1. Ready...Set...URIs...Actionable!
2015 ALA Midwinter Meeting
ALCTS CaMMS Cataloging Norms Interest Group
January 31, 2015
Ready...Set...URIs...Actionable!
Dan Tam Do
Metadata Services Manager
George Washington University Libraries
Jackie Shieh
Coordinator, Resource Description
George Washington University Libraries

2. Identifiers Why identifiers?
First of Tim Berners-Lee’s four principles of linked data:
“Use URIs as names for Things.”

3. Resource
The THING that has an identity

4. Uniformity Why uniform identifiers?
Uniformity facilitates semantic interpretation

5. Why IRIs?
URIs: US-ASCII, subset of IRI
IRIs: fully Unicode-enabled

6. ASCII (URI) vs. UTF-8 (IRI)

8. Actionability Why actionable URIs/IRIs?
Second of Tim Berners-Lee’s four principles of linked data:
“Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names.”
RFC 2616 (1999)
Actionable refers to a scheme-specific syntax and semantics using HTTP protocol for URIs.

9. Actionability Use HTTP scheme to query and retrieve:
" "//" host [ ":" port ] [ abs_path [ "?" query ]]
Hyper text transfer protocol, an application protocol, is fundamental to data communication on the Web
Rules that provide good practice on format design and management
-- follow the pattern, reuse existing ID, link multiple representations, implement 303 redirects for RWO, use dedicated services
Avoids: stating ownership, version number, auto-increment, query strings, file extension

10. Actionability Not actionable: (OCoLC)fst00903451 Actionable:

11. Current environment Where does linked data fit in?
First two principles of linked data already within reach

12. A mighty subfield $0
Authority record control number or standard number
Available for X00, X10, X11, X30, 240, most 65X, others
Repeatable

13. Processing
Batch processing using MarcEdit

14. Processing
Batch processing with Perl scripting

15. Processing
Single record updating using URIs provided by id.loc.gov, FAST, VIAF, other services

16. Costs and benefits Costs and drawbacks time spent learning, training
time spent performing additional step, quality control, supplemental editing
lack of immediate visible results

17. Costs and benefits Benefits improved knowledge of MARC
acquaintance with id.loc.gov, FAST, VIAF
improved MarcEdit skills
“things” vs. “strings”