Recent changes to Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets

Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets modified by Curt Selak

Curt Selak — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 12:46:03 -0000

--- v66
+++ v67
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202305_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).
+For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202306_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).

 The practical introduction that shall follow here can be thought of as the "system requirements" section one has perhaps tried to locate on the [download page](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), as I'm reasonably certain I tried to do the very first time around (and probably thereafter). 

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@

 [[img src="bnb.png"  width=500 height=400 style="display: block;  margin-left: auto;  margin-right: auto;"]]

-Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202305_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.
+Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202306_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.

 The very first thing that it's necessary to know about the files each archive contains is that they overwhelmingly **CANNOT** be opened in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) application such as Word or Framemaker, as being much too large. They certainly can't be opened in a web browser, which may try to parse the XML instead of displaying the markup as plain text and hang up. Excel won't necessarily hang up, but is certain to produce nothing resembling a spreadsheet should it try to open any of the files. As I'll explain sooner rather than later, viewing the contents of the files practically always requires a terminal.

Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets modified by Curt Selak

Curt Selak — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 12:35:37 -0000

--- v65
+++ v66
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202304_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).
+For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202305_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).

 The practical introduction that shall follow here can be thought of as the "system requirements" section one has perhaps tried to locate on the [download page](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), as I'm reasonably certain I tried to do the very first time around (and probably thereafter). 

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@

 [[img src="bnb.png"  width=500 height=400 style="display: block;  margin-left: auto;  margin-right: auto;"]]

-Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202304_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.
+Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202305_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.

 The very first thing that it's necessary to know about the files each archive contains is that they overwhelmingly **CANNOT** be opened in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) application such as Word or Framemaker, as being much too large. They certainly can't be opened in a web browser, which may try to parse the XML instead of displaying the markup as plain text and hang up. Excel won't necessarily hang up, but is certain to produce nothing resembling a spreadsheet should it try to open any of the files. As I'll explain sooner rather than later, viewing the contents of the files practically always requires a terminal.

Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets modified by Curt Selak

Curt Selak — Wed, 17 May 2023 13:10:17 -0000

--- v64
+++ v65
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202303_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).
+For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202304_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).

 The practical introduction that shall follow here can be thought of as the "system requirements" section one has perhaps tried to locate on the [download page](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), as I'm reasonably certain I tried to do the very first time around (and probably thereafter). 

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@

 [[img src="bnb.png"  width=500 height=400 style="display: block;  margin-left: auto;  margin-right: auto;"]]

-Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202303_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.
+Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202304_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.

 The very first thing that it's necessary to know about the files each archive contains is that they overwhelmingly **CANNOT** be opened in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) application such as Word or Framemaker, as being much too large. They certainly can't be opened in a web browser, which may try to parse the XML instead of displaying the markup as plain text and hang up. Excel won't necessarily hang up, but is certain to produce nothing resembling a spreadsheet should it try to open any of the files. As I'll explain sooner rather than later, viewing the contents of the files practically always requires a terminal.

Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets modified by Curt Selak

Curt Selak — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 17:24:07 -0000

--- v63
+++ v64
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202302_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).
+For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202303_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).

 The practical introduction that shall follow here can be thought of as the "system requirements" section one has perhaps tried to locate on the [download page](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), as I'm reasonably certain I tried to do the very first time around (and probably thereafter). 

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@

 [[img src="bnb.png"  width=500 height=400 style="display: block;  margin-left: auto;  margin-right: auto;"]]

-Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202302_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.
+Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202303_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.

 The very first thing that it's necessary to know about the files each archive contains is that they overwhelmingly **CANNOT** be opened in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) application such as Word or Framemaker, as being much too large. They certainly can't be opened in a web browser, which may try to parse the XML instead of displaying the markup as plain text and hang up. Excel won't necessarily hang up, but is certain to produce nothing resembling a spreadsheet should it try to open any of the files. As I'll explain sooner rather than later, viewing the contents of the files practically always requires a terminal.

Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets modified by Curt Selak

Curt Selak — Sun, 12 Mar 2023 15:41:44 -0000

--- v62
+++ v63
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202212_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202207_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).
+For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202302_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).

 The practical introduction that shall follow here can be thought of as the "system requirements" section one has perhaps tried to locate on the [download page](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), as I'm reasonably certain I tried to do the very first time around (and probably thereafter). 

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@

 [[img src="bnb.png"  width=500 height=400 style="display: block;  margin-left: auto;  margin-right: auto;"]]

-Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202212_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202207_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.
+Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202302_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202301_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.

 The very first thing that it's necessary to know about the files each archive contains is that they overwhelmingly **CANNOT** be opened in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) application such as Word or Framemaker, as being much too large. They certainly can't be opened in a web browser, which may try to parse the XML instead of displaying the markup as plain text and hang up. Excel won't necessarily hang up, but is certain to produce nothing resembling a spreadsheet should it try to open any of the files. As I'll explain sooner rather than later, viewing the contents of the files practically always requires a terminal.

Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets modified by Curt Selak

Curt Selak — Sun, 22 Jan 2023 17:59:07 -0000

--- v61
+++ v62
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202207_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202207_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).
+For at least the last decade, the British Library has made millions and millions of its bibliographic records available as [bulk downloads](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads). One download, the [British National Bibliography (BNB)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202212_rdf.zip), comprises the whole of the British National Bibliography as we know it today (including records pertaining to monographs, serials, and Cataloguing-in-Publication data); the other download, the [British Library Integrated Catalogue (BLIC)](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202207_rdf.zip), contains records pertaining to monographs held by the Library in its collections though not included in BNB and is considerably larger (1.7 gigabytes as of July 2022, where the BNB amounted to about 1 gigabyte).

 The practical introduction that shall follow here can be thought of as the "system requirements" section one has perhaps tried to locate on the [download page](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), as I'm reasonably certain I tried to do the very first time around (and probably thereafter). 

@@ -6,11 +6,11 @@

 [[img src="bnb.png"  width=500 height=400 style="display: block;  margin-left: auto;  margin-right: auto;"]]

-Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202207_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202207_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.
+Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202212_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202207_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.

 The very first thing that it's necessary to know about the files each archive contains is that they overwhelmingly **CANNOT** be opened in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) application such as Word or Framemaker, as being much too large. They certainly can't be opened in a web browser, which may try to parse the XML instead of displaying the markup as plain text and hang up. Excel won't necessarily hang up, but is certain to produce nothing resembling a spreadsheet should it try to open any of the files. As I'll explain sooner rather than later, viewing the contents of the files practically always requires a terminal.

-As of July 2022, the BNB download contained 68 XML files bearing the `.rdf` extension. None was larger than 375 megabytes. BLIC contained 216 files like the ones found in BNB (same format, same file extension, although a few XML tags may occur in BLIC that really don't in BNB), the biggest of which was about 199 megabytes. BNB's footprint on the physical media/cloud once that it had been decompressed was about 19 gigabytes, and BLIC's was about 25 gigabytes.
+As of December 2022, the BNB download contained 70 XML files bearing the `.rdf` extension. None was larger than 375 megabytes. BLIC contained 216 files like the ones found in BNB (same format, same file extension, although a few XML tags may occur in BLIC that really don't in BNB), the biggest of which was about 199 megabytes. BNB's footprint on the physical media/cloud once that it had been decompressed was about 19 gigabytes, and BLIC's was about 25 gigabytes.

 It's imperative that one understand the files' encoding and its implications.

Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets modified by Curt Selak

Curt Selak — Sun, 21 Aug 2022 17:25:06 -0000

--- v60
+++ v61
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@

 Both [BNB](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BNBBasic_202207_rdf.zip) and [BLIC](https://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/downloads/BLICBasicBooks_202207_rdf.zip), as downloaded from the [Library](https://www.bl.uk/collection-metadata/downloads), consist of a single `.zip` archive. Your system probably can extract all of the files at a stroke, or just a few at a time. On Linux, it's not always necessary to save the files to disc if you're certain as to what you're planning to do with them, because the unzip command can be piped instead. I shall not do that here (although I'll furnish the required code at the end), but it's worth considering if you're downloading a new archive each time an updated one is available.

-The very first thing that it's necessary to know about the files each archive contains is that they overwhelmingly **CANNOT** be opened in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) application such as Word or Framemaker, as being much too large: that goes across the board for the files in the BNB download, and need go for the BLIC files as well. They certainly can't be opened in a web browser, which may try to parse the XML instead of displaying the markup as plain text and hang up. Excel won't necessarily hang up, but is certain to produce nothing resembling a spreadsheet should it try to open any of the files. As I'll explain sooner rather than later, viewing the contents of the files practically always requires a terminal.
+The very first thing that it's necessary to know about the files each archive contains is that they overwhelmingly **CANNOT** be opened in a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) application such as Word or Framemaker, as being much too large. They certainly can't be opened in a web browser, which may try to parse the XML instead of displaying the markup as plain text and hang up. Excel won't necessarily hang up, but is certain to produce nothing resembling a spreadsheet should it try to open any of the files. As I'll explain sooner rather than later, viewing the contents of the files practically always requires a terminal.

 As of July 2022, the BNB download contained 68 XML files bearing the `.rdf` extension. None was larger than 375 megabytes. BLIC contained 216 files like the ones found in BNB (same format, same file extension, although a few XML tags may occur in BLIC that really don't in BNB), the biggest of which was about 199 megabytes. BNB's footprint on the physical media/cloud once that it had been decompressed was about 19 gigabytes, and BLIC's was about 25 gigabytes.

Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets modified by Curt Selak

Curt Selak — Sun, 21 Aug 2022 16:24:39 -0000

--- v59
+++ v60
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@

 We opened a BNB file. I mentioned that the most recent BNB download contains about 68 files: all but the last consist of 75,000 records each. That's quite a few presses of the `space` bar (the usual means of advancing one page in the less terminal, although the `Page Up` and `Page Down` keys are likely to work too). The less terminal supports free-text searching (the manual page shows how the `/` operator and the `n`/`shift` + `n` keys facilitate it; I also discuss it in this project's tutorial on [X-definition](https://www.xdefinice.cz/en)), but there happens to be at least 68 files. You could conceivably pass the names of every last one to less when opening it. Prepending a flag to the pattern will (according to the manual page) cause less to look for it in every file until the data is exhausted.

-A more familiar means of looking for data in an XML file like those in BNB and BLIC is an XSL transformation. I think that you can do one against any file in BNB or BLIC, provided  that your computer has at least 2 gigabytes of RAM installed::
+A more familiar means of looking for data in an XML file like those in BNB and BLIC is an XSL transformation. I think that you can do one against any file in BNB or BLIC, provided  that your computer has at least 2 gigabytes of RAM installed:
 ```
 
 <xsl:stylesheet version="3.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:isbd="http://iflastandards.info/ns/isbd/elements/" xmlns:owlt="http://www.w3.org/2006/time#" xmlns:skos="http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#" xmlns:bibo="http://purl.org/ontology/bibo/" xmlns:rda="http://rdvocab.info/Elements/" xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
</xsl:stylesheet>

Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets modified by Curt Selak

Curt Selak — Sun, 21 Aug 2022 16:23:38 -0000

--- v58
+++ v59
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@
 ```
 [[img src="less01.png"  width=700 height=500 style="display: block;  margin-left: auto;  margin-right: auto;"]]

-We opened a BNB file. I mentioned that the most recent BNB download contains 68 files: all but the last consist of 75,000 records each. That's quite a few presses of the `space` bar (the usual means of advancing one page in the less terminal, although the `Page Up` and `Page Down` keys are likely to work too). The less terminal supports free-text searching (the manual page shows how the `/` operator and the `n`/`shift` + `n` keys facilitate it; I also discuss it in this project's tutorial on [X-definition](https://www.xdefinice.cz/en)), but there happens to be 68 files. You could conceivably pass the names of every last one to less when opening it. Prepending a flag to the pattern will (according to the manual page) cause less to look for it in every file until the data is exhausted.
+We opened a BNB file. I mentioned that the most recent BNB download contains about 68 files: all but the last consist of 75,000 records each. That's quite a few presses of the `space` bar (the usual means of advancing one page in the less terminal, although the `Page Up` and `Page Down` keys are likely to work too). The less terminal supports free-text searching (the manual page shows how the `/` operator and the `n`/`shift` + `n` keys facilitate it; I also discuss it in this project's tutorial on [X-definition](https://www.xdefinice.cz/en)), but there happens to be at least 68 files. You could conceivably pass the names of every last one to less when opening it. Prepending a flag to the pattern will (according to the manual page) cause less to look for it in every file until the data is exhausted.

 A more familiar means of looking for data in an XML file like those in BNB and BLIC is an XSL transformation. I think that you can do one against any file in BNB or BLIC, provided  that your computer has at least 2 gigabytes of RAM installed::
 ```

Getting started with British Library Basic RDF-XML open datasets modified by Curt Selak

Curt Selak — Sun, 21 Aug 2022 16:12:09 -0000

--- v57
+++ v58
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@

 The line separator is the type found on Windows, not that expected on MacOs or Linux: to wit, it is the carriage return followed by the linefeed (`\r\n`).

-The encoding is UTF-8. Sometimes, XML files with this encoding (the standard encoding for XML documents) that you download or otherwise receive can cause certain applications to stop running. Error messages like the following subsequently appear::
+The encoding is UTF-8. Sometimes, XML files with this encoding (the standard encoding for XML documents) that you download or otherwise receive can cause certain applications to stop running. Error messages like the following subsequently appear:
 ```
 Error on line 198370 column 21 of BLICBasicB_202102_f93.rdf:
   SXXP0003   Error reported by XML parser: Invalid byte 1 of 1-byte UTF-8 sequence.: Invalid