Weibel,Stu felt an urge to reveal at 5:36 AM -0500 on 1997-09-23:
> On Monday, September 22, 1997 7:05 PM, Ricky Erway [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> wrote:
> > The point is that users will look for the original thing, so you want
> > to supply that metadata. It could be that the only important aspect
> > of the surrogate is its URL, but some additional info about the
> > surrogate might be useful -- especially for this example, where there
> > are many surrogates on the Web.
> This seems wrong to me.
>
> I believe it is important to distinguish between an electronic object
> that actually represents intellectual content (digital artwork, perhaps,
> or an electronic document) and a record that is, in fact, only a pointer
> to an object elsewhere (a metadata record describing a sculpture or
> painting).
>
> In the example that Ricky cites, it is easy enough for a human to
> distinguish between the creator of the electronic surrogate and the
> creator of the actual object, and the dates associated with each. In
> other cases, it will not be so clear.
What alternative do you suggest then? As I see it, people *will* be
looking for the painting (or whatever resource it is), and will be
*overjoyed* to find it, even if it doesn't come sticking out of their
computer screen in all of its canvas glory. :-)
I can't think of a single situation where putting in two metadata entries
-- one for the original document, another for it digitized version -- would
cause real problems. You seem to interpret the suggestion as implying that
records that point to these objects would contain this metadata content. I
got a totally different picture -- that only digitized versions of the
original content would have the metadata corresponding to the original. I
mean, as was said, if you're looking for a painting, you're not going to
imediately think to type in "scanned image" instead, although that's
exactly what your ultimate goal *is* (unless you have some kind of
holodeck--like browser, where three-dimensional objects manifest themselves
in real life (what a windfall *that'd* be for the porno sites! ;-> )
Anyhoo, I certainly saw no confusion in the suggestion. I think an easy
way to avoid any confusion at all is to mandate that any metadata using
this technique must actually contain the content--ie, it must have a
reproduction of the painting, or an online version of the book, or a visual
representation of the sculpture, etc. I think it's enough to assume that
if people are out looking for the real thing they'll go to the library or a
museum.
Here's a real-life example of where this sort of thing is used already.
How many times have you come into a record (CD) store, and asked, "I'd like
to find some nice classical operas", only to hear the store owner respond,
shamefully, "I'm sorry. We only have CD-accessible digitized *versions* of
operas which have been recorded either live or in a studio, but not the
opera performances themselves". I'm guessing *never*. Because it's taken
as a given that if you're going into a store that has only CD's, you're not
going to take home Beethoven's Fifth--only a recording of it.
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[ Jordan Reiter ]
[ mailto:[log in to unmask] ]
[ "Don't you realize that intellectual people ]
[ are all ignorant because they can't spray ]
[ paint that small?" ]
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