RE: [tm-pubsubj] [Fwd: NISO-Sponsored INFO URI Scheme Published]

["Bernard Vatant" <bernard.vatant@mondeca.com>]

Patrick

Thanks for the pointer. I was aware of the info URI scheme initiative but
had not followed the recent developments.
What strikes me at first reading is that info URIs are by design not
dereferenceable:

http://www2.elsevier.co.uk/~tony/info/info.html#usp

"The unique aspect of info URIs is that info URIs are not dereferenceable.
The sole purpose of info is the disclosure of the identity of an
information asset from a public namespace."

One could say at first sight that this makes info URIs non-conformant with
PSI Requirement 2

"A Published Subject Identifier must resolve to an human-interpretable
Published Subject Indicator."

But maybe we should consider carefully before striking them out for this
simple reason. The choice of "non-dereferenceability" (what a word!) is
quite argumented at
http://www2.elsevier.co.uk/~tony/info/info.html#non_deref and I think we
should read that carefully.
Although info URIs are not resolvable through the network, their very
scheme provides completely non-ambiguous definition not only of the
subject, but of publishing authority through a registration mechanism. So
by design they are indeed subject identifiers, and intended to be.

BTW http://www2.elsevier.co.uk/~tony/info/info.html#topic_map
indicates topic map subject identity as a use case, although it describes
the URI used as a "public subject indicator", which is not completely
accurate terminology, should be "published subject identifier", but using
it that way seems to me completely conformant to the spirit of
non-ambiguous subject identification, is not to the letter of Deliverable
1.

I think it interprets somehow the requirement of "resolvability" into
something like:

"A Published Subject Identifier must provide a non-ambiguous mechanism
giving access to a unique human-interpretable Published Subject Indicator.
This mechanism is usually network resolution, but it could be any other
non-ambiguous process defined by the Publishing Authority."

Note that "Subject Indicator" is defined in Deliverable 1 like an
information resource, but not explicitly a network-retrievable one. So
under those relaxed requirements, info URIs would be conformant PSIs.

What do folks think ?

Bernard Vatant
Senior Consultant
Knowledge Engineering
Mondeca - www.mondeca.com
bernard.vatant@mondeca.com


> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : Patrick Durusau [mailto:Patrick.Durusau@sbl-site.org]
> Envoye : vendredi 16 janvier 2004 00:57
> A : tm-pubsubj
> Objet : [tm-pubsubj] [Fwd: NISO-Sponsored INFO URI Scheme Published]
>
>
> Greetings!
>
> I don't normally forward stuff from other lists but thought this should
> be the rare exception. I have not had time to do more than scan the post
> itself but suspect members of our group will find it of interest.
>
> Hope everyone is having a great day!
>
> Patrick
>
> *****Forwarded post*****
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: NISO-Sponsored INFO URI Scheme Published
> Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 18:12:21 -0500
> From: "Cynthia Hodgson" <chodgson@niso.org>
> To: <NISO-L@list.niso.org> (NISO-L List)
>
> NISO-Sponsored INFO URI Scheme is Information Gateway to
> the Web
>
> Publishing and Library Communities Join Forces to
> Facilitate and Expedite Representation of Standard
> Identifiers such as Library of Congress Control Numbers on
> the Web
>
> Working under the auspices of the National Information
> Standards Organization (NISO), a joint task force of the
> publishing and library communities has developed and
> published a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme aimed
> at the identification of information assets.  Information
> assets should be interpreted rather broadly to include,
> for example, documents and terms from classification
> schemes.  The INFO URI scheme is a consistent and reliable
> way to represent and reference such standard identifiers
> as Dewey Decimal Classifications on the Web so that these
> identifiers can be "read" and understood by Web
> applications.  Led by four NISO members and associates-Los
> Alamos National Laboratory, Online Computer Library Center
> (OCLC), Elsevier, and Manifest Solutions-the initiative
> builds on earlier consultations with representatives from
> the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Internet
> Engineering Task Force (IETF). An Internet-Draft for the
> INFO URI scheme was first published Sept. 25th, 2003 and a
> revision published Dec. 5th, 2003 (see
> <http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-vandesompel-info-uri-0
> 1.txt>).*
>
> Herbert Van de Sompel, Digital Library Research &
> Prototyping at the Los Alamos National Laboratory's
> Research Library, stated, "A good example of the problem
> that the INFO URI scheme solves involves PubMed
> identifiers: unique numbers assigned to records in the
> PubMed database maintained by the National Center for
> Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the National Library
> of Medicine.  PubMed identifiers originated prior to the
> Web, so they are not URIs. As such they do not exist
> naturally in the Web infrastructure because the Web only
> recognizes URIs as a means to identify information
> resources.  So Web applications cannot use PubMed
> identifiers, and hence cannot reference PubMed records
> that are identified by them.  The solution is to turn
> PubMed identifiers into URIs.  The INFO Registry enables
> the registration of public namespaces of standard
> identifiers; NCBI registered its PubMed identifier
> namespace under the INFO Registry-their namespace is
> pmid-so we can now talk about the record with the PubMed
> identifier '12376099' in URI terms as
> <info:pmid/12376099>."
>
> "The goal of INFO is to act as a bridging mechanism to the
> Web by providing a lightweight means for registering
> public namespaces used for the identification of
> information assets," said Tony Hammond, Advanced
> Technology Group at Elsevier, a world-leading publisher of
> scientific, technical and medical information products and
> services.  "We see INFO as an enabling technology for the
> library, publishing and media communities-a way to
> facilitate and speed the growth of the Web as a truly
> global information place beyond a basic document
> repository. The Library of Congress, the National Library
> of Medicine, and NASA are among those organizations that
> have already registered public namespaces with the INFO
> Registry."
>
> "There are different ways to represent these identifiers
> on the Web," explained Pat Harris, NISO's Executive
> Director, "but the INFO URI scheme really simplifies
> matters. As a Web user, you aren't likely to see the
> scheme in action on your screen-for example,
> <info:lccn/2002022641>, because it's an under-the-hood way
> of communicating the identity of an information asset to a
> Web application."
>
>
> The INFO Registry is now available online at
> <http://info-uri.info/> for receiving new registrations.
> This Registry contains all the information needed by Web
> applications to make use of INFO namespaces. Each Registry
> entry defines the namespace, the syntax, and normalization
> rules for the representing INFO identifiers as URIs, and
> gives full contact information for the namespace authority
> for that entry. Moreover, the INFO Registry is readable by
> both humans and machines alike.
>
> For more information about the INFO URI scheme, see the
> FAQ at
> < http://info-uri.info/registry/docs/misc/faq.html >.
>
>
> ===========================================
> Cynthia Hodgson
> National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
> 4733 Bethesda Avenue, Suite 300
> Bethesda, MD  20814-5248
> T. 301-654-2512, F. 301-654-1721
> www.niso.org
>
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> --
> Patrick Durusau
> Director of Research and Development
> Society of Biblical Literature
> Patrick.Durusau@sbl-site.org
> Chair, V1 - Text Processing: Office and Publishing Systems Interface
> Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model
>
> Topic Maps: Human, not artificial, intelligence at work!
>
>
>
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