Dear Harry,

Thanks for your great job.
Multilinguality is a very important feature for the registry.

I'm thinking that we (DC-Registry + DC-LI) need to clarify the status
of translations to be stored in the DCMI Registry.

I understand that all English descriptions stored in the registry
are the approved text by DCMI, but descriptions in other languages are
not approved or endorsed by DCMI.

Should translations to be stored in the registry be "officially approved"
one by local communities?
Should non-English descriptions in the registry be translation
approved as a national standard or translation officially created and
maintained by an organization approved as a national maintenance agency?

I'm assuming the answer is No.

In the case of Japan, we have no offically approved standard for Simple
DC, i.e., a counter standard to ANSI/NISO Z39.85.
I guess the Japanese texts currently stored in the DCMI registry is
the text translated at ULIS. Since there is no established organization,
say DCMI-Japan, nobody can endorse the translations. In Japan,
we'll work on standardization of Simple DC at JIS (Japanese Industrial
Standard) in near future, perhaps in this fiscal year. After the approval
at JIS, we (Japanese community) will get our standard DC Simple in Japanese.

One of my concerns about registering translations in the DCMI Registry
is that translation in a certain language, e.g. Japanese, can be
recognized as an officially approved translation. And, it may cause
difficulties in local communities.

My suggestion is to include information about the status of translations
and/or translators.

As you know, ULIS has been running our multilingual registry. I'm
thinking that the ULIS registry is recognized by users as a research
or voluntary activity. However, in the case of the DCMI Registry, users would
recognize the translations as officially approved ones.

I hope my concern is needless, but I think the DCMI Registry need to be
careful.

Thank you,

-- Shigeo

=========================================================
SUGIMOTO, Shigeo, Ph.D.
Professor
University of Library and Information Science (ULIS)
postal address:  Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8550, JAPAN
phones: +81-298-59-1348(office), +81-298-59-1556 (lab.)
        +81-298-59-1090(ULIS, Research Assistance Office)
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