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DC-GENERAL  October 1998

DC-GENERAL October 1998

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Subject:

Proposal on Agents. With apolgies for the past hour. As it was orinially.

From:

David Bearman <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

dc-general

Date:

Fri, 23 Oct 1998 18:17:00 -0400

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (130 lines)

Information resources are produced and disseminated by people,
organizations, and systems. In the DC workshop series, the roles of
creator, publisher and contributor (equivalent to 'other') were given
separate metadata elements reflecting their widespread use. In practice,
however, the correct attribution of a given agent to one of these elements
is often difficult either because their role is not known or because it
does not precisely fit any or only one of the categories. Film Director,
Talkshow Host, List Owner, Database Interface Designer, Sampling Software
Program, or Webcaster User Profile, are all instances of traditional and
new roles that are not easily mapped into the three DC elements.

Since DC5, informal groups have been struggling with this problem in a
series of face-to-face, virtual and teleconferences. On October 16,
following a teleconference, Stu Weibel asked a drafting committee composed
of David Bearman, Priscilla Caplan and Martin Dillon to draft a consensus
report to be sent to the meta2 list for discussion prior to the DC6 meeting
in Washington.

The drafting committee proposes:

1) To adopt the element DC.Agent in place of DC.Creator, DC.Publisher and
DC.Contributor

2) To adopt the USMARC Relator Codes as authorized values of dcq:AgentType
for roles of persons and organizations with respect to the resource.

Discussion of this proposal in advance of the DC6 meeting is strongly
encouraged in order that positions can be articulated and become understood.

Background:

Proposal 1) Several approaches had been suggested to address these issues.
After the discussions of the various groups, two positions remained:

a) New Guidelines for Using the Existing Element Set
It had been suggested to leave the 15 DC elements, but to provide
instructions that "Contributor" is the preferred element for people,
organizations and agents involved in production and dissemination of
information resources unless the role of author or publisher is explicitly
intended (as in bibliographic resources). Thus, DC.Contributor = X, with
Role qualifier = 'Publisher' is equivalent to DC.Publisher =X.

· Advantages: Politically easier. Allows DC to remain "stable".
Grandfathers all existing DC data. Works with DC Simple.
· Disadvantages: Establishes two ways of expressing the same metadata.
Requires cataloguers and end users in the future to be aware of all
variants. May require systems designers to have to develop both integrated
and separate indexes.

b) "Agent" replaces Creator, Contributor and Publisher
It had been suggested to reduce the DC element set to 13 elements by
replacing Creator, Contributor and Publisher with "Agent" for persons,
organizations and agents involved in production and dissemination of
information resources. Multiple Agents would be distinguished by the
qualifier 'Role'.

· Advantages: Intellectually clean/simple. Cataloguers and users can
distinguish roles or not, with predictable results. Easier to add
extensible schemes for domains with different terminologies.
· Disadvantages: Destabalizes DC which is politically difficult. Further
erodes DC Simple. 

The drafting group recommends adoption of approach b)

Proposal 2) Regardless of what action or inaction is taken with respect to
the DC elements Creator, Publisher and Contributor, there is a need to
define roles for use with dcq.  It was agreed that:
- All proposals will require 'Role' to be an extensible scheme. Specialized
communities must be able to create term lists to satisfy their needs. 
- In neither case would any of the "Roles" encompass intellectual property
management roles which would be recorded in a packet pointed to by the DC
Rights element.
- A set of DC Roles should be proposed.

Three approaches could be taken to the creation of a set of DC Roles.

a) A new list could be created. It might, for example, include a dozen high
level concepts with opportunities for specialized domains to adopt schemes
of terms fitting under these headings. Such a list of twelve categories was
proposed, but no DC created list was seen to have greater value than
existing schemes. 

b) A minimalist list could be adopted. It could consist of the three terms
we have already found unsatisfactory (Creator, Publisher, Contributor) or
it could include a few more, as in:

Author - for creators of the intellectual content of textual and
non-textual works, including composer, artist, photographer etc.  

Publisher - (we need a very traditional definition here that would restrict
to formal issuance by corporate agencies)

Disseminator - for distribution that doesn't fit formal publication, like
me posting my own paper on a website

Producer - for those responsible for funding and technical production aspects

Contributor - for none of the above


3) A more extensive list could be adopted from one being issued/maintained
by an authoritative source:
The USMARC Code List: RELATOR CODES, found at
http://www.loc.gov/marc/relators/re9802r1.html
was proposed. The list currently lacks some roles that communities using DC
will feel are needed, but it has a simple mechanism for proposing their
inclusion and is regularly updated by the Library of Congress. 

The drafting group recommends adoption of approach b) with the following
implementation notes:
a)  In automatic translation from previous DC files to Agent, write
dcq:AgentType=Creator, Publisher or Contributor for grandfathering data.
b) DC values for agent follow the Data Modeling working group decision 
c) The DC community can map Creator, Publisher, Contributor to the USMARC
Relator codes so that dcq:AgentType can have these three and any other
USMARC relator values indicating the agent's role in relation to the
resource. The Library of Congress should be asked to maintain the list for
additional types as proposed by DC users.

David Bearman
President
Archives & Museum Informatics
2008 Murray Ave, Suite D
Pittsburgh, PA 15217 USA
Phone: +1 412 422 8530
Fax: +1 412 422 8594
[log in to unmask]
http://www.archimuse.com

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