[WEB4LIB] We need an Internet Literary Database

[Bigwood, David]

I think the information is out there.  Many living authors have their own
sites.  There are fan sites for many of the series.  There are sites devoted
to a particular genre, mystery, science fiction, romance.  Book reviews are
available.  If all else fails there is the publisher and the booksellers
like Amazon. 

What would be nice would be a central site for linking, maybe a PURL
reslover for literature.  A PURL could be established for a title, using the
ISBN as the last part of the link.

http://purl.zzz.org/LIT/1565923227

Is an example (it is not valid) of the form of the PURL. Everything up to
the ISBN would be the same for all links, making it easy to search.  Then
anyone could search the site and see if there was a place to link to.  If
not they could do their own search and contribute the link for the next
library.  If there were many sites, the Harry Porter Fan Club, Rowling's
site, publishers site, each of these could be numbered at the end of the
ISBN like:

http://purl.zzz.org/LIT/1565923227-3
http://purl.zzz.org/LIT/1565923227-2
http://purl.zzz.org/LIT/1565923227-1 (again, none of these are valid)

This collaborative effort, would be much easier to set up than deciding the
fields, display, search capability, etc, of a central database.  We might
only end up recreating RLIN or OCLC otherwise.

So who would be willing to host the PURL resolver?

If you are to familiar with the PURL check out http://purl.oclc.org

Sincerely,
David Bigwood
bigwood at lpi.usra.edu
Lunar & Planetary Institute

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Hanan Cohen [SMTP:hanan at qglibrary.org.il]
> Sent:	Sunday, March 26, 2000 12:44 AM
> To:	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	[WEB4LIB] We need an Internet Literary Database
> 
> By Jeffery Zeldman - http://www.zeldman.com/coming.html
> 
> 26 March, 2000 
> [12:30 am] 
> Every time we mention a book, we feel compelled to link to it, as we'd
> link to any other subject matter. Problem: With no comprehensive
> non-commercial book resources on the web, we inevitably end up linking
> to Amazon.com or a similar commercial resource, and that makes us feel
> like book pimps. Solution: The web needs an Internet Literary Database,
> similar to the Internet Movie Database, so we can link to books without
> looking like we're trying to sell you something. 
> 
> -- 
> Hanan Cohen - http://www.info.org.il
> ***Love and Peace***