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mEDRA
P. Attanasio, G. Marangoni, P. Mazzucchi, N. Mezzetti, G. Scipione
A semeiotic view of DOI applications
General approach and concrete experiences
Washington, 22 June 2007
www.medra.org
Handle System Workshop
Summary
 What do we mean as “semeiotic approach”
 Relations between DOI and other identifiers:
 The actionable ISBN (aka book-land DOI)
 How a semeiotic approach influences the Multiple resolution
development
www.medra.org
 Menu based vs interim page
 The MR value chain
What do we mean as “semeiotic approach”
 Users are familiar with systems, which are characterised – apart
technicalities – by signs
 Such signs are used both by machines and by people
 For instance, we can tell people:
 “The DOI is an opaque string: please, do not infer anything from that”
 But we cannot avoid that people read strings giving the meaning they
like (and instruct machine to read strings in unexpected ways)
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 Having a semeiotic approach simply means to try
to consider signs as an opportunity instead of a problem
We may be not familiar with the semeiotic vocabulary
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 Sign = Signifier (e.g. the ISBN number per se) + signified (what
is intended to mean)
 Signification = the process of decoding signs passing from the
signifier to the signified, thus creating meaning
 Code = system of signs
 Denotation = the first order of signification: the primary intention
of signification
 Connotation = second order of signification, introduced by the
actuation of meanings deeply rooted in one social environment
 e.g.: one ISBN is a product identifier for a certain book (denotation)
 some people frequently signify the ISBN saying: “since there is an
ISBN, that product is a real book and not grey literature”
(connotation)
But we are familiar with many semeiotic phenomena
 www.medra.org = 130.186.85.120
 Using the first was a fantastic semeiotic idea
o That also generated interesting connotations, i.e. second signified
coming from the same signifier (e.g. when we speak about “dot-coms”)
 However, the URL syntax become less semeiotic-effective when
you use URLs such as:
 www.publishing-watch.org/documents/PMW-o-20040810-06%20European%20
Book%20Publishing%20Revised%20Final%2010%20August%202004.pdf
 That’s for: Publishing Market Watch – Sectoral Report 2: Book Publishing, by
Turku University and Rightscom, Turku (Fi), August 2004,
www.medra.org
 The use of the DOI may have also a semeiotic value:
 http://dx.doi.org/10.1234/whateversuffix or simply doi:10.1234/whateversuffix
 Think how grateful editors will be when preparing a citation for a
printed edition!
 And readers as well!
First application of the concept:
Actionable ISBN or Bookland DOI
 All people in the book trade are familiar with this
set of signs
 The ISBN number on the top
 The barcode (only for machine)
 The GS1 number on the bottom
 They are “signifiers” that carry some “signified”,
which become "meaning" within contexts of use
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 The publishing prefix of an ISBN does not mean that that book is currently
under the control of that publisher, just may suggest it...
 Any number is opaque, in some extent, but is interpreted by humans that
accept some risk of misunderstanding
 There is a need to maintain the ISBN as “primary identifier” of text
monographs (books), exploiting all “denotations” and “connotations”
associated to the ISBN signs
Actionable ISBN project: the syntax
 Syntax combining DOI and ISBN
(a brilliant idea by Julian Sowa of Nielsen BookData)
 E.g.: doi:10.978.8807/701689
Number reserved
(together with 979) by
CNRI to the ISBN
community
10.
978.
8807
www.medra.org
DOI prefix
Number
identifying that
string as a DOI in
the Handle
System
/
701689
suffix
ISBN publisher
prefix
ISBN book
identifier
(including check
digit, without
hyphenation)
Benefits
All users (publishers, agencies, bibliographic DBs, web-based
systems, libraries, etc.) only need one number-string (the ISBN’s)
to manage a corresponding DOI
Consequences
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 Development of new applications for the book supply-chain is made
easier
 Machine can be easy instructed to obtain DOIs from ISBNs in
automatic way
 Final users with a book in hand may easy type a valid address for that
book
Value of ISBN actionability
An example: look at Google BookSearch
www.medra.org
Users can reach
services to buy the book
How such links are made?
 Links include the ISBN as a parameter in queries to dynamic
webpages. The following is the list of the URLs:
 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1740593405
 http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?r=1&
ean=1740593405
 http://www.booksense.com/product/info.jsp?isbn=1740593405
 http://www.hoepli.it/libro.asp?ib=1740593405
 http://www.internetbookshop.it/ser/serdsp.asp?isbn=1740593405
 http://www.libreriauniversitaria.it/BUS/1740593405
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 In fact ISBN, per se, is not actionable
 This implies that
 Who creates the link has to know the syntax of the queries
 The publishers of the cited objects have no rule on that (may just,
sometime, opt-out)
Value of using directly actionable ISBNs
 Using the Actionable ISBNs and multiple resolution, publishers
may include any (and all) the links they like, without need to ask
any third party to do anything
 Two key features:
 All publishers regardless their size may add links according their
needs
 Links may be used within any web page
 We are piloting this using within the VTO (Volltextsuche online)
project in Germany, but it is usable:
www.medra.org
 by any publishers registering “bookland DOIs”
 by any webpage, simply using a DOI syntax
 Multiple resolution is essential for this application
Multiple resolution and semeiotic
 There are different types of MR (see the Chuck Koscher’s presentation
later)
 We are moving within the domain of “multiple choice” MR, not considering at
this stage “contextual” MR
www.medra.org
1. Menu based MR
Multiple resolution and semeiotic
 There are different types of MR (see the Chuck Koscher’s presentation
later)
 We are moving within the domain of “multiple choice” MR, not considering at
this stage “contextual” MR
www.medra.org
2. Interim page MR
How to select one?
 The first is much better when you consider “look and feel” criteria
and usability
 Higher usability: one click less to reach the targeted resource
 More elegant: users never leave the webpage unless they actually
wish to move to another resource
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 Not surprising, larger efforts, in the DOI community, was devoted
to the first
So:
we decided to select the
second
Reasons for such a contradictory decision
 There is a value chain in the use of Multiple Resolution
C
Final user
We page
editor
B
DOI-RA
Registrant
e.g. one
publisher
assigning DOIs
to books
A
e.g. one
newspaper
website citing
that book
Note that the
user is a reader
of B and not of
A
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 The registration agency should consider
 All the needs along the value chain
 The semiotic codes used by the different players
Consequences
 A cannot say to B: “please, cite my book using this new code”
 This is necessary with menu based MR, where the webpage must be
created with additional, not usual, scripts
 A must say to B: “please, cite my book using this value within the
code you are familiar with”
 All the webpage editors need to cite is a URL (a DOI incorporated in
a proxy service)
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 There is not only a matter of simplifying the work for generating
pages with very beautiful menu based multiple resolution
 It is also a matter that you have to convince people to learn
another code
 And that code has already some connotation: e.g. “it is referred to
journal articles: why to use for books or others”
 While an actionable ISBN brings more appropriate connotations, as
well
A second problem: what should the MR contain?
 MR interim page (and menu as well) are based on:
 Taxonomy of target resources
 Labels to be shown to users
 Also in this case: much better to start from what users are more
familiar with
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 So we started from ONIX relevant code list
 The final objective is to include such taxonomy within the ONIX for
DOI registration schema
 But having ONIX-like codes immediately have some semeiotic value
 Once again: we should be aware that we bring in the pilot
denotations and connotations associated to ONIX
 Moreover: separating the list of target resource types and labels
facilitate multilingualism
 (a problem we immediately have between Italy and Germany)
What we show in our interim page
Very sort
explanation to
final user
One button to
view complete
metadata
www.medra.org
The actual
multiple
resolution
Few metadata
(planned: author,
title, publisher and
© year)
Finally: one unexpected semeiotic lesson in our
experience
 When we decided to implement interim pages, we would like to
have more elegant one
 We decided to produce pop up windows because (denotation)
 They are more similar to menu
 You can have the previous page visible on the back
 However, pop up windows have now negative connotation within
the web environment
 So that, many browsers block them in default configuration
www.medra.org
 We have just decided to turn back to normal pages!
Thank you for your attention
Questions and information
 [email protected]
Technical aspects
 [email protected]
 [email protected]
www.medra.org
Genuine semeiotic experts
 [email protected]
 [email protected]