W3C incubator group on LLD – Draft Report for comment

Not sure where to put general comments because it deals most with the outcome of the paper i leave it in this section: When I first read the paper i was disappointed. I think I expected a little bit more concrte recommentations. Later I learned that the task for the group is to evaluate is a library linked data group is needed under the roof of W3C. or how it is written in the success criteria ", leading to a clear and agreed view regarding what further standards and guidelines should be developed, and what organization should be set up in order to develop them." in the deliverables this point is described as " propose a way forward for these communities to participate productively in further W3C standardization actions." I try to focus on this point during my comments. A main question is to less covered in this recommendations, this is in my person view the question of complexity. If the W3C should be active in the field of library data which complexity they should take about, must it really the level of internal library formats like RDA and MARC or should be more general that it understandable and useable by a broader audience. If we decide for the second point (and this is the only option on a W3C level else it could be better done by Library of Congress or IFLA) earns it automatically that not the full complexity of library data can be handled by a W3C standard. A second question is also for which types of library data we need to develop standards. Three very easy upcoming topics are bibliographic data, vocabularies and classifications, but this list don't have to be complete. Already in the benefits the conflict of complexity is not covered very well instead the goal reads more to find a systems which is suitable for all needs even for internal library use. In my person view it looks like the discussion focused to much on the point how the work of this group ca replace existing systems in libraries but this can be much better discussed in a library only community and don't need the W3C. Certainly the discussion the library community should be connected to the W3C discussion, so that in future the transition costs to an easy to reuse by a broader community format will be easily realized. If this focus would be changed a lot of the barriers would also fall away because the goal won't be to change the library system in the basics what means that also not all libraries have to adapt such a new system this will always take a large amount of time like the transition process from MAB (the german internal library format) to MARC21 is showing. Also the aspects of the costs won't be so high because there will be no force to change. The future work of a library data group as part of the W3C should focus on the last two problems first which rights protection should data have, so that is can be easily reused outside of the library world and how this data can be more easily shared outside of the library world. Under this conditions a graph paradigm is still useful but not a must. The vision of global unique identifiers sounds nice but in a bottom up approach like the semantic web not realizable, specially because there are already different existing identifiers for library objects. The build of effective mapping and resolver systems like VIAF sounds more promising. The resulting recommendations are nice for library management but they are not answering the main question: A)Which standards must be developed B) How should an organization look like which care about the standards? With the outcome of the group i would answer this question in the following way: A) Existing library standards are certifying they need only translated in a best practice way in a linked data format. B) There is no need for a further work of a W3C group, this development can be done by existing library standarisation comities like the Library of Congress Future of MARC group or different groups as part of IFLA But in my person view this are the wrong answers because this will lead again to standards which are suitable and understandable by libraries but not enough by external players like citation management software or other existing tools. Indeed the answers should be A) We need the development of a lightly W3C standards e.g. for the representation of bibliographic data which are able to deal which the complexity that is mainly useful for non-library systems. B) A group should created where the voting weights from library community is max 50% of the total votes else it will happen like in the incubator group that to many librarians will be presented and create an library only standard. The work of a W3C group is only needed if the result will be broadly excepted in the web community not in the library world.