On Mar 15, 2005, at 11:07 PM, Ross Singer wrote:

>>> No, that's the part that is likely to vary among systems.
>>> Using CUFTS would give us at least an openly available
>>> source of IDs, with broad coverage - son-of-JAKE. Those of
>>> us who are committed to proprietary systems like SFX would
>>> have to work out linkages from the CUFTS id for a given
>>> resource to the SFX id.
>>
>> i'm working on something currently that would benefit
>> greatly from this....would the CUFTS folks be willing to
>> share their internal IDs right now?
>>
>> anyway, i can get by using my own IDs, but was just
>> wondering if I could begin this project with at least SOME
>> interoperability from the get-go.....
>
> IESR is a definite possibility.  In fact, it looks like there'd be
> a ton of uses.  I have to admit that I'm not entirely sure what
> all I am looking at, but is there a way to relate similar
> collections together in it?
>
> Is it strictly UK?  The current metadata seems pretty heavily
> UK-centric.  How would "database concordance" occur? (i.e.
> www.jstor.org = uk.jstor.org) Do UK catalogs have any reference to
> these items?  Is there any effort to attain that?


I had the privilege of visiting the IESR folks a couple of weeks ago
with a few other people. IESR's goal is similar to one of the goals of
the Ockham NSF Project, namely, to create a machine-to-machine registry
(directory) of digital library services and collections. They have
articulated a very Dublin Core-like metadata scheme and added a few
other things to describe just about any type of digital library entity.
Now that I think about it, each item in the directory will have a
unique key, if that is what you require. Similarly, I believe the
Ockham Registry will have a similar feature, especially considering
that we (the Ockham folks and the IESR folks) plan to be working more
closely together.

FYI.

--
Eric Lease Morgan
University Libraries of Notre Dame

(574) 631-8604