From Records to a Web of Library Data – Pt1 Entification by Richard Wallis.
From the post:
Entification
Entification – a bit of an ugly word, but in my day to day existence one I am hearing more and more. What an exciting life I lead…
What is it, and why should I care, you may be asking.
I spend much of my time convincing people of the benefits of Linked Data to the library domain, both as a way to publish and share our rich resources with the wider world, and also as a potential stimulator of significant efficiencies in the creation and management of information about those resources. Taking those benefits as being accepted, for the purposes of this post, brings me into discussion with those concerned with the process of getting library data into a linked data form.
As you know, I am far from convinced about the “benefits” of Linked Data, at least with its current definition.
Who knows what definition “Linked Data” may have in some future vision of the W3C? (URL Homonym Problem: A Topic Map Solution, a tale of how the W3C decided to redefine URL.)
But Richard’s point about the ugliness and utility of “entification” is well taken.
So long as you remember that every term can be described “in terms of other things.”
There are no primitive terms, not one.