> PROPOSITION:
>
> Current names for Dublin Core elements are alpha strings that
> perpetuate their anglo-centric (and text-centric) origin. While
> these names or something very much like them may continue to be the
> names by which the elements are discussed popularly, a means of
> element name indirection should be put in place soon to allow
> non-english language names as well as names that might be tailored
> better to specialized domains.
> CON: Added complexity and confusion about what the elements are. Will
> require significant further work to implement effectively.
Response: Whilst internationalisation is a worthy goal towards which
to aim, we must avoid creating a system that is incomprehensible to
ALL in our efforts to cover every language...!
The obvious method of internationalising is, perhaps, to replace the
words with numbers (Author=1, etc), but this would create metadata
that is difficult to understand for ANYONE, unless they had a list of
the element numbers and names to hand...
I'd suggest that we pretty much keep the names we have and try to get
something out that a wide number of people can actually start using
without us changing it under them every five minutes... ;-)
Paul
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Paul Miller
Graphics & GIS Advisor, University Computing Service
University of Newcastle, Claremont Tower, Claremont Road, Newcastle
upon Tyne NE1 7RU. tel (0191) 222 8212/8039, fax (0191) 222 8765
e-mail [log in to unmask] WWW http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~napm1/
[log in to unmask] http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~ngraphic/
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