I think numbers is a neat idea if you need a fig leaf for Angelic
names. It shifts the question of whether translated element names
correspond to the originals to whether all the various names match
up. Instead of having to ask, "Does AMOUR equal LOVE?" you get to
ask "Do AMOUR and LOVE equal 2?"
But you have to define the semantics of 2 in some human language
("the score of zero in tennis"), so it is really only a fig leaf.
Better, perhaps, to be alive to cross-cultural variation in what
metadata elements might mean when defining them. I think nothing
in DC has cross-cultural problems, but perhaps there's a realm
of library science that deals with such issues.
Regards,
Terry Allen Fujitsu Software Corp. [log in to unmask]
"In going on with these experiments, how many pretty systems do we build,
which we soon find outselves obliged to destroy?" - Benjamin Franklin
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