Now that I started this, allow me to try to put a cap on it. I sent out
the original mail since I felt that it would be improper to bring it up
in Helsinki without posing the "DATE" question in advance. I should
have been more "process-clear" in my original message. I'd like to
suggest to two things regarding the DATE issue:
1. Those of us who have views on it that we wish to express write
up a short (less than one page) position paper to bring to Helsinki.
2. We clear a space in the agenda to address this issue that allows
very quick presentations of position papers and discussion.
One could argue that there are other pressing issues and elements that
need discussion. My point of view, and others that I have spoken to, is
that date semantics are part of the "kernel of the core" and that the
current DATE field doesn't work in its unqualified form.
Lastly, in response to Dave Beckett's last message:
>>>>>Date can be viewed as a bucket-a useful place to throw these
resources without splitting Date into multiple elements. Of course I am
a committed qualifier-ist so I'm happy with Date.creation etc.<<<<
Again, maybe I stand alone -- but I consider it a violation of the basic
minimalist-structuralist compromise to consider an element unusable
without qualifiers.
Stu, can we open up a place on the agenda to address this?
Carl
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl Lagoze
Project Leader, Digital Library Research Group
Department of Computer Science, Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Phone: +1-607-255-6046
FAX: +1-607-255-4428
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
WWW: http://www2.cs.cornell.edu/lagoze/lagoze.html
-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Daniel Jr. [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Sunday, September 28, 1997 11:18 PM
To: Carl Lagoze; 'Rebecca S. Guenther'; Ricky Erway
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: DATE and PUBLISHER element definition change
proposal
At 09:14 PM 9/28/97 -0400, Carl Lagoze wrote:
>Date, as I've said to a number of people, is a data type, not a
>semantically meaningful term. Unqualified it is useless.
I try not to disagree with Carl, because he frequently proves
me wrong. Nevertheless, in this case I will.
I'm relatively comfortable with the definition of date
as "Date issued in current form". This gets nasty in the
case of a digitized version of an original work, but the
issues there seem to be special cases in dealing
with the question of "how should we describe and relate
descriptions of different renditions of a work". This may
turn out to be the central point of Helsinki.
(Its an issue I have stayed out of because of time pressures,
but after Oct. 1 I should be able to look at it.)
Before we go off and change Date, especially if that change is
essentially to add a version of it that corresponds to
"date converted to current format", lets see if that is really
the problem that needs solving.
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
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