> Two element qualifiers that are almost completely undefined in the original
> DC specification are "Type" and "Identifier". There's one lousy sentence:
>
> "In the example below, it is assumed that the sub-elements Type
> and Identifier have been defined." ... [ 4 examples appear also ]
Took me a while to work out what was going on here, as it seemed to
be referring to a fairly 'old' implementation, and I had to try hard
to remember that far back...! [never did find John's guilty line in
the original workshop report, either... :-( )
> This is simply not enough to work with. The User Guide Group was unable
> to describe them without making too many second guesses as to how they
> interacted with the Role qualifier and other elements in general, and so
> it dropped them. Pending meta2's formulation of clearer term definitions
> and goals, these qualifiers needlessly complicate the DC and are too hard
> to explain, so I propose to merge Type's function into Role and omit
> any mention of Type and Identifier qualifiers from the DC spec.
If I understand this correctly, I DEFINITELY disagree.
A lot of the current use of DC (certainly in the UK anyway) is in
terms of headers slapped into HTML documents by tools like
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~napm1/dublin_core/sp_meta_creator.html.
These tools, and people doing it by hand, are making a HUGE use of
the TYPE qualifier;
<META NAME="DC.author" CONTENT="(TYPE=phone) +44 (0)1904 43 3954">
<META NAME="DC.author" CONTENT="(TYPE=fax) +44 (0)1904 43 3939">
etc...
The suggestion to lump this in with ROLE simply doesn't make any
sense, as how is being a telephone a role for an author? However, a
telephone number is a TYPE of detail about an author...
Indeed, _I_ don't use ROLE at all, and haven't seen it on many recent
pages anywhere I've looked. Perhaps ROLE is the one to be ditched?
IDENTIFIER can, as far as I can see, certainly go, but we do need a
sensible use of the SCHEMA and TYPE qualifiers such as (for example);
<META NAME="DC.date" CONTENT="(TYPE=current) (SCHEME=ISO31) 1996-11-28">
<LINK REL=SCHEMA.dc HREF="http://purl.org/metadata/dublin_core/elements#date">
<LINK REL=SCHEMA.iso31 REFERENCE="ISO 31-1:1992 Quantities & units --
Part 1: space & time">
Sorry if I've misunderstood, but the message certainly seemed to ME
to play up the importance of ROLE and IDENTIFIER, while denegrating
(the very useful) TYPE and ignoring SCHEMA altogether...
...and there I thought we'd sorted all this... :-(
Paul
-----------
Paul Miller
Graphics & GIS Advisor, University Computing Service
University of Newcastle, Claremont Tower, Claremont Road, Newcastle
upon Tyne NE1 7RU. tel (0191) 222 8212/8039, fax (0191) 222 8765
e-mail [log in to unmask] WWW http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~napm1/
[log in to unmask] http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~ngraphic/
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