[uf-discuss] citation microformat?

[C. Hudley]

On 1/18/06, Edward Vielmetti <edward.vielmetti at gmail.com> wrote:
> I added to the cite-examples page the output
> from one routine in the zoom and zmarc part
> of PyZ3950 which puts out the citation using
> Dublin Core (DC) elements only.
>
> http://www.microformats.com/wiki/cite-examples

Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't see the example you mention on that
page with only DC elements.  Perhaps it's on another page?


> If you want to blame citations for being complicated,
> you can go all the way back to the MARC standard,
> which has a zillion fields and subfields each with
> their own local, national, and international semantics.

Sure, blame it on the 40-year-old guy.  What does he know from
microformats, anyway.

Citations were hard to parse long before MARC, which isn't a citation
format.  See what Garfield had to say about this exact problem in the
1950s.


> pps.  MARC is so bad that it doesn't even do Unicode,
> so there are some hairy character set issues to deal
> with.  whee.

That kind of thing can happen when a standard takes off before
internationally standardized character sets even exist.

It doesn't seem helpful to me to take pot shots at other approaches to
solving other problems that seem insufficient for solving your problem
today.  There's knowledge in there to draw from, and we can all be
smart about picking and choosing without throwing stones.

Love, -ch.


--
C. Hudley
We Know The Truth, Inc.