>From the specific to the general...
On Sat, 20 Sep 1997, Gary Malet wrote:
> One shortcoming of the
> current resource types listed by Roy Tennant at
> http://sunsite.Berkeley.EDU/Metadata/types.html is that there isn't a way
> at getting at abstracts, summaries, introductions, annotations, teasers,
> blurbs, briefs, and resource descriptions.
Admittedly the current draft does not include separate elements for all
the types of text you describe, but it *does* account for abstracts, at
least, as Text.Abstract. Were you speaking generally, or are you
suggesting subtypes for all the items you describe (such as Text.Blurbs)?
Gail Clement raises some good issues relating to scientific and scholarly
requirements, but at least in some cases these can already be handled by
the use of additional qualifiers. For example, Text.Article can be
Text.Article.x-Refereed right now, or Text.Article.Refereed if the group
is amenable. An alternative would be keep the strict hierarchical
approach and do something like Text.Serial.Journal.Article (with the
specification that "journal" implies review and "magazine" implies none).
I think what we are seeing is a replay of what the group must have
experienced with the definition of the Dublin Core itself -- that is,
everyone has their favorite element(s), and therefore the list could be
expanded ad infinitum. What we must decide as a group is what set of
elements creates a sufficiently broad and yet simple structure that it
can be logically expanded as needed while allowing those to whom one or
two levels of specificity is sufficient some reasonable stopping points.
Also, although Ricky Erway has given up on trying to use this element to
describe the *original* item as opposed to its digital incarnation, I
haven't. I am using the Resource Type field to describe the actual item
in the project in which I am using Dublin Core (to be described using
Traugott Koch's questionnaire).
Finally, if someone would like to make a specific suggestion regarding
changes that could be made to
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Metadata/structuralist.html , and we could
get a sense of what the group as a whole desires, making the changes is
trivial. The difficulty I have is determining when a suggested change
is favored by an individual and when it is favored more generally. If
I implement every suggestion then soon we will have a complete mess.
Thanks,
Roy Tennant
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