From: Peter Graham, Rutgers University Libraries
meta2: FIXED VS. VARIABLE ELEMENTS
The Author discussion has focused around whether it's appropriate to put the
phone number and other characteristics of the author in the Author element or
not. I've found myself convinced by Terry Allen and John Kunze,
respectively, as I read their arguments against each other. This tells me
that it's not a fundamental problem but a matter of gaining consensus and
being clear.
But it was interesting to note that the examples used all hovered around
means of communicating with the author--phone no., fax no., email, URL and
the like. Another point that came in was the affiliation (and TA, I think,
among others noted that other marking methods have dealt with this). I'm
persuaded (by the CSJTechnical Reports example of a much larger need0 that in
due course an element devoted to Affiliations might be very appropriate (at
present, OtherAgent--sorry, John--could do much of the job).
But a common thread in all of these communication matters is that they are
variable over time, whereas much of the DC is not--the elements are all
descriptors of the document as of a fixed point in time. The question asks
itself: as these subelements go out of date, do we intend that they will
remain fixed or do we assume someone can or will update them? Should they in
fact point somewhere that provides current information? If authentication
mechanisms depend on hashes or similar tools that include the metadata, will
an update through them off?
I throw out the question whether it would be appropriate to locate the
variable subelements in an element that is intended as such a receptacle.
Conceivably this would make locating such information for maintenance more
feasible? Would Indexers have an interest in separating out such
information? Would authentication mechanisms benefit? Does it make sense to
us conceptually? --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>
|