The first and overarching goal of this group is to identify as best we
can a commonly understood semantics for DC metadata. We are close to
that. We will never, as Leslie suggests, achieve the holy grail.
The second important goal is to agree on the carrier syntax for the
semantic content. These two goals are, I think, getting a bit
tangled. This is probably inevititable, but I'd like to try to step
back briefly and make sure we have consensus on the elements and their
names before we try and untangle the knotier problems.
The attached is a revision of the reference element description.
Please look at it and tell me where I'm off in the weeds. You're
welcome to suggest element name changes (or criticize mine), but I
think no changes should be made unless there is overwhelmingly reason
to do so.
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Dublin Core Metadata Element Set: Reference Description
Element Descriptions
* TITLE
The name given to the work by the creator or publisher.
* CREATOR
The person(s) primarily responsible for the intellectual content
of the object. For example, authors in the case of written documents,
artists, photographers, or illustrators in the the case of visual
resources.
* DESCRIPTION
The topic of the work, or keywords that describe the subject or
content of the resource, whether text-based or visual.
* PUBLISHER
The organization responsible for making the resource available in its
present form. Generally a publisher, an institution (university
department, for example) or a corporate entity. The intent of this field
is to identify organizations that fulfill a publishing role, rather than
individuals that simply provide informal access to a resource.
* OTHER AGENT (CONTRIBUTOR?)
The person(s) other than author(s) who have made significant
intellectual contributions to the resource but whose contribution is
secondary to the individuals specifed in the CREATOR field (for
example, editors, transcribers, illustrators, convenors).
* DATE
The date the resource was made available in its present form. [If possible,
a default format of wide international acceptance should be specified
here. Any suggestions?]
* RESOURCE TYPE [used to be TYPE]
The genre of the resource, such as home page, novel, poem, working
paper, technical report, essay, dictionary, etc. It is expected that
RESOURCE TYPE will be chosen from an enumerated list of types.
* FORMAT [used to be FORM]
The data representation of the object, such as text/html, ASCII,
Postscript file, Windows executable file, JPEG image, etc. The
intent of this element is to provide information necessary to
allow people or machines to make decisions about the usability of
the encoded data (what hardware and software might be required to
display it, for example). As with RESOURCE TYPE, FORMAT will be
assigned from enumerated lists sucha s registered Internet Media
Types (MIME types).
* IDENTIFIER (RESOURCE IDENTIFIER?)
String or number used to uniquely identify the object. Examples
for networked resources include URLs, URNs (when implemented). For
non-networked objects, one might have an ISBN, Library of Congress
Catalog Number, or other formal name.
* SOURCE
Object, either print or electronic, from which this object is
derived, if applicable. For example, an html encoding of a
Shakespearean sonnet might identify the paper version of the
sonnet from which the electronic version was transcribed.
* LANGUAGE
Language of the intellectual content of the resource. The default
expression of natural languages is according to the ISO 639 two
letter language codes.
See:
http://www.stonehand.com/unicode/standard/iso639.html.
* RELATION
Relationship to other resources. The intent is to provide a means
to express relationships among resources that have formal
relationships to other objects but exist as discrete resources
themselves. For example, images in a document, chapters in a
book, items in a collection. A formal specification of RELATION is
currently under development. Users and developers should
understand that use of this element should be currently considered
experimental.
* COVERAGE
The spatial locations and temporal durations characteristic of the
resource. Formal specification of COVERAGE is currently under
development. Users and developers should understand that use of
this element should be currently considered experimental.
* RIGHTS MANAGEMENT [need a snappy, single word element name here]
The contents of this field is intended to be a pointer (a URL or
other suitable URI as appropriate) to a rights management
statement or a server that would provide such information in a
dynamic way. The intent of this field is to allow providers a
means to associate terms and conditions or copyright statements
with a resource or collection of resources. No assumptions
should be made by users if such a field is empty or not present.
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