Leslie Carr wrote:
> Fascinating question. As activities like the REF impose high QA
> requirements and hence more load on the deposit/editorial processes, I
> wonder whether some inter-institutional collaboration on editorial
> effort might help. It might allow us to build up a permanent resource of
> experienced and efficient staff, rather than temporary or
> constantly-distracted helpers.
>
> Just thinking out loud!
Sort out a harmonious deposit API, and yes.... dead easy
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.
|