Dear all,
Some comments on the delimiter discussion:
Nordic Metadata uses comma as a delimiter between the family and given
name, e.g. Weibel, Stu. We decided to propose usage of normalized
names as a) any serious DC project has to decide what is the correct
way to express names, and b) normalized names are less messy, and make
it easy to convert to MARC, which is not a trivial thing to us.
We have proposed usage of semicolon as a delimiter between data
elements (i.e. Weibel, Stu; Marx, Karl). However, the new version of
our metadata template released last week by Traugott Koch &
colleagues in Lund NetLab diminishes the need for such delimiters.
DC authors can now easily repeat any DC element if there is a need
to do so. Please take a look at
http://www.lub.lu.se/cgi-bin/nmdc.pl
The old URL is still functional, you do not need to change any links.
The new template is not called a test version anymore. However, we
are still prepared to add e.g. new sub-elements as the DC community
agrees on them.
Back to delimiters:
Colon is not a good delimiter since it is used in UDC notations.
Double anything is counterintuitive.
Vertical bar is hard to type in. Accepting several different
delimiters does not bring any benefit compared with single delimiter
usage, and thus introduces complexity in parsing and format
conversions in vain.
As regards DC installations in Scandinavia, several Finnish
ministries have joined us by launching production of DC-enriched
documents. Technically this project resembles the Netpublikationer
-project in Denmark; authors use Word macro which, when required data
has been given, is capable of converting the text into
a DC-enriched HTML document.
BTW, My humble attempt to describe the DC-5 and a few DC's held
earlier is available in English at
http://linnea.helsinki.fi/meta/dcnord.html
The article will be published at "Nordinfo Nytt" this month.
Best wishes, and seasons greetings,
Juha Hakala
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Juha Hakala, Library Network Specialist
Helsinki University Library / Library Network Services
National development and Library Co-ordination
fax +358 9 753 9514 internet: [log in to unmask]
P.O. Box 26, FIN-00014 Helsinki University
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