Thanks, James, for starting the conversation. I was planning to welcome
everyone to the list and try to get it started.
In response to the message below (and I have to admit that I missed it,
since I'm a bit behind on my mail), I absolutely disagree with the
comments about librarians. As one who has attended every Dublin Core
meeting, I would say that librarians certainly have not controlled the
agenda or the outcome. The latest workshop, DC7, was probably the first
time that this issue was ever brought up and was also the first where some
person from outside the library community did not push his own agenda
(which for the most part ran counter to librarians' instincts and opinions
based on their experience). A main purpose in setting up DC-Libraries is
to have a concerted voice in the library community and have the library
community play a more active leadership role in DC, rather than being
overtaken by and reacting to events (which has happened in the past).
As for Date Range, this is something very important in terms of
distinguishing people with the same name. I voted for it with a note
suggesting it only be used with personal names. Of course there was really
no place for comments. I will submit that comment again.
Let's try to focus discussion on particular proposals over the next few
days (needs to be completed by 10 Dec.!). See proposals at:
http://purl.org/DC/groups/qualifierlist.htm
Rebecca
On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, James Weinheimer wrote:
> All,
> I guess I'll be the first one to send a message to this list. On another
> list, the following message was posted:
>
> > I feel very strongly about the results of the vote on Jurisdiction. It
> > demonstrates to me that DC is now run (or worse yet, has been
> > hijacked) by librarians for librarians and cannot imagine, let alone
> > understand the myriad other non-library uses of DC. It is simply a
> > fact that there will be many implementations of DC where the agent
> > will NOT be an individual, but will be a corporate entity of some
> > sort. Affiliation is a useless element in this case, whereas
> > Jurisdiction fulfills the same role in a manner that is perfectly
> > consistent with the use of the Agents elements. I simply fail to see
> > why we cannot have both affiliation and jurisdiction. It will not harm
> > DC, it will not make affiliation unavailable or unusable to those who
> > want/need to use it, it does not counter the semantic refinements of
> > the Agent elements allowed for under the current ad hoc rules on
> > extending DC, and it would assure a significant (in influence if not
> > in size) user base that DC is not becoming a narrow library-specific
> > standard.
>
> His precise statements are beside the point here, but his comment that
> librarians are hijacking DC and are trying to make it into a "narrow
> library-specific standard" is interesting. I don't believe he is correct
> in his suspicion, but if this person feels this way, probably many
> others do, too.
>
> My question is: is there any way for librarians to become involved in
> this highly important effort that does not automatically make others
> feel excluded? I confess that when I read opinions from the e.g.
> image/museum community, I often believe they are trying to exclude us.
>
> What is the best way for librarians to react in these cases? I don't
> think we should remain silent.
> James Weinheimer
> Princeton University
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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