I'm looking at the RDA element spread sheet
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/docs/5rda-elementanalysisrev.pdf
looking for a next level of data elements to start adding to the
Registry, and I noticed that there are some elements that are coded as
non-literals + typed + have a syntax encoding scheme. For example:
Element Value surrogate Value string Syntax encoding scheme
------- --------------- ------------ ----------------------
Extent non-literal typed RDA extent
Dimensions non-literal typed RDA dimensions
Extent is a combination of the number of units plus the carrier, such as
"1 film reel." Dimensions are measurements (like "28 x 10 cm"). It seems
to me that we could encode extent as a non-literal with 2 sub-elements
of unit and carrier (which doesn't seem to me to be a SES, but perhaps
that doesn't matter). I'm not at all sure what to do with dimensions,
however.
I also don't know what to do about the carrier part of extent, since for
some items, like texts, you don't record "1 volume" (which is on the
carrier list) but "321 pages". And "pages" isn't on the carrier list.
It seems like you would need carriers to have parts, such as CDs would
have tracks, volumes would have pages, etc. But that isn't how it's
defined in RDA. So it looks to me like our options are:
1) treat Extent as a non-literal (unit (number) plus carrier vocabulary)
that allows values other than the carrier list
2) treat dimensions as a literal, and not try to define it further.
I believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg -- we'll find many
more cases like this, in the sense that the definition of the RDA
elements won't be strict in terms of formatting and vocabularies. I
think this goes back to a very early discussion we had about whether we
define a single property that can be literal or non-literal, or if we
need separate properties. I'm not trying to revive that conversation,
just noting that the question hasn't gone away.
kc
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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
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ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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