[openbiblio-dev] BibJSON vs RDF

Wed Feb 8 20:18:10 UTC 2012

On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 7:29 PM, Tom Morris <tfmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Seems like there's a variety of opinions.  It's not just an idle
> question because it influences how engineering and marketing time
> (money) is spent.
>
> Considers these five possible goals for BibJSON:
>
> 1. Internal format for BibServer
> 2. API format for BibServer
> 3. New standard for personal bibliographies (ie alternative to BibTeX,
> RIS, etc)
> 4. New standard for library bibliographic data (ie alternative to
> MARC, MARC.next, LLD RDF)
> 5. All of the above plus format for author data, data set
> descriptions, weather forecasts, etc
>
> I'll buy a bit of #2 , and a bit of #3 and remove the word "standard"
everywhere. But I have a completely different list (I am not proud of it -
it's just to show a different way of thinking)
1. a technology and community on which we can build "liberation
bibliography".
2. a movement to take bibliography out to 10 to 100 times more people than
actually care about it at the moment.
3. A way of hiding the word bibliography so it doesn't frighten people
4. A tool to bring bibliography specialists and "ordinary people" closer
together.
5. A fluid technology with strong basis in folksonomy which breaks
conventional rules in a web 2.0 manner (I hate that phrase). Don't worry if
it breaks
6. an approach to build bottom-up meritocracy into everyday bibliographic
activities

For me the best analogy is Wikpedia. It never strove to compete against
existing encyclopedias - it did something new and different. It built its
own trechnology. It''s developed a system of meritocratic governenace. If
we can do the same for bibliography then we shall have succeeded. And the
whole point is that we do not know exactly where we are going.

We didn't know a month ago we'd be working with Tom Olijhoek on malaria. We
don't know where it's going. But has exactly the dynamics we need - sense
of purpose, newness, robust technology, good social framework. It will work
- and when it works it will catalyze many other activities. It's about Open
Scholarship, not Marc records

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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