The DCMI Usage Board is pleased to announce the addition of two
new terms, "Moving Image" and "Still Image", to the DCMI Type
Vocabulary [1]. Both new terms are described as "Narrower
Than" the existing broader term "Image", so implementers
who have no need for this distinction may continue to use
the broader term. The hierarchical relationship will be
expressed in the term declarations with two new attributes --
"Narrower Than" and "Broader Than" -- as documented in "DCMI
Metadata Terms" [2]. The new DCMI Type Vocabulary terms are
also documented in an updated RDF schema [3].
The addition of semantic refinements represents a departure
from prior practice, which has hitherto treated the DCMI
Type Vocabulary as a flat set of terms with no such internal
structure. Since the first DCMI Type Vocabulary was approved
in July 2000, however, a requirement to distinguish between
still and moving images has become increasingly clear within
the community of implementers dealing primarily with images.
The history of this development (as reflected in the proposal)
and the support for the new terms evident in that community
convinced the Board to move beyond its reluctance to complexify
the DCMI Type Vocabulary with semantic refinements.
Other user communities will see further ways the DCMI Type
Vocabulary could be extended. Rather than build a more
comprehensive ontology of resource types on the basis of
the existing vocabulary, however, the Usage Board prefers to
focus on interoperability between the DCMI Type Vocabulary
and other, more granular vocabularies created and maintained
by communities of interest for specialized uses.
[1] http://dublincore.org/usage/decisions/2003/2003-02.Image-terms.shtml
[2] http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/
[3] http://dublincore.org/2003/12/08/dctype
--
Dr. Thomas Baker [log in to unmask]
Institutszentrum Schloss Birlinghoven mobile +49-160-9664-2129
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft work +49-30-8109-9027
53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany fax +49-2241-144-2352
Personal email: [log in to unmask]
|