I'm working on the Open Ebook Forum Metadata Working Group. One of our
work items is to provide information to the OEB Publication Structure
Working Group for revision of its
specification. (see: http://www.openebook.org/downloads/OEBPS/index.htm)
The OEBPS spec uses Dublin Core metadata. I am currently preparing a
document intended to bring theirs up-to-date with the existing Dublin Core
specifications. OEBPS uses qualifiers for a few elements, and was written
before DCQ. I am advising them to use the approved qualifiers where
appropriate. But in addition they require two qualifiers for Creator and
Contributor. I am uncertain as to how to advise them; I am tempted to just
leave theirs as is, since we so far have no decisions to offer them.
One is "role". We are talking about it as an element refinement. They use
an element attribute "role= " and the MARC relator codes (not terms, but
codes).
The other is "file-as". Publishers have a requirement to display the names
as they appeared on the piece, and they are saying to use that form for
Creator and Contributor. However, they also want the normalized form
expressed for indexing purposes, so they have an attribute "file-as". The
DC Guide tells people that best practice is to use the inverted form. But
what if you need both? And they do want to identify that one is the
display form and one the normalized form.
So, how to advise them? I'm gathering opinions. However, I have to say
that they are very reluctant to change anything in their spec because of
backwards compatibility. They may not agree with anything I recommend. And
they also need an answer right away and can't wait for a long approval
process. So my inclination is to leave it for now, but wanted to get
opinions.
FYI: they use an XML DTD. And I guess I have no guidance for them on
expressing DCQ in XML (or am I missing something-- I didn't see any
proposed recommendation for that).
Rebecca
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