This paper is posted at
http://www.agcrc.csiro.au/projects/3018CO/metadata/dc_tf/format_1.html
The text is as follows:
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Resource Type & Format working group
Format Position Paper
The Format (DC.Format) of a resource refers to the medium, data format, and materials of the instantiation of that
resource, including its size if required. This is important in resource discovery as it allows a user to discriminate on the
basis of the software, hardware, and other infrastructure that might be needed to display, operate or otherwise use the
resource. For the sake of interoperability, the value of the data format or media should be selected from an enumerated
list, as discussed below.
For electronic resources, it is recommended that a value of DC.Format be selected from the list of Internet Media
Types (MIME values), for which the reference list is maintained at
http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/iana/assignments/media-types/media-types.
The size of a digital resource will normally be given in bytes, but additional measurements may be appropriate for
particular resources, for example, duration (in seconds) for a sound, linear or areal dimension (in pixels) for an image,
word-count for a text.
For other resources, it is recommended that a value of DC.Format be selected from lists of physical media types,
such as provided in the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), maintained by the Getty Information Institute at
http://www.ahip.getty.edu/aat_browser/titles.html (in particular, see the Materials facet).
There are many ways of measuring size for physical objects, including linear dimensions, area, volume and mass. The
user should be careful to specify these to allow the best performance in resource discovery.
Notes and future work
It will clearly be desirable to add additional structure to the specification of Format in order to allow automated
processing of the values. This will require that the property "Format" be qualified to indicate which type or aspect of the
format is contained in a value, and which vocabulary or encoding scheme is in use. This is particularly important to
accommodate the various aspects of "Size". A refined structure for Format will be the subject of discussions
concerning Qualified DC.
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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/
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