From: OXVAXD::LOU "Lou Burnard" 5-DEC-1996 17:37:17.82
To: MX%"[log in to unmask]"
CC: LOU
Subj: Re: The Element Set: One Page Version
|
|In an earlier message Stu said that if people wanted changes we
|needed to organize. It appears that Rachel, Rebecca, Frank, and I
|are doing so. Anyone else out there want to join? Anyone out there
|want to start a counter-organization to oppose this motion?
I'm with you! Description is "A really spiffy piece of text that sort of
drones on about metadata and related cool stuff". Keywords (or Topic, or
Whatever) is "email; metadata; jargon" or "(source=LCSH) email; metadata;
jargon"
As evidence that I've been with you all along, here's a note I started (but
didn't finish and therefore didn't send) when this keywords/description stuff
started
[I've now read the rest of this thread and found virtually no-one agrees with
me. Such is life. There are a couple of substantial issues I don't yet want to
shut up about however:]
1. Description/Keywords
Tony Gill says
|I object strongly to the notion of changing 'Description' to 'Keywords'
|-- I also reject the assumption that keywords will be the probable
|content of the field. We've already used the current 'Subject' label with
|(Type=Description) qualifiers in our new web pages. Would you advocate
|putting a verbose description or abstract of a resource in an element
|called 'Keywords'? 'Keywords(Type=Abstract)' makes no sense at all.
Whatever the thing is called, if (as is now plainer to me) it is going to
contain *EITHER* unstructured textual waffle, briefly descriptive or summarizing
of the resource *OR* a list of formally defined thesaually-controlled
keywords, it is going to be a tough baby to handle without some way of
indicating which of these options is being exercised. The term "description"
suggests the former will be the default; the term "keywords" the latter.
Keywords TYPE=abstract (or more likely TYPE="uncontrolled" makes no more or
less sense to me than description TYPE=LCSH, and for much the same reason!
In an ideal world, DESCRIPTION should be reserved for unstructured
text. KEYWORDS should be reserved for a list of controlled keywords.
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