Seconded here.
At 10:24 AM 2/13/98 +0800, Simon Cox wrote:
>A little further reflection leads me to suggest that
>two small changes to the RFC would help clarify the
>Dublin Core semantics further. These concern the
>three groups of DC elements which are listed in the
>introduction to section 3., which were introduced
>to assist readers to grasp the scope of the elements
>and also to help clarify some perhaps subtle distinctions
>between the intended uses of a few of the elements.
>
>The three groups are
>> (1) elements related mainly to the Content of the resource,
>> (2) elements related mainly to the resource when viewed as Intellectual
Property, and
>> (3) elements related mainly to the Instantiation of the resource.
>
>I propose that
>a. TYPE be moved from the Instantiation group to the Content group
>b. LANGUAGE be moved from the Content group to the Instantiation
>group.
>
>Proposal a. clarifies the intention of TYPE in relation to FORMAT.
>TYPE is to be used to indicate the general scope or genre of a
>resource (text, image, audio etc) while FORMAT indicates the
>instantiation, often allowing the client to choose which tool
>is required in order to take advantage of it. I understand
>that confusion of type and format is common in cataloging,
>sometimes to the extent of systems throwing up their
>metaphorical hands and lumping them. But since in DC we
>have chosen to separate these, then the distinction is
>most clearly asserted by placing them in different groups.
>
>Proposal b: The RFC states
>"The language of the intellectual content of the resource."
>I believe that this will normally mean the language in which
>any text is written or sounded. It is thus primarily related
>to Instantiation. No doubt that could also be considered
>a Content issue, and in some (particularly more artistic)
>cases the language is intrinsic to the creative content,
>but my judgement is that the more common case is that
>language is "merely" an instantiation issue. The intention
>of the three groups in the RFC was not to imply that the semantics
>were absolutely sharp, but rather to help users to perceive the
>general class of information embodied in each of the DC elements.
>
>I understand that a late revision to the RFC is still possible,
>so would request that the list give John Kunze an indication of
>whether this should be done.
>
>---------------
>Thanks to participants in the TYPE working group for
>discussions which clarified the TYPE vs FORMAT issue,
>and to Peter Winn for pointing out the LANGUAGE issue.
>--
>__________________________________________________
>Dr Simon Cox - Australian Geodynamics Cooperative Research Centre
>CSIRO Exploration & Mining, PO Box 437, Nedlands, WA 6009 Australia
>T: +61 8 9389 8421 F: +61 8 9389 1906 [log in to unmask]
>http://www.ned.dem.csiro.au/SimonCox/
>
>
>
David Bearman
President
Archives & Museum Informatics
5501 Walnut St., Suite 203
Pittsburgh, PA 15232
tel. +1-412-683-9775; fax +1-412-683-7366
http://www.archimuse.com
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