complexity can be avoided I think it should be.

And what about the provenance of provenance data?  (Shudder ;-)

 Robert Tansley / Hewlett-Packard Laboratories / (+1) 617 551 7624

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John S. Erickson [mailto:john.erickson@hp.com]
> Sent: 07 July 2003 10:20
> To: www-rdf-dspace@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Proposed text for provenance section
> 
> 
> 
> Rob wrote:
> 
> > \subsection{The Library Domain}
> >
> :
> > No one who actually manages archives expects to track changes to the 
> > metadata over time.  In traditional library/ information management 
> > systems logs are kept around to
> track metadata
> > changes temporarily, but it's just not considered important to the
> > core mission of managing the \emph{content} over time.  Schemas 
> > change, contexts change, resources get described in myriad 
> ways (all
> > at the same time), people make mistakes, fix them, we add stuff, we
> > remove stuff, and libraries do not track all this.
> 
> JSE: This statement is pretty troubling to me.
> 
> * Can we reasonably say that "no one who actually manages
> archives" CARES about the provenance of metadata over time? 
> That schemas change AND THEY WON'T CARE? That contexts change 
> AND THEY WON'T CARE? I don't think so.
> 
> * Or is it more reasonable to say that "(any)one who actually
> manages archives" thinks that maintaining the provenance of 
> metadata across an archive over time might well be useful, 
> but adequately maintaining provenance data is viewed as 
> difficult given current tools and mechanisms.
> 
> It seems to me that the same need for decision-making "clues"
> that exists in the automated inference space also exists in 
> the library domain; it's just that human collection managers 
> are able to use their judgement, based upon their knowledge 
> and experience, to fill in the gaps where explicit provenance 
> data is missing...
> 
> John
>

Received on Monday, 7 July 2003 14:40:14 UTC