Diane's perspective may be useful for tackling this format question. If
the collection items (if there are any) are in a black box, what
questions would we ask about the _collection_ (as opposed to the
_items_) to determine the value for format?

Diane reminds us that this is often the reality for aggregators - trying
to describe a collection without knowlewdge of the items. (Andrew has
reminded us that this doesn't matter - the one-to-one rule tells us not
to describe the items anyway!)

In an earlier post I wondered whether my collection of digital photos on
a CD would have format CD (whereas the images individually may be better
described with format jpeg)? Complicating the consideration is (as so
often!) the definition: "physical or gigital manifestation of the
resource".  Many resources will have both physical and digital
manifestations - a file  format and a media format.

I think this may come back to the underlying concept of a collection. If
its more than thwe sum of the collection items - and I believe it is -
then what is the extra piece? I think it was Andrew who earlier asked
(to paraphrase from memory) - if a collection is a conceptual entity,
does it (can it) actually have a manifestation?

John

-----Original Message-----
From: DCMI Collection Description Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Diane I. Hillmann
Sent: Tuesday, 5 July 2005 12:55 a.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Results of poll on expressing format of items

Pete:

Agreed--I think I tried to say that, but perhaps didn't do so very
successfully. I think my point was that the perspective of someone NOT
the collection holder was necessarily a bit different, and though
conceptually the notion that a collection always had items, an
aggregator didn't necessarily have any idea what those items were or
what their format was.

Diane

>Diane,
>
>>   From an aggregator's perspective, you can definitely have a  
>> collection without items. If you're not the collection holder and you

>> are looking at an available collection (say, a website containing  
>> educational materials), you may choose to describe that collection AS

>> a collection (or others may describe it for you), even if you have no

>> immediate way to know what those items are or to have metadata about

>> them. You may be able to get a service to provide a listing of the  
>> items and some  metadata for them, if the collection can't (or  
>> won't), or you may not be able to do anything.  It could certainly be

>> said that the collection exists even if all you know is that someone

>> created it, but from a practical perspective, there may be no extant

>> list of items or metadata for them. This is sort of a "tree falling  
>> in the forest" notion, but helpful to consider.
>
>I know I said I'd shut up but.... ;-) I think it's important not to 
>confuse the resources and their descriptions.
>
>In the scenario you describe here, you have a collection-level 
>_description_ (metadata record) without item _descriptions_ (metadata 
>records).
>
>That's different from saying you have a collection without items. The 
>collection by _definition_ is an aggregation of items. In your 
>scenario, you may have a metadata record only for the collection, or 
>your application may be interested only in the collection-level 
>description and not the item descriptions: that's fine but the items 
>which make up the collection - in your example, the "educational 
>materials" - still exist.
>
>(Though John's example of the collection continuing to exist for a 
>period during which first it had items, then had no items, then had 
>items again is quite an interesting one!)
>
>Pete