>> Let me give another example: the Open Library API returns a JSON  tree, eg. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL1M.json
>> 
>> But what schema is this?  And if it doesn't conform to a standard  schema, does that make it useless? If it were based on DCTERMS, at  least I'd have a reference at  http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/ to define the semantics  being used (and an RDF namespace at http://purl.org/dc/terms/ to  boot).
> 
> Ah, after my own heart! I have tried to convince the OL folks to translate their data to dcterms, even did a crosswalk for them. Right now they're in panic mode over a major milestone, but once that's over I may ping you to make this request directly to them on one of their lists. If they only hear it from me, it might just be a personal quirk of mine, right?

See, we're on the same page after all.  :-)

Considering one of my primary use cases is direct interoperation with Open Library then yes, I'm all over it.  I'll at least harass Edward and the OL list that DC output is important to others beyond just you alone.

I was starting to get discouraged, but now I realize that many of you thought I was proposing DCTERMS as a replacement for MARC; not at all.

Imagine Open Library's internal data schema being an easily-serializable model based on DCTERMS.  Now imagine every library has a queryable API exactly like theirs.  That's where I'm going, and I think (answering my own question above) that it *is* potentially useful.

> p.s. The JSON API output doesn't require any programming when it uses their data elements; it does do crosswalk to dcterms.... that's been the hangup. Then again... their code is open source, the crosswalk I did is linked from the launchpad entry here [1] so if anyone wants to contribute…

Unfortunately I'm not adept at Python, so writing the code by hand is probably a bit beyond me at this point.  But it might make a fun learn-Python-in-a-rainy-weekend project.

MJ