Files for review @ TDWG
Chris Freeland
All - Today Anna Weitzman & Chris Lyal continued their work leading the TDWG Literature Interest Group in Montpellier, with the main task being to describe/document an exchange format for citations to be put forward as a TDWG standard that includes the unique elements required for taxonomic literature. As a point of reference for the continued discussions, I've attached the DTD that EndNote uses, which we (BHL) have found to be the most complete (vs. BibTex or others). I've also included two example documents, exported in XML, for a sample journal article & a book. These files have also been uploaded to the Group.
We'll keep this group updated on the results of the TDWG discussions, and of course we're interested in comments from you on the topic.
To keep up with what's happening at TDWG, check out the #tdwg09 Twitter feed at:
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23tdwg09
& pics on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/tdwg09/pool/
Cheers from beautiful Montpellier!
Chris Freeland
Rod Page
can we adopt an existing one?"
Given that just about everybody deals with literature, surely we can
avoid duplication of effort? For example, what about http://bibliontology.com/
, which has a lot of traction, an active discussion group
http://groups.google.com/group/bibliographic-ontology-specification-group,
and links to the successful Zotero project http://www.zotero.org/
If we have any ambitions of sharing data we need to reuse vocabularies
across disciplines as much as possible, in other words, stop inventing
everything de novo.
Regards
Rod
> 8KViewDownload
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> BookExample.xml
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> JournalArticleExample.xml
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Richard Pyle
> Please, please let the first question be "do we need a new
> format, or can we adopt an existing one?"
Funny you should say that -- because that's basically exactly what happened
today. The DTD Chris forwarded is an existing one; and specifically it's
one that he/BHL have found to be the most practical among existing exchange
formats/standards. Our plan for tomorrow is to review it in detail, and
identify any extensions/elaborations that our particular community might
need/want. We all agreed that the last thing we want to do is re-invent any
wheels.
> Given that just about everybody deals with literature, surely
> we can avoid duplication of effort? For example, what about
> http://bibliontology.com/ , which has a lot of traction, an
> active discussion group
> http://groups.google.com/group/bibliographic-ontology-specification-group,
> and links to the successful Zotero project http://www.zotero.org/
Many thanks for the links -- we should certainly include these in our
conversations tomorrow morning. I'll try to have a look at them tonight.
> If we have any ambitions of sharing data we need to reuse
> vocabularies across disciplines as much as possible, in other
> words, stop inventing everything de novo.
I think you'll find that we all agree with this point. However, as I tried
to explain in a previous message to you, many of us have been waiting
literally decades (plural) for the library/publication community to develop
what we need (as we would naturally expect them to). But this has not
happened -- which is why we need to adopt as much of the pre-existing
standards as we can, and then extend them to meet our specific needs. I
believe this is the track we are currently on.
Aloha,
Rich
Dean Pentcheff
missed Montpellier [note to self: in the future, do not pass up
conferences in the south of France], and I was out of town for the
burst of corresponence around it, I'll take the chance now to inject
some ideas.
I completely concur with Rod Page that we need to avoid reinvention as
much as possible, but I also think that there may be no alternatives
to some customization or extension for taxonomic purposes. As Rich
mentions, no one has come up with a format (at least as far as any of
us know) that takes care of all our needs.
But the fields and format are one thing. I suspect that it will be
nearly as important to define how those fields are intended to be
used. There's going to be some sort of compromise that will have to be
cut that will use field definitions that are precise enough to be
useful but not so precise that no one can/will play.
A few examples that we've run across and variously resolved:
Author name parts: how does one arrange author names?
Horton H. Hobbs III ==> Hobbs, H.H., III
Mathilde Méndez G. ==> Méndez, M.
Do we need a separate field for cases where the name as used as part
of a taxonomic authority differs from the author's name as used in a
bibliography?
Pithononton von Meyer, 1860 <==> Meyer, H. von. 1860. Die
Prosoponiden...
If there's a field for page numbers, does that include plates, or are
there separate fields for plates and for figures? Particularly for
some of the older literature, systematists insist on having the plates
listed, since the nomenclatural acts are sometimes in the plates
rather than the text.
Dates: how should the "date" field handle publications that have multi-
year publication dates? How to handle all the different flavors of
situation where the publication date printed on the work is not the
actual date of publication?
Publisher city name: original spelling/usage, or current name for that
city?
So picking the physical format and even the list of fields is
definitely just step one. I think we'll need some careful definition
to try to ensure interoperability if this is going to develop into a
useful exchange format.
--
Dean Pentcheff
pent...@gmail.com