Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] [Fwd: [ol-tech] Modified RDF/XML api]

From: Aaron Rubinstein <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:07:32 -0400

Hello Karen,

Thanks so much for your detailed response.

Karen Coyle wrote:

> The OL group has talked about linking to id.loc.gov, but in fact   
> the project folks are mainly interested in getting away from the  
> LCSH structuring of subjects. I admit that I find it hard to defend  
> LCSH in the discussions about subjects and subject searching. ;-)

Fundamentally, I agree about the limitations of the LCSH for human  
usability but linking the headings to their representations on  
id.loc.gov seems like a simple way to leverage data that already  
exists in great quantity.  I think it would be unfortunate to see the  
LCSH ignored when they have the potential to collocate large amounts  
of resources on the Web thanks to the SKOS encoded version and their  
presence in nearly every bibliographic record.  Though I appreciate  
the focus on the human UI, I think this addition would be extremely  
useful for future applications.

Again, many thanks for hearing me out...

Aaron