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As I see it, discovery is the process at the beginning of research of looking for something. I presume we are not looking for information resources whose names follow AACR or whose dates follow ISO 8601, but rather for John Doe and May 1872. We are, however, looking for information resources which are classified by taxonomy or which use the vocabulary of a particular discipline. After we discover a resource, the response needs to facilitate our retrieval of it. Here again we are not interested in its AACRness or ISO8601ness. When we retrieve the information resource we want it to come with metadata that enables us to integrate it into our existing schemes. Now we need to know that its dates are ISO 8601 conformant and that it follows AACR rules in certain fields. This helps us collate data values from the new information resource into our existing research database which includes resourcesfrom other sources. Unless there are strong arguments for knowing the scheme as a DISCOVERY issue, I'd say that data validation rules are probably not a category of schemes relevant to resource discovery. Is there a user argument for seeking only resources with certain data validation rules in effect? At 12:40 PM 11/13/97 +0000, Misha Wolf wrote: >David Bearman wrote: >> >> It is not clear why what you are calling formats, which I think are data >> validation rules, are relevant to resource discovery, though they clearly >> are important metadata for subsequent phases of the research process when >> the retrieved data is to be collated with other information. > >Two examples of formats: date formats (eg ISO 8601) and name formats (eg >AACR2). If we don't know how to interpret the string, we are hampered when >doing resource discovery. > >> At the same >> time, the concept you are calling controlled vocabularies which consists of >> terminology on the one hand and classification systems on the other, is >> something more than a set of allowable data values, it reflects a world >> view. It is because the scheme reflects a worldview that we would want to >> discover resources with a limit set to those which have that worldview. >> I can't see any reason why measurement units per se are a scheme in this >> sense, though the use of particular schemes in the sense of >> classification/terminology to control values of measurement units reflects >> definite disciplinary constructs that could be important to retrieval (time >> measured in geological periods, space measured in astronomical units, >> weight measured in atomic weights). > >As I understand the argument, all schemes are (from a DC point of view) >additional information which, if understood and used, may greatly improve >resource discovery. If not understood, they may be ignored, resulting in >a greater or lesser degradation in the resource discovery process. > >Right? > >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Misha Wolf Email: [log in to unmask] 85 Fleet Street > Standards Manager Voice: +44 171 542 6722 London EC4P 4AJ > Reuters Limited Fax : +44 171 542 8314 UK >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >12th International Unicode Conference, 8-9 Apr 1998, Tokyo, www.unicode.org > 7th World Wide Web Conference, 14-18 Apr 1998, Brisbane, www7.conf.au > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, >except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of >Reuters Ltd. > > > David Bearman, President Archives & Museum Informatics 5501 Walnut St., Suite 203 Pittsburgh, PA 15232 USA ph. + 1-412-683-9775 fax + 1-412-683-7366 email: [log in to unmask] URL: www.archimuse.com