Andy's reply does not address the whole question.

The explanation (comment) of Format says "Typically, Format may include the
media-type or dimensions of the resource."  "Media-type" here is
specifically meant in reference to "Internet Media Type" aka MIME type,
which is for the electronic not physical format.  You would assume that
useful element refinement qualifiers would then be "media-type" and
"extent".  The qualifiers that got defined, however, are "MEDIUM" and
"extent", and MEDIUM is defined to make it mutually exclusive with media-type.

So, we have the illogical situation where, of the two main things Format
may include, one can be explicitly named by a qualifier and one can not,
while a third (not main) thing that can be in format does have a qualifier.

In other words, defining these qualifiers would have made sense:

Format|Media-type
Format|Extent

and even these would have made some sense:

Format|Media-type
Format|Extent
Format|Medium

but this does not make sense:

Format|Extent
Format|Medium

p

The At 11:42 AM 4/10/02 -0400, Rebecca S. Guenther wrote:
>Here's what was said on the Usage Board list per Cilla's question.
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 20:52:31 +0000
>From: Andy Powell <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: A mailing list for the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative's Usage
>              Working Grou <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: format in DCQ and DC Libraries (fwd)
>
>On Wed, 20 Feb 2002, Rebecca S. Guenther wrote:
>
>> See discussion below. Certainly IMT should be an encoding scheme for
>> simple DC and my recollection is that this was intended. Whether it should
>> be for Medium is another question.
>
>The main text (under the Format section)  clearly states that IMT is a
>encoding scheme for Format.  However, this text doesn't make it clear that
>IMT is also an encoding scheme for Medium.
>
>The table towards the top of the document does make it clear that IMT is
>an encoding scheme for both Medium and Format (IMHO).
>
>So, I don't think there is a major problem here, but it would have been
>better if the text was clearer - and that's something we should bear in
>mind in future documentation about the qualifiers.
>
>Andy.
>
>> Rebecca
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 14:05:02 -0500
>> From: Priscilla Caplan <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Dublin Core Libraries Application Profile
>>     <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: format in DCQ and DC Libraries
>>
>> It looks to me like there is a discrepancy between the way Format
>> qualifiers are defined in DCQ
>> (http://dublincore.org/documents/2000/07/11/dcmes-qualifiers/) and in DC
>> Libraries
>> (http://dublincore.org/documents/2001/10/12/library-application-profile/).
>>
>> The way I read it, in DCQ, IMT is an encoding scheme for use only with
>> Format | Medium (that is, the format element qualified by Medium).  In DC
>> Libraries, IMT is an encoding scheme for use only with unqualified Format.
>>
>> I believe the definition of the element refinement qualifier Medium ("The
>> material or physical carrier of the resource") is not congurent with using
>> IMT types as values since they are all electronic.  So it looks to me like
>> DC libraries is correct and the DCQ document (as well as the examples in
>> proposed Recommendations such as "Expressing Qualified Dublin Core in RDF /
>> XML") is wrong.
>>
>> Is DC-Libraries intentionally trying to change the usage of this scheme, or
>> is the discrepancy inadvertent, even though probably correct?
>>
>> p
>>
>
>Andy
>--
>Distributed Systems, UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
>http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/a.powell       +44 1225 383933
>Resource Discovery Network http://www.rdn.ac.uk/
>