On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, Rachel Heery wrote:
> I have difficulty understanding how the DCAM can be entirely 'ignorant' of
> such relationships? Elsewhere there are attempts to deal with the
> complexity of such relationships eg. FRBR, METS, (MPEG DIDL?)... can the
> DCAM attempt to group descriptions into sets without adressing a more
> complex data model?
Yes! The DCAM can, and indeed *should*, remain completely ignorant of the
relationships between the resources described by multiple descriptions in
a description set.
The relationships between resources (and hence the relationships between
their descriptions) is part of the *description* of those things, not part
of the underlying model.
Note that I am *not* arguing that the kind of modelling done in FRBR and
the like is not important. Quite the contrary... *all* metadata
applications should start by modelling the relationships between the
resources (whether they are conceptual, physical or digital resources)
that they are designed to describe. But such modelling does not belong in
the DCMI Abstract Model because it is at a different level.
Andy
--
Distributed Systems, UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/a.powell
tel: +44 1225 383933 msn: [log in to unmask]
Resource Discovery Network http://www.rdn.ac.uk/
|