Stuart Weibel

Senior Research ScientistOCLC Programs and Research

What is OCLC

The combined catalog of the global library cooperative

WorldCat.org http://WorldCat.org

WorldCat Identities http://orlabs.oclc.org/Identities

Who am I

Electronic scholarly publication Metadata Identifiers

Projects in electronic publishing (early 90s the CORE project – Chemistry literature)

PURLs – Persistent URLs Directed the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative for 10 years

The web is a registry

URLs are one of the cornerstones of the Web

URLs are overloaded: Location and Identification

Works extremely well… too well

Makes it hard to put in place a coherent, over-arching identification architecture for the Web

Identity and resolution should be uncoupled in many situations, but… the siren call of immediate resolution is irresistible.

Major conflicts arise between the two functions:

• The name is not the thing – location, even less so

• Which rendition of the thing is the one…• I am authorized to use• Is up to date• Is curated, and by whom?

• How do we manage identity within a changing technological environment?

What then to do?

• Policies• Registries• Means of indirection to manage Identity within the

resolution environment of the Web

Web or Scaffolding?http://www.smart-kit.com/s291/what-spider-webs-can-teach-us-about-caffeines-effect-on-the-brain/

Web is a wonderful metaphor, but perhaps something a bit more durable?

We want more• Coherence and context• Mature, durable environments that will help us preserve

our work and fix it in the context of our culture• Trusted identity and transaction security• Typing

(of resources, concepts, and links… not passwords)

• The iSchool is part of the vanguard… go forth and fix!

Thanks for having me!

Find me on the Web at…

http://weibel-lines.typepad.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/weibel-lines/sets/ weibel@oclc.org