List for users of the RefDB bibliography database package

Stefan Schlee | 9 Oct 2009 22:27

author tag of RIS-datasets

Hello!

I have a question concerning the author tag of RIS-datasets.  

I have added the example RIS-datasets shipped with the refDB software which is contained in
"testrefs.utf8.ris" file.  This file contains one dataset of type BOOK, with an A1 author tag of name
"Smith,K.M.".  When I enter the "getrefs :A1:=Smith,K.M" command I get the result ":0 retrieved:0
failed".  I get the same result with the search expression ":AU:=Smith,K.M.".  When I use the search
expression ":AX:=Smith,K.M." the correct dataset is returned, though; the same is the case when I use the
expression ":A2:=Smith,K.M.".

As I understand, in the case of RIS-type CHAP the book-author/editor would be entered with the A2 tag, but
why is the book author of a RIS-type BOOK dataset "mapped" from A1 to A2?

Kind regards

Stefan

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Markus Hoenicka | 12 Oct 2009 23:04

author tag of RIS-datasets

Stefan Schlee writes:
 > Hello!
 > 
 > I have a question concerning the author tag of RIS-datasets.  
 > 
 > I have added the example RIS-datasets shipped with the refDB software which is contained in
"testrefs.utf8.ris" file.  This file contains one dataset of type BOOK, with an A1 author tag of name
"Smith,K.M.".  When I enter the "getrefs :A1:=Smith,K.M" command I get the result ":0 retrieved:0
failed".  I get the same result with the search expression ":AU:=Smith,K.M.".  When I use the search
expression ":AX:=Smith,K.M." the correct dataset is returned, though; the same is the case when I use the
expression ":A2:=Smith,K.M.".
 > 
 > As I understand, in the case of RIS-type CHAP the book-author/editor would be entered with the A2 tag, but
why is the book author of a RIS-type BOOK dataset "mapped" from A1 to A2?
 > 

In retrospect I have to admit that the usage of A1/A2/A3 both in RIS and in the
RefDB query language has not been the wisest of choices. RIS uses a
somewhat historical and in many ways broken system to map titles and
author names to the corresponding field tags. Feel free to peruse the
following blog entries for some background:

http://www.mhoenicka.de/system-cgi/blog/index.php?itemid=515&catid=37

http://www.mhoenicka.de/system-cgi/blog/index.php?itemid=567&catid=37

Your confusion stems from the fact that RIS uses A1/A2/A3 to denote
the "primary", "secondary", and "tertiary" author of a
publication. Primary is, in the order analytical-monographic-series,
the first "relevant" level in RIS speak. This results in the obvious

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Stefan Schlee | 15 Oct 2009 10:14

Re: author tag of RIS-dataset

Hallo!

Your answer helped me a lot. The two blog entries you have referred to and the link to the "Rbib"-paper have
been very helpful. Not only have I learned about your motivation behind the data model and handling of RIS
data. They have also been informative in a broader sense too, namely in their good exposition of the
standard taxonomy applied by library science.

If I am correctly interpreting you email you seem to be somewhat dissatisfied with RIS as the
foundation/starting point of the data model of refDB. Are you planning to change the data model on which
refDB is based in the future?

Besides that, your blog-entries and my test driving of refDB have stirred a lot of questions, remarks,
objections, feature requests etc.. But before I can discuss these topics in a productive way I have to base
my arguments on more research into refDB and its documentation. So I would like to postpone the discussion
until soon. Is this kind of discussion better shifted to the devel list?

For the time being I think I know enough to (ab)use refDB to meet my requirements (although, further
questions not ruled out :)

Kind regards

Stefan

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Markus Hoenicka | 15 Oct 2009 11:09

Re: author tag of RIS-dataset

Quoting Stefan Schlee <stefan_schlee <at> yahoo.com>:

> If I am correctly interpreting you email you seem to be somewhat  
> dissatisfied with RIS as the foundation/starting point of the data  
> model of refDB.  Are you planning to change the data model on which  
> refDB is based in the future?
>

Well, the rbib article is sort of a blueprint of a future data model.  
The thing is, while it would serve most needs in medicine and in life  
sciences, it is likely still not sufficient for the humanities. They'd  
like to have a more flexible approach to bibliographic data. Traces of  
this discussion can be found on the web. However, as I currently lack  
the time to do a complete rewrite of the data storage, I'm not  
pressing a decision here.

> Besides that, your blog-entries and my test driving of refDB have  
> stirred a lot of questions, remarks, objections, feature requests  
> etc..  But before I can discuss these topics in a productive way I  
> have to base my arguments on more research into refDB and its  
> documentation.  So I would like to postpone the discussion until  
> soon.  Is this kind of discussion better shifted to the devel list?
>

Feel free to use the devel list to discuss the implementation in a  
more technical sense (data storage, client-server protocol, data  
formats and so on). I reckon that feature requests and such are better  
served by the user list.

regards,

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