John,
I think we are talking about two things. Yes, the metadata must be ISO
8601 so my search engine can index it. We've agreed on that. The question
(I thought) was whether the scvheme of the dates in the data needs to be
reported in the metadata for discovery if the scheme is actually a data
verification rule and not a disciplinary perspective. Does this make sense?
David
At 03:50 PM 11/13/97 -0800, John A. Kunze wrote:
>> Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 11:30:46 -0500
>> From: David Bearman <[log in to unmask]>
>> ...
>> After we discover a resource, the response needs to facilitate our
>> retrieval of it. Here again we are not interested in its AACRness or
>> ISO8601ness.
>
>David,
>
>Yes, I -- as discoverer -- am not directly interested in an element's
>ISO8601ness, but I am very interested indirectly. A search interface
>relies on indexes (broadly speaking), and they have to be coherent
>to be useful. By coherent, I mean that if I search on "3 November"
>and if the independent collections from which metadata is harvested
>in building a "Date" index provide the formats
>
> 11/3/97, 1997-03-11, and November 3, '97,
>
>then I expect matches to succeed regardless of format. In this case,
>that probably means the metadata must be normalized, and that means
>the element format (eg, its ISO8601ness) has to be readily identifiable.
>
>The discovery bone's connected to the search bone, which is connected
>to the index bone, right?
>
>-John
>
>> When we retrieve the information resource we want it to come with metadata
>> that enables us to integrate it into our existing schemes. Now we need to
>> know that its dates are ISO 8601 conformant and that it follows AACR rules
>> in certain fields. This helps us collate data values from the new
>> information resource into our existing research database which includes
>> resourcesfrom other sources.
>> Unless there are strong arguments for knowing the scheme as a DISCOVERY
>> issue, I'd say that data validation rules are probably not a category of
>> schemes relevant to resource discovery. Is there a user argument for
>> seeking only resources with certain data validation rules in effect?
>>
>> At 12:40 PM 11/13/97 +0000, Misha Wolf wrote:
>> >David Bearman wrote:
>> >>
>> >> It is not clear why what you are calling formats, which I think are data
>> >> validation rules, are relevant to resource discovery, though they
clearly
>> >> are important metadata for subsequent phases of the research process
when
>> >> the retrieved data is to be collated with other information.
>> >
>> >Two examples of formats: date formats (eg ISO 8601) and name formats (eg
>> >AACR2). If we don't know how to interpret the string, we are hampered
when
>> >doing resource discovery.
>> >
>> >> At the same
>> >> time, the concept you are calling controlled vocabularies which
consists of
>> >> terminology on the one hand and classification systems on the other, is
>> >> something more than a set of allowable data values, it reflects a world
>> >> view. It is because the scheme reflects a worldview that we would
want to
>> >> discover resources with a limit set to those which have that worldview.
>> >> I can't see any reason why measurement units per se are a scheme in this
>> >> sense, though the use of particular schemes in the sense of
>> >> classification/terminology to control values of measurement units
reflects
>> >> definite disciplinary constructs that could be important to retrieval
(time
>> >> measured in geological periods, space measured in astronomical units,
>> >> weight measured in atomic weights).
>> >
>> >As I understand the argument, all schemes are (from a DC point of view)
>> >additional information which, if understood and used, may greatly improve
>> >resource discovery. If not understood, they may be ignored, resulting in
>> >a greater or lesser degradation in the resource discovery process.
>> >
>> >Right?
>> >
>>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > Misha Wolf Email: [log in to unmask] 85 Fleet Street
>> > Standards Manager Voice: +44 171 542 6722 London EC4P 4AJ
>> > Reuters Limited Fax : +44 171 542 8314 UK
>>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >12th International Unicode Conference, 8-9 Apr 1998, Tokyo,
www.unicode.org
>> > 7th World Wide Web Conference, 14-18 Apr 1998, Brisbane, www7.conf.au
>> >
>> >------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender,
>> >except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of
>> >Reuters Ltd.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> David Bearman, President
>> Archives & Museum Informatics
>> 5501 Walnut St., Suite 203
>> Pittsburgh, PA 15232 USA
>> ph. + 1-412-683-9775
>> fax + 1-412-683-7366
>> email: [log in to unmask]
>> URL: www.archimuse.com
>>
>>
>
>
David Bearman, President
Archives & Museum Informatics
5501 Walnut St., Suite 203
Pittsburgh, PA 15232 USA
ph. + 1-412-683-9775
fax + 1-412-683-7366
email: [log in to unmask]
URL: www.archimuse.com
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