ptsefton.github.io

We've been talking about persistent identifiers at RUBRIC: how are people going to name the things in their repository so they can be cited and located in the future? We're looking to the  PILIN project (read a presentation in [PDF](http://www.arrow.edu.au/docs/files/PILIN-IDEA-20061010.pdf) or [text](http://www.arrow.edu.au/docs/files/PILIN-IDEA-20061010.txt)) for some advice. Expect to see more on this topic here over the next few months. Lots of repositories use [Handles](http://www.handle.net/) to name things and the handle infrastructure for naming things and storing metadata about them is pretty impressive; but others, like USQ have yet to buy-in and [some people](http://norman.walsh.name/2006/07/25/namesAndAddresses) think that URIs are perfectly good names. Me, I'm still confused. Anyway, a practical problem: how do you refer to an item in the [USQ ePrints repository](http://eprints.usq.edu.au/)? How about a plain-text citation? This identifies something; it's a perfectly good name. > "Sefton, Peter (2006) The integrated content environment. In: > AusWeb06: The 12th Australasian World Wide Web Conference, 1-5 July > 2006, Noosa, Australia." My theory was that I could use Google as a resolver to find versions of the paper by doing a phrase search but that doesn't work. The full citation with the quotes yields nothing. Without the quotes Google takes me to the ePrints [page](http://eprints.usq.edu.au/archive/00000697/). But [Yahoo](http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p=Sefton%2C+Peter+(2006)+The+integrated+content+environment.+In%3A+AusWeb06%3A+The+12th+Australasian+World+W) finds it using a phrase search. So does [MSN](http://search.ninemsn.com.au/results.aspx?q=%22Sefton%2C+Peter+(2006)+The+integrated+content+environment.+In%3A+AusWeb06%3A+The+12th+Australasian+World+Wide+Web+Conference%2C+1-5+July+2006%2C+Noosa%2C+Australia.%22&geovar=70&FORM=REDIR). USQ ePrints has a version of the paper in PDF format but the actual paper is available from the conference web site in HTML format. As I write this there's no link from ePrints to the version at the conference; I'll see if I can get that added. You can find the version of the paper at the conference web site by searching  for AusWeb06, then clicking through the[days of the program](http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw06/papers/refereed/sefton/index.html) (I was on Tuesday). There is a also a paper version of the proceedings – so of course you can [find that](http://nla.gov.au/anbd.bib-an000040588911) via  the National Library of Australia. (I searched to ausweb06). That finds the proceedings of the conference: *AusWeb06 : Making a Difference with Web Technologies / Treloar, Andrew(ed), Ellis, Allan(ed).* Maybe we could update the ePrints repository to use this as part of the citation but if we do that then the links in this post will eventually break – the citation I used  in this post will no longer be there. At this stage its looking like the plain text citation is not a particularly good persistent name if you want automated resolution, but on the other hand a human being can use it find the paper, and it should work in a post-Internet world. My understanding of handles is that you should be able to link all the different versions of the paper by storing URLs as metadata against a single name, the handle resolver service could be used to point to any one of those versions, or you could make a service that threw up a page where people could choose. The handle could, in theory be like this (where n would be a number): `1959.n/"Sefton, Peter (2006) The integrated content environment. In: AusWeb06: The 12th Australasian World Wide Web Conference, 1-5 July 2006, Noosa, Australia."` Except that I have heard some people say that this kind of  local name (that's the bit after the /) is a bad idea and names should be meaningless. I don't understand that bit yet – maybe it's because of the issue I noted above with the wording of the citation. We're working through lots of practical issues to do with naming, citing and locating things on the [RUBRIC](http://rubric.edu.au/) and [ICE-RS](http://ice.usq.edu.au/introduction/ice_rs.htm)projects – more soon.