At 03:01 PM 7/14/97 -0400, you wrote:
>From: Peter Graham, Rutgers University Libraries
>
>this is getting better. a couple of quick comments off the top:
>
>1. Document.media: "media" is used in an entirely different sense in
>education and library work, not to mention computing, and I think would be
>confusing here. I find it hard to be constructive except to say I'm not sure
>about the category as such; why privilege a p.r. over other kinds of
>productions, say novels, poems, etc. And who is to say what's promotion as
>opposed to a press release? most of the latter I see in the e-world are
>really the former. My press release, your promotion, his spam. Who
>will do the defining? On balance I'd forget it.
Agreed with most of this. I didn't like "media"
so maybe "document.press-release" is better. There are a number of
people who have already indicated that they want a
category like this. And I think there is a need to have
a category for things which are "promotional" (spam being only
an egregious form of promo). Any suggestions as to what
might suffice to do the trick?
>2. Speaking of mixed media: many documents are in fact composites of much
>of what you distinguish. Does this matter? Gant charts are released as part
>of text memos, help manuals have graphics (and sound!), scientific articles
>are now likely to contain moving images. You can think of your own example.
>Judging by a 51% margin seems to me to lead to nothing but trouble. What
>principle should be followed?
I wondered about this. I tend to think of resource type as describing
in broad terms the kind of object we are looking at and not in describing
in detail the contents of the object. So if there are pictures and text and
it is too long to read online, then I think of this as a resource type
"document.monograph". But I see all kinds of quirks and nastiness that
can arise as a result of compound documents. Gant charts would be
classed as "image.chart.gant" only if the metadata
>3. You dismiss seriality as a mode of publication rather than a subject
>content. You're right, but that's true of other elements, isn't it? Is my
>image of a 19C broadside a document or an image? The content doesn't help
>determine. Knowing something is serial in nature is of assistance in
>knowledge navigation. It's true it's a modality that cuts across other kinds
>of definitions (as we found in the MARC world, where maps, books, a-v it
>turned out could all be serial).
>
>The larger issue here is not seriality but multiple-mode description.
Agree. Which leads me to think that "serial" should be used at the
end of the heirarchical description, something like
"document.monograph.serial"
but not like "document.serial.monograph", which offends my sense of hierarchy
(but I'll grant, maybe not anyone elses).
The issue of an image of a page is an interesting one. It is obviously both.
Since DC elements are repeatable, would it be appropriate to use multiple
resource-types for one metadata object? This might help. But it does
raise the question of the image classes being broad enough to catch this
as well. I don't know if image.photograph is accurate in this case.
Maybe we need something like "image.pagescan"?
>4. Related is straitjacketing in current technology. I know you're
>thinkinbg broadly, but when I see "TALK" for chat groups and conversations I
>wonder if you're considering that already we're seeing video-reflectors (and
>pretty repugnant too, most of them), and no doubt will have multimedia
>versions in spades soon. Moos and Mudds no doubt will get graphical, to our
>general weariness.
Does this argue for keeping TALK or some similiar top category for
these kinds of things?
>5. OK, use screed if you like; the category i don't find helpful. One
>person's informal is another's document. A lot of webpages are informal. If
>that's what you mean, though, why not call it informal instead of a term open
>to interpretation when not deemed weirdly obscure. Or "personal". Or
>something that has more semantic value. But mainly I think the category
>isn't very well defined; maybe a better term(s) would define it better.
A better term might be used. Perhaps "document.informal" is better.
I don't like "document.personal" as this seems ambiguous and equally
problematic, especially since there can be lots of "personal" documents.
"Informal" seems to suffer the same imprecision.
My thoughts in using "screed" was to grab a category of documents that really
are often personal pages, informal and discursive. The key is an informal
piece
of writing which has not got the focus or intent of an article. "Screed"
has the advantage of being an actual noun which describes an kind of
informal or fragmentary document.
Personally, I am not too worried about the use of obscure terms.
Most of everything to do with the Web is filled with obscure
terms like URLs, MOOs, MUDs, browser and the list goes on!
I am getting used to it... :-)
Suggestions welcome tho'.
>More when I look at this more as a whole; you've put more thought into it
>than I recognize yet. --pg
>
>Peter Graham [log in to unmask] Rutgers University Libraries
>169 College Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08903 (908)445-5908; fax(908)445-5888
> <URL:http://aultnis.rutgers.edu/pghome.html>
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