Comments on: Martin Malmsten and linked library data

By: Roy Tennant

Roy Tennant — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:54:43 +0000

The point I’m trying to make about your specific demonstration can be equally made with OAI-PMH. Both that protocol and your technique have the same problem: they are a good way to aggregate _unique_ records, but they will always be flawed when aggregating records for commonly held items. This is because variations in those records are much easier to deal with in a batch mode over time than dynamically. Ask anyone who has ever had to create and maintain a union catalog. This is why I don’t find this demonstration a compelling of linked data, as fun as it may have been to be asleep while the catalog was being sucked down — which as you point out could have been done via OAI-PMH as well. Solve a problem that many of us have in a more effective way than before and you may have something. Without that, why should we care?

By: ed

ed — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:42:36 +0000

@royt ok, I honestly didn’t think you’d think I had met your challenge :-) I’d need another blog post to talk about why I think aggregating resources in this way (web harvesting) is superior to mag tapes in a VW bus. I would’ve thought it was self-evident, but there you go… A better comparison, I think would be with OAI-PMH. Do you think OAI-PMH is useful?

By: Internet Alchemy » Bookmarks for May 7th through September 2nd

Internet Alchemy » Bookmarks for May 7th through September 2nd — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:08:47 +0000

[...] Martin Malmsten and linked library data – [...]

By: Roy Tennant

Roy Tennant — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:22:21 +0000

Not to be a monkey on your back (he says, as he clambers on for another ride), but I don’t think you’ve yet met my challenge. That is, what problem does this solve and how does it work better than anything previous? As far as I can tell you’ve solved a problem (aggregating data) that was solved back when you could pack a VW bus with mag tapes. What is so useful about this that will have people sit up and saying “Yeah! I WANT me one of those?”