Dear Harry, Thanks for your great job. Multilinguality is a very important feature for the registry. I'm thinking that we (DC-Registry + DC-LI) need to clarify the status of translations to be stored in the DCMI Registry. I understand that all English descriptions stored in the registry are the approved text by DCMI, but descriptions in other languages are not approved or endorsed by DCMI. Should translations to be stored in the registry be "officially approved" one by local communities? Should non-English descriptions in the registry be translation approved as a national standard or translation officially created and maintained by an organization approved as a national maintenance agency? I'm assuming the answer is No. In the case of Japan, we have no offically approved standard for Simple DC, i.e., a counter standard to ANSI/NISO Z39.85. I guess the Japanese texts currently stored in the DCMI registry is the text translated at ULIS. Since there is no established organization, say DCMI-Japan, nobody can endorse the translations. In Japan, we'll work on standardization of Simple DC at JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) in near future, perhaps in this fiscal year. After the approval at JIS, we (Japanese community) will get our standard DC Simple in Japanese. One of my concerns about registering translations in the DCMI Registry is that translation in a certain language, e.g. Japanese, can be recognized as an officially approved translation. And, it may cause difficulties in local communities. My suggestion is to include information about the status of translations and/or translators. As you know, ULIS has been running our multilingual registry. I'm thinking that the ULIS registry is recognized by users as a research or voluntary activity. However, in the case of the DCMI Registry, users would recognize the translations as officially approved ones. I hope my concern is needless, but I think the DCMI Registry need to be careful. Thank you, -- Shigeo ========================================================= SUGIMOTO, Shigeo, Ph.D. Professor University of Library and Information Science (ULIS) postal address: Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8550, JAPAN phones: +81-298-59-1348(office), +81-298-59-1556 (lab.) +81-298-59-1090(ULIS, Research Assistance Office) fax: +81-298-59-1093 email: [log in to unmask]