Is "Subelement" a term, I wonder, that has been fixed in the DC vocabulary?
I'm asking because in the librarian's vocabulary, "subfield" means something
entirely different, it is a part of a field's content, labeled by subfield
marker within the string that constitutes the field. A DC subfield is not
like this, it is rather a separate field. And since there's no link of any
kind tying DC elements to each other, and no specified order of arrangement,
"subfield" and "subelement" have nothing in common indeed.
Apart from this purely terminological question, I find it highly desirable
to have a way of tying elements together that belong together, because
with repeatable elements you get into a hell of a mess when you want to
sort everything out by software and convert DC records into database records.
Is this to be expected no earlier than when we eventually get RDF? Why was
it impossible to have structure (syntax) within a DC element's content? For
then, the whole problem could have been avoided and subfield / subelement
could be the same concept.
Sorry, but I'm obviously not in the picture about the reasoning behind some
DC basics...
B.E.
Bernhard Eversberg
Universitaetsbibliothek, Postf. 3329,
D-38023 Braunschweig, Germany
Tel. +49 531 391-5026 , -5011 , FAX -5836
e-mail [log in to unmask]
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