On Sat, 7 Feb 1998, Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
>
> Andy Powell wrote:
>
> >
> > 2) In terms of embedded HTML META tag syntax, the proposal to have a Type
> > sub-element for Relation as in:
> >
> > DC.Relation.Type: isPartOf
> > DC.Relation.Identifier: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
> >
> > is not consistent with the proposed usage of other sub-elements.
> >
...
> In short, I call the above a serious design flaw.
> The other suggestion:
>
> > DC.Relation.isPartOf: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
> >
> is very much to be preferred. (It is also shorter, but this concerns nobody
> these days, I know. Forget it.)
It indeed a compact form, and it is the form in which metadata can be
embedded using html meta-tags. So I couldn't agree more. To me Andy's way
of describing things is generic DC.
However, I think that the it is time to define two forms of Dublin core
encoding: DC in its compact form and its extensive form. The compact form
is the traditional linear encoding used for example in HTML. The form
favoured by Andy and Bernhard.
The extensive form should be used for any encoding capable of
grouping, like say SGML/XML based schemes like RDF and also other
structured encodings like generic record syntax in Z39.50. It seems to
me that for the purpose of producing nice DC records in any format we
would, I think a new kind of qualifier. We could call it content. Here
are two not very well thought out examples
DC.Relation:
content: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
scheme: URL
type: isPartOf
DC.Creatior:
type:person
content:type:name
content:Lundberg, Sigfrid
content:type:adress
scheme:SMTP
content:[log in to unmask]
The type, scheme, lang and possibly content qualifiers may be called
something else in particular encoding schemes (it is partly true for in
RDF).
I think we need the concept a DC extensive form. It does already manifest
itself in RDF. We need a way to discuss the semantics of the extensive
form as well as the traditional without favouring any particular encoding.
We cannot leave the extensive form to W3C, can we?
And why do we need the extensive form? Well think about it... Everything
that is possible to describe using the compact form can through a few
simple operations be transformed into the extensive one. As you all know,
the opposite is not true, and applications will need that complexity.
>
> B.E.
>
> Bernhard Eversberg
Yours
Sigfrid
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