[uf-discuss] Book Contents Format

[Alex Ezell]

On 6/21/06, Scott Reynen <scott at randomchaos.com> wrote:
> I assume you've seen these pages:
>
> http://microformats.org/wiki/book-brainstorming
> http://microformats.org/wiki/book-examples
> http://microformats.org/wiki/book-formats

Yes, and as evidenced by my email, they left me wanting more.

>  is there really a need for such a microformat?

>From a research perspective, there is certainly a need. Now that
entire books are searchable and "excerptable" (is that a word?)
electronically, it's important that systems and humans can be easily
given some context for these excerpts besides the title of the book.

Especially in the realm of a concordance, where the closeness/distance
of words to one another within lines, paragraphs, chapters, and entire
books can be an aspect of study, this context becomes paramount. Yes,
it's fairly esoteric, but some would argue that XFN is just as
useful/useless.

Honestly, I didn't think this mailing list would question the need for
a microformat. Question its structure and its uses, of course, but
question its necessity? It seems fundamental that a standard for
presenting book-format texts should be written.

/alex