On Tue, 27 Feb 2001, Aaron Swartz wrote:
> > 4) can translators of semantics cite the exact document on which
> > their translation is based and assume that that document will not
> > change (e.g., Japanese translation of DCMES 1.1)?
>
> This is a good "how do we deal with this question" since the Semantics don't
> need to be translated, just a few extra statements -- should they be added
> to the old document?
Some additional clarification: The "DC in Multiple Languages" idea has
always been that translations are maintained in a distributed manner by
institutions in Paris, Budapest, etc, and we use RDF schemas to link
translated labels and definitions to the unique identifiers of Dublin
Core elements and qualifiers. In other words, the translations are not
maintained centrally or appended to existing documents on the DCMI
server.
Taken as a whole, these translations are bound to be out of synch with
the central canon (in English) -- for example, some maintainers might
only translate a selection of qualifiers, especially as the number of
qualifiers grows, and the translations may not always be up-to-date
with respect to the latest English version. Moreover, the quality of
translations may vary from "amateur" to "peer-reviewed". In some
cases, there may be more than one translation in a particular language
(e.g., Chinese, as different characters are used in Taiwan and PRC).
One minimum requirement for a translated namespace schema is that it
point to the exact file of which it is a translation [1], even if it
does so only redundantly.
Tom
[1] See http://dublincore.org/documents/1998/10/28/distributed-registry/,
point 12.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Dr. Thomas Baker [log in to unmask]
GMD Library
Schloss Birlinghoven +49-2241-14-2352
53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany fax +49-2241-14-2619
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