Date:         Mon, 15 Sep 2003 10:36:08 -0700
Reply-To:     Metadata Object Description Schema List <[log in to unmask]>
Sender:       Metadata Object Description Schema List <[log in to unmask]>
From:         Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: location, location, location
Comments: To: Metadata Object Description Schema List <[log in to unmask]>
In-Reply-To:  <[log in to unmask]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 09:38 AM 9/15/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>See the mapping and it will be clear that 856$u maps to identifier:
>http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/mods-mapping.html#identier

Well, that means that there is no electronic location data element in MODS --

If the URL in the 856 $u is the network location of the item, then it
really should be in the location area of the record, IM(not so)HO. I don't
believe that libraries have been in the practice of putting non-location
URI's in the 856 $u -- as a matter of fact, the whole point of the 856 $u
seems to be that you can click on it and go to the resource (or related
resource -- another issue that we can take up separately, perhaps). And
there's a big difference between something like
http://www.craphound.com/down/download.php, which is the location of the
item, and isbn: 0765304368, which is an identifier.

I'm very uncomfortable with using URL's as identifiers, in general,
although I know that the practice is wide-spread. But I don't think you
should put "http://" in front of anything that isn't supposed to go out as
a URL across the network. For identifiers, I would prefer to use something
like the java convention -- a namespace that doesn't look like a clickable
or resolvable locator.
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Karen Coyle                    [log in to unmask]
       http://www.kcoyle.net

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