From: Peter Graham, Rutgers University Libraries
>it adds
>> complexity to adding metadata for the average person.<
(and succeeding comments on the average person).
I just want to test out the content of the set "average person"; among a
group of technical people there could be a concept that might not help the
discussion sufficiently. I agree with Ron Daniel that the garden-variety
average person creating memos on Word isn't likely to fill out information
manually.
But another example might be the "average librarian", or the "average
webmaster" for a smallish site. These might be people whom we want to
address: without enormous technical skills but the need and desire to
provide information that is accessible to the webcrawlers and the net. They
can deal with a modest amount of complexity, and beyond that tools will
presumably help.
In this context, by the way, I think parsimony can add to complexity, not
reduce it. I'm not sure where the drive to reduce the number of elements
comes from; thirteen certainly isn't too many, and I can see the number
growing slightly rather than shrinking. As with the proposed elimination of
"publisher" in favor of a variety of OtherAgent, the perceived economy is
only a shifting of location in a way that in fact adds complexity (it's all
very slight, of course, but that's what we're talking about). --pg
Peter Graham [log in to unmask] Rutgers University Libraries
169 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08903 (908)445-5908; fax(908)445-5888
<URL:http://aultnis.rutgers.edu/pghome.html>
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