The problem that I have with this approach is that it narrowly restricts
the use of this metadata element to name access.
It is true that in current U.S./AACR2 cataloging as practiced by the
Library of Congress, the role is no longer added to name access points
(with a few exceptions). However, the role of each contributor must be
explicitly identified elsewhere in the description -- either in a statement
of responsibility appended to the title statement or in a note of some kind.
If Dublin Core metadata is to be the basis for a reasonably complete
resource description, the role of the contributors needs to be included
somewhere, and attaching it to the CONTRIBUTOR element seems a reasonable
way to do this. For example, to record the name of John Smith in the
CONTRIBUTOR element without anywhere identifying that John Smith was an
illustrator or an editor or a translator may serve the needs of someone who
is looking for anything in any way connected with Mr. Smith, but it will
not allow the searcher to limit a search to items in which Mr. Smith acted
as translator or (once having retrieved all the items related to Mr. Smith)
to use the metadata-based descriptions to determine which items were
translated (or edited or illustrated) by Mr. Smith.
This may be going beyond the basic intent of DC metadata, but as some of us
are exploring the possibilities of using the metadata to create basic
resource descriptions, it is a function that needs to be considered seriously.
John Attig
Penn State University Libraries
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At 04:39 PM 9/24/97 -0600, Ron Daniel Jr. wrote:
>
>Another take on "contributor" can be found in Rebecca's paper on
>qualifiers, available at:
> http://www.loc.gov/marc/dcqualif.html
>
>She says not to specify the role of the contribution for the pragmatic
>reason that it is never used. According to her:
> At the Library of Congress, we have found that names are all
> searched in the same index and there is no need to further
> specify role in the work. We ceased to indicate this in
> bibliographic records a long time ago.
>
>Although this makes the secret structuralist inside me howl with dismay,
>its a decision based on practical experience. Since our goal is to
>keep the core simple, we would seem to have very little need to exceed
>cataloging practice at LC. So, I guess we just say
> <contributor>John Smith</contributor>
>
>Regards,
>
>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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