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There are things you'd want to do with data in a MARC record _other_ than display it in HTML. Maybe you want to send it to someone in email, or a txt message. Embedding html in your marc is going to make this more difficult than it should be. Alexander Johannesen wrote: > Hiya, > > I guess I'm the one who's got to step up to the self-slaughtering > altar, but the fact that a lot of our systems break or don't know how > to handle HTML is despicable. I'm sure you guys are familiar with RSS > / Atom, and because in there we *expect* HTML and therefore make sure > our back-ends can grok it, it enhances the meta data *greatly*. > > Don't think for a second that purity of the data format in any shape > or form is the definition of its usefulness. Mixed content models > might be complex to work with, but their value is immense. I can fully > understand *why* people say "don't do it", because, yes, it ups the > complexity, and perhaps with these dinosaur technologies like MARC and > our ILS's breaking under the pressure of more modern technologies > enforces it, I don't think we should shun it because of it. > > If your back-end can't grok HTML, I'd suggest you fix it immediately! > If your ILS chokes on XML and / or HTML snippets, I suggest you > replace it. You seriously shouldn't allow this rigidity into your > infra-structure, and it's depressing to watch how we as complex users > of MARC don't dare to extend it to become a format that does what it > should and need to do. > > Even *if* HTML in MARC records probably is a bad idea. > > > Regards, > > Alex > -- > Project Wrangler, SOA, Information Alchemist, UX, RESTafarian, Topic Maps > --- http://shelter.nu/blog/ ---------------------------------------------- > ------------------ http://www.google.com/profiles/alexander.johannesen --- > >