Source-Type URI

The URI string is a global identifier for the source-type — one that can be used as a key to retrieve its meta-data or the formatting template associated with the source-type.

When the URI string is used as a key, or handle, it may be employed to access an external definition of the source-type, or a citation-template to format the parameters of the citation. For instance, the following identify possible libraries or interfaces that might be interrogated using that key, and the information that might be contained there:

• Definition (URI): [possibly a local symbolic name for the source-type, element ids, element data-types]. This contains the meta-data associated with the source-type.

• Data-entry (URI, locale): [source-type description, element descriptions, element hints]. This contains locale-specific data to support selection of a source-type from a list (e.g. using the source-type descriptions) or data-entry for a specific citation.

• Presentation (URI, element-data, locale, citation-style, citation-mode): [readable reference note]. This would return some formatted version of a citation for a given locale and citation style. That style could conceivably be a private one, as opposed to say CMOS, if someone wanted guaranteed perfect transportability of the final form whilst retaining the ability to analyse and correlate the machine-readable citations. The citation-mode determines whether a first/subsequent reference note or a bibliography entry is required.

Some URIs could be the responsibility of the institution or organisation that catalogued the corresponding records or allocated the associated reference codes. However, that would require global adoption of this scheme which is more than a little naïve. STEMMA will therefore define its own URIs based on the http://parallaxview.co/stemma domain until such a time as alternatives are published.