Folks:

It seems to me that type lists are essentially categorizations of various kinds, and it's perfectly okay to set up different categorizations for different purposes and audiences. Where we have trouble after that is trying to determine how much hierarchy we want or need, and how to relate these different categorizations, if at all.

Where this seems to be problematic to me is that when Pete states:

[snip]

i.e. the term http://purl.org/rslp/cldt#Text ("Text in the CLDT
vocabulary", or, as a QName assuming suitable namespace declarations,
rslpcldt:Text) is a different term from
http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text ("Text in the DCMI Type vocabulary", or
dcmitype:Text) and has a different meaning.

i.e. <http://example.org/mycoll> rdf:type dcmitype:Text .

says that that resource is a "...resource whose content is primarily
words for reading. For example - books, letters..." etc (as specified by
DCMI). Which is not quite what I want to sat about a _collection_ of
books.

But <http://example.org/mycoll> rdf:type rslpcldt:Text .

is saying something different. Following the schema above, it says that
that resource is a "...collection of items whose contents are primarily
words for reading. For example - books, letters....". (The text on the
HTML page http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/rslp/types/ is slightly broken
there, I think.) And rslpcldt:Text is defined as a subclass of
dcmitype:Collection. It's the class of Text Collections, if you like.

it reminds me strongly of some endless discussions some years ago by catalogers about whether the string "Periodicals" meant something different when it was at the end of an LCSH construction than when it was in the middle. And of course, it did, because that position determined whether or not the thing WAS a Periodical or was ABOUT Periodicals. The problem was, not every application (nor every cataloger or user) understood that distinction, and its value became very degraded over time. What I learned from that experience is that re-using terms in the manner that you describe or relying on position in a string to disambiguate is not likely to get you where you want to go. It is an old and rutted road you're travelling, with many vehicles decomposing on the verges.

Ann said:

>
> So it seems as thought Type is being used as a bucket to
> indicate a multitude of things about the collection.
>
> As the Type WG discovered, it is very difficult to devise a
> type vocabulary that everyone agrees to - and this may not be
> a very productive use of peoples' time.

I think it's quite all right for Type to be used as a "bucket" of this sort, so long as folks are careful not to make the relationships between the terms in the bucket important in ways that are not easily conveyed in a variety of settings. A type list of "Curatorial Environments" is fine, so long as there's not an attempt to mandate a particular relationship between its terms and the terms in any other type list.

> It would be better to suggest using existing collection type
> schemes if these exist. I'd be reluctant to support the RSLP
> list as a DC recommendation.

I'm not sure that any of these need to be DC recommendations. In fact, the only recommendation that really matters at all is usage--if your type list for "Curatorial Environments" or "Movie Genres" is a good one, others will use it instead of making up their own. If your list is not well thought out, or your structure too complex, nobody's recommendation will save you.

What if we adopted a vocabulary that used only the "content" types from
CLDT? i.e. those "corresponding to" (but not the same as!) the DCMI Type
Vocabulary terms (probably excluding a Collection of Collections and a
Collection of Services) :

I think this would be a terrible mistake. If you want to convey the notion of a "Collection of Collections," a "Collection of Images" or a "Collection of Services" for goodness sake use those terms unambiguously, or rely on simple repetition of DCMI Type terms to do the job. Re-using DC Type terms and expect the schemas or definitions to keep them differentiated strikes me as a very bad idea indeed.

Diane

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Diane I. Hillmann
National Science Digital Library
Cornell Information Science             Voice: 607/255-5691
301 College Ave.                        Fax: 607/255-5196
Ithaca, NY 14850                        Email: [log in to unmask]
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