Ian,
Most network infrastructure issues for repositories revolve around metadata
interoperability, and workflows which make sense within the network
considered as a whole. We could do a whole lot of these things if we dealt
with the issues around the use of rich metadata (and the shedload of
complications which comes with that, as you say). But, as Pete Cliff points
out, achieving interoperability through dumbing-down the metadata has a
strange attractiveness in a world not overly crazy for quality.
Philip
*********************************
Philip Hunter
Digital Library Section
Edinburgh University Library
George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LJ
Tel: +44 (0)131 651 3768
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>
> But as SWORD, EM-LOADER, and other projects have discovered.. a common
> deposit API is hard to do....
>
> .... take the simplist of examples: What subject classification system
> shall we use? JACS (because it's what the funding councils use)? LCC ('cos
> that's what EPrints.org ships with)? Dewey (but it's a for-cost usage)?
> How many IRs actually dispense with subject classification per-sae, and
> use some form of departmental grouping instead?
>
> ... and who's going to put together the lookup tables to convert from one
> classification to another?
>
> (and if one *does* do an "inter-repository transfer", does that item also
> need reviewed, cataloged, & verified? [and what about IRs that have
> slapped on a cover-sheet to the Full Text binary object?])
>
> As you say - a fascinating question, with a shed-load of complications
> that come with it :)
>
> --
>
> Ian Stuart.
> Bibliographics and Multimedia Service Delivery team,
> EDINA,
> The University of Edinburgh.
>
> http://edina.ac.uk/
>
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>
>
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
