VIAF now available as linked data.

Thom Hickey of OCLC posted on the VIAF as linked data on his blog.

Search the VIAF beta at http://viaf.org/

Thom says,

There are some 9.5 million personae described in VIAF and have established more than 4 million links between the files. To us linked data means:
URIs for everything
HTTP 303 redirects for URIs representing the personae our metadata is about
HTTP content negotiation for different data formats
An RDF view of the data
A rich a set of internal and external links in our data

ONIX for ISTC Metadata

EDItEUR and the International ISTC Agency(IIA) have developed an ONIX format to be used by ISTC registrants and Registration Agencies for two-way communication related to the processes of registering a new ISTC work or amending the metadata associated with an existing ISTC work record. A draft version of the format (the IIA recently approved the publication of Version 1.0) can now be found on the EDItEUR website as ONIX ISTC Registration Format <http://www.editeur.org/106/ONIX-ISTC-Registration-Format/>

This is an important milestone for practical work identifiers.

I have two questions.

1. I have not been following ISTC closely for some time, and as I look at its web pages I wonder What relation the ISTC concept of work has to FRBR?

I recall there was considerable difference from FRBR in how the ISTC effort conceptualized a work. Is that still true. The ISTC about web page says the ISTC reference works not manifestations, but I didn’t find any definition of work nor any reference to a concept like expression.

2. How might ISTCs be used in WorldCat to collocate records for the same works?

Physical Therapy for carpal tunnel

Today I had my first physical therapy session for the carpal tunnel symptoms I have in my hands and arms. It went well. The therapist, Nancy, is nice and effective. I'll see her again next week and until then I'm to work on my posture at my workstation and do some stretches for my neck and shoulders.

Autumnal Equinox

Today is the autumnal equinox. The sun crosses the celestial equator heading south for winter. Day and night are balanced. I've got nothing to say about work, but I just wanted to note this reminder of earth's tilted tie to the sun and the seasons that result.

Nicholas Carr's The Big Switch.

I've just started reading Nicholas Carr's new book, The Big Switch. He claims information is the new electricity--a utility-based commodity that powers the economy. The sub-title, Rewiring the world, from Edison to Google gives one a sense of its scope.

Why I call this local weather

In trying to find a way to think about my work--my job and my profession, I look for metaphors that might explain or frame the experience. My latest thought on this--following last year's crash in asset valuations, deep cuts in work budgets, and layoffs, is "work is weather." No one controls the weather, but we all experience it. We adapt to it; we might anticipate it; we talk about it; and we might screw up the whole thing (unwittingly change the climate), but we can't control it. And it struck me that work is like weather. And I thought that I could use this page to talk about the weather that work is as I experence it. Thus it is local. The local may or may not be part of a larger system, a global trend, an overall climate, and I may sometimes connect the local with the larger scales, but my attention is on what affects me directly and what I can or can't do about it. Work is weather. This blog is about my local weather.