21 Mar
2007
21 Mar
'07
4:50 p.m.
Some mention has been made on the list with regards to
a "global" list of
classic computer related artifacts, be those documents (manuals), software
bits, other historical ephemera, etc. The concept I've been working with is
defining a standard record format for interchange amongst those that wish to
participate. Think of this as something like ANSI X.12 (Electronic Data
Interchange).
Seth would probably be better qualified to talk about this, but there is an
exchange protocol in LOCKSS that may be useful for this, though it is geared
more towards electronic copies of documents, including province, access
rights, etc. in a distributed content environment.
21 Mar
21 Mar
5:34 p.m.
Some mention
has been made on the list with regards to a "global" list of
classic computer related artifacts, be those documents (manuals), software
bits, other historical ephemera, etc. The concept I've been working with is
defining a standard record format for interchange amongst those that wish to
participate. Think of this as something like ANSI X.12 (Electronic Data
Interchange).
Seth would probably be better qualified to talk about this, but there is an
exchange protocol in LOCKSS that may be useful for this, though it is geared
more towards electronic copies of documents, including province, access
rights, etc. in a distributed content environment. 
7:10 p.m.
Zane wrote...
I should think that the Library of Congress MARC
database format, which
seems to be an international standard would be able to handle this. There
are lots of tools for manipulating MARC data, including programming
libraries for various languages (I use Perl).
I just skimmed some basic information about it. It would SEEM to me (a total
neophyte at MARC, hadn't heard of it till you mentioned it) that MARC is
pretty complex, much moreso than is needed for this particular project.
More to the point, I can't seem to get my brain around if it is really
suited to things other than books. It seems to focus on bibliographic
information and such which may not translate well to paper tapes, disk
images, manuals, images, etc.
If I'm being too dense to see how it applies (quite possible) can you point
me to more specific docs that might help me?
I was thinking of something specific and lightweight as to record design?
Jay
22 Mar
22 Mar
10:11 a.m.
Jay,
Combined responses to several subthreads:
I think the database is a great idea. I'll join the new list to
discuss it when its created.
There are a number of existing data formats which are at least related
to the concept. MARC was already mentioned. It's capable of doing
this, but is indeed very heavy-weight. It's also a transfer format;
relatively little software stores pure MARC in database form for
routine processing. OTOH, as a data format, it's clearly on topic,
originating over 30 years ago on mainframe systems. :)
Another one we should probably look at is Encoded Archival Description
(EAD), for ideas if nothing else. EAD is XML-encoded, which probably
makes it unsuitable in the minds of many, but it was designed by
professional archivists, who do this sort of thing for a living.
Whatever data format is selected, it'd be nice to be able to identify
duplicate holdings and provide multiple links to the searcher, so if
one source is down or gone, another is available.
The OAI Harvesting Protocol is lightweight and should probably get a
serious look as the mechanism for gathering this data into the central
database. It was designed for exactly this kind of application.
We might consider replicating the central database as well; perhaps
not live for the public, but having the software and data ready to
go in a few other places.
De
6327
days inactive
6328
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3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
aek＠bitsavers.org -
drb＠msu.edu -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jwest＠classiccmp.org