At 10:32 AM 9/30/97 +22303754, Warwick Cathro wrote:
>> Ron Daniel says:
>>
>> >DC rules and Ron's corollaries:
>> >
>> >1) All elements are optional, repeatable, and may occur in any order.
>> >(This means I can delete and rearrange the elements that come into me
>> >if I so feel like it)
>> >2) All elements should be considered as free text unless qualified.
>> >(This means that I can treat elements with unknown Qualifiers and
>> >subelements as free text if I want to.)
>
>Can you explain to me how the resource identifier can be optional? What
>is the use of metadata if there is no indication of where the resource
>resides or how to find it?
Sure. I've just grabbed the technical book that is closest to hand.
The first entry in its bibliography is:
Ahrons, R., (1963). "Superconducting Associative Memories," RCA Review,
pp. 325-354 (Sept. 1963).
We got by for a couple of centuries without network resolvable resource
identifiers.
(Now I'm the first to admit that just because we don't *require* any
particular element, its pretty awkward to do without some. However,
in the discussions about descriptions of the scanned photo of a painting,
the painting won't have a resolvable ID. So its not totally out of
the question that people will create records without resource IDs.
Lets just hope its rare.)
>And if we have a resource identifier, surely it needs to be in a
>conventional format, such as the URL? If not, once again, how will people
>find it?
What does LA-UR-96-0023 mean to you? Nothing one presumes. Around here
and other parts of the DOE it is known to mean the 23'rd Los Alamos
Unclassified Report that was issued in 1996. There can actually be several
identifiers associated with a resource. (Take a look at the CIP data
in most new books. LC Card number, ISBN, UPC, Cuttered Dewey numbers,
...) Again, MOST of the time we expect people to provide URLs. Doesn't
mean its required, or that it is all they would want to do.
>I am assuming here that the metadata need not be embedded in the resource.
Right, that is the most likely case where a description of a network
resource doesn't need an explicit ID.
Ron Daniel Jr. voice:+1 505 665 0597
Advanced Computing Lab fax:+1 505 665 4939
MS B287 email:[log in to unmask]
Los Alamos National Lab http://www.acl.lanl.gov/~rdaniel
Los Alamos, NM, USA, 87545
|