Pete et al --
In terms of use, I agree with Gordon that describing the format of the
items in the collection will be important in M2M applications. In addition,
I also think that humans will want to know the -type- of items in the
collection. In our surveys of potential users of the AP (i.e. libraries,
museums, historical societies who will be filling out the AP) the type of
items in the collection (or actually the objects represented in the digital
collection, but I won't go down that road) is what has been important. This
is addressed in the DC CD AP in a rather roundabout (and somewhat awkward,
IMHO) way through the dc:type field and the CLDType vocabulary. So I kind
of grabbed on to Ann and Pete's suggestion 'a' at the end of the email.
Those of us working with IMLS Digital Collections and Content project have
struggled with both the format and the type issue as well. We've
essentially decided to disregard the one-to-one issue and use the dc:format
and dc:type to indicate the type and format of the items in the collection
(see http://imlsdcc.grainger.uiuc.edu/CDschema_elements.htm). I -don't-
think that the DC CD AP could or should do this, so pursuing the itemFormat
and itemType idea would at least allow users of the AP to clearly indicate
the type and format of items in the collection (though it doesn't tie these
together). It's definitely not ideal, but it seems to me to at least get us
a step forward... maybe!
Sarah
At 01:52 AM 5/4/2005, you wrote:
>Any thoughts on this please?
>
>Pete
>
>On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 19:52:57 +0100, Pete Johnston <[log in to unmask]>
>wrote:
>
> >I'm conscious that we still have not resolved the issue of how to
> >describe the format of items in the collection (see e.g. [1]), and it is
> >now urgent that we find a solution.
> >
> >I think the use of dc:format as a property of the collection for this
> >would _not_ be appropriate, because if I do a search like (using SPARQL
> >syntax [2])
> >
> >PREFIX dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/>
> >PREFIX dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/>
> >SELECT ?thing
> >WHERE (?thing dc:format ?format)
> > (?format rdf:value "text/html")
> >
> >I expect to retrieve a list of resources of format text/html. A
> >collection that includes items of format text/html is not itself a
> >resource of format text/html.
> >
> >As I said in that previosu message, I think ideally the "right" way to
> >represent this would be something like:
> >
> >collection:C some:contains item:I .
> >item:I dc:format format:F .
> >format:F rdf:value "text/html" .
> >
> >But if we are trying to stick to using properties only of the
> >collection, the only way I can think of representing this information
> >would be to define a property something like cld:itemFormat
> >
> >Label: "Item Format"
> >Definition: The physical or digital form of an item within the
> >collection.
> >Comment: Recommended best practice is to select a value from a
> >controlled vocabulary (for example, the list of Internet Media Types
> >[MIME] defining computer media formats).
> >
> >N.B. This would _not_ be a refinement/subproperty of dc:format.
> >
> >In DC CD AP, the property would be repeatable. As for when it should be
> >deployed (does the existence of one RTF document in a collection of
> >99,999 PDF documents mean that I should say the collection contains PDF
> >items?), I guess we'd have to provide some guidelines.
> >
> >I do wonder whether this is bending the "one-to-one rule" rather more
> >than I feel comfortable with, but I don't have any better suggestions.
> >
> >Any thoughts please?
> >
> >If we did adopt this approach, then
> >
> >(a) I think we should re-consider the type vocabulary and use something
> >like an itemType property with the DCMI Type Vocabulary for the types of
> >the items (as suggested by Ann at [3]) (but we would retain the use of
> >dc:type with the other types that distinguish the types of
> >catalogue/finding-aid)
> >
> >(b) I'm not convinced we need to retain the separate use of dc:format in
> >the DC CD AP (which is rather vaguely defined/described at present):
> >size would be covered by dcterms:extent, and the format of items would
> >be covered by this new property.
> >
> >Pete
> >
> >[1]
> >http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0312&L=dc-collections&T
> >=0&F=&S=&P=60
> >[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/
> >[3]
> >http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0411&L=dc-collections&T
> >=0&F=&S=&P=172
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sarah L. Shreeves
Coordinator, Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and
Scholarship (IDEALS)
University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign
Phone: 217-244-7809
Fax: 217-244-7764
Email: [log in to unmask]
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