Yesterday was a bit of a downer in the office when Ed [1] filled me in on what was going on in with lcsh.info [2]. And it was sadder still to log on tonight and see the site down and replaced for good, though it's nice to see that the in-its-place blog post's comments [3] coming in are encouragingly positive.
I didn't really have much to do with this project, nor with its demise. I'd guess, though, that this will be one of those things that can feel like something of a failure today, in the immediate now(), but will be remembered as a clear success later on. Here's why I think that way:
Ultimately, if linked data is going to work as infrastructure -- which, as something beyond linked data for linked data's sake, I hope it becomes -- there will be more fits and starts on the way to What Works. It seems cheap to remember that "this was always labeled an experiment", even though it was, and rightly so, but to get things right in the long run you have to try some stuff and learn from it along the way. Even simply having this minor crisis is going to drive people, hopefully, to taking issues of persistence and stewardship very seriously as they figure how to move this exciting idea ahead.
--
(Title appropriated, with apologies, from William Kentridge [6].)
Links:
[1] http://inkdroid.org/
[2] http://lcsh.info/
[3] http://lcsh.info/2008/12/19/uncool-uris/
[4] http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/
[5] http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/
[6] http://artscenecal.com/ArtistsFiles/KentridgeW/KentridgeFile/KentridgeWPics/WKentridge6.html