 |
 |
I thought I'd pass along a link to a conversation on LibraryThing. http://www.librarything.com/topic/90309 The topic is how LibraryThing can start exposing more MARC data—in this case the 300 physical-description field—so that the library data structure works with the simpler structure of Amazon data, can be used as data for sorting and calculations, can be understood and edited by regular people, preserves as much information as possible and can be re-exported as MARC. It's a pick-2-of-4 sort of scenario. :) This deserves Code4Lib attention not because of LT, but because these sorts of tradeoffs happen so frequently already, as library, publisher and user data bump up against each other. I also think they'll happen more and more. Lastly, you guys are my peers here--the only other people who think about library data issues on a regular basis--so, if you're interested, I'd be grateful to hear what you think. Best, Tim -- Check out my library at http://www.librarything.com/profile/timspalding