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I am not even remotely suggesting that anyone would implement the holdings standard with nothing but the schema. We're working on a solution to this. --Ray ----- Original Message ----- From: "Houghton,Andrew" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 11:26 AM Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Open, public standards v. pay per view standards and usage >> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of >> Ross Singer >> Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 11:07 AM >> To: [log in to unmask] >> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Open, public standards v. pay per view >> standards and usage >> >> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Ray Denenberg, Library of >> Congress<[log in to unmask]> wrote: >> >> > Ross, if you're talking about the ISO 20775 xml schema: >> > http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso20775/ISOholdings_V1.0.xsd >> > >> > It's free. >> >> It's also not a spec, it's a schema. If the expectation is that >> people are actually going to adopt a standard from merely looking at >> an .xsd, my prediction is that this will go nowhere. >> >> I mean, I'm wrong a lot, but I feel pretty good about this reading >> from my crystal ball. > > Not saying you're wrong Ross, but it depends. People adopted MARC-XML > by looking at the .xsd without an actual specification. Granted it's > not a complicated schema however, and there already existed the "MARC 21 > Specifications for Record Structure, Character Sets, and Exchange Media" > so it wasn't a big leap to adopt MARC-XML, IMHO. > > Generally I agree with your conclusion Ross. It's difficult for people > to just pick up an .xsd and understand what the semantics are for each > element and attribute in the schema and which element(s) should be used > for the document element. This is mitigated by annotations in the .xsd > for the elements and attributes and also mitigated by using the Russian > doll schema approach, that MARC-XML uses, so it's clear what elements > can be used for the document element. Also tools like XMLSpy that > provide a graphical representation of the .xsd can provide insights > into how the schema should be used. > > But these are a lot of if this and that was done, and you have appropriate > tools. A freely available specification detailing each element and > attribute along with their semantics is much better for understanding a > schema than the schema itself, but obviously the schema is the definitive > authority when it comes to generating conforming instance documents. > > > Andy.