On Tuesday, December 02, 1997 11:20 AM, [log in to unmask]
[SMTP:[log in to unmask]] wrote:
> Indeed, as Andrew Waugh put it, names are a mess. That is why the
cataloging
> community has had authority control for names (and subject headings)
all these
> years. Different people and cultures have different ways of expressing
their
> names. But if we are in a common environment (be it a library catalog,
networked
> database, or Internet domain), we need to have a common and uniform
practice in
> order to index data consistently and display data logically.
I think the best we can hope for is that there will be regional or
domain-specific schemes to support a variety of options. That may be
fine. Its true, browsing structures will not match up as nicely as we'd
like, but a searcher should at least be able to get to the right
semanttic vicinity.
> However, as we all
> know, a controlled vocabulary is expensive to implement and maintain.
Here we
> face the ubiquitous problem of cost versus benefit. I suppose
individual
> institutions would have to decide what they want or what they can
afford to
> want.
Yes, and for the most part we'll make do with the lowest common
denominator.
> I don't know if DC group would venture into this issue of
standards for form
> of data to be entered into DC elements. Setting up structures of DC
elements is
> one thing, establishing guidelines for form of data to be entered is
another. I
> may be wrong, but I take DC as a structure for metadata just as MARC
is a
> structure for cataloging data. But MARC doesn't prescribe how to pick
a personal
> name or a title of a book, for that there are AACR2 (Anglo-American
Cataloging
> Rules, 2nd ed.) and other cataloging tools. Would DC become a
structure for
> metadata together with guidelines for form of data?
There are three legs that support the metadata stool:
1. Semantics
DC specifies the semantics of the elements
a Creator is a person or organization, etc....)
2. Structure
the structure of the data is specified by usage standards or by a
formal scheme
(name ordering, delimiters, etc.)
3. Syntax
the formal specification of the grammar of the metadata
structure.
(META tags, RDF assertion blocks)
All three legs are necessary for deployment of interoperable metadata,
so, there is no choice but to grapple with these problems. Number 1 is
largely done (the Finnish Finish), Number 3 is done for simple metadata
(HTML 4.0 META tags) and is in the pipeline for arbitrarily complex
metadata (the Resource Description Framework). Number 2 will absorb our
attention for a good while to come.
stu
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