Re: design question -- localized metadata?

From: Dom Lachowicz (doml@appligent.com)
Date: Wed May 15 2002 - 10:33:21 EDT

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    On Wed, 2002-05-15 at 10:22, Karl Ove Hufthammer wrote:
    > Now the Dublin Core people *combined* subjects and keywords / key
    > phrases into *one* element, which they named 'Subject and
    > Keywords'. But the *identifier* for this element (which has to
    > consist of only one word ) was named 'Subject', which they defined
    > as "The topic of the content of the resource."
    >
    > With the comment:
    >
    > Typically, a Subject will be expressed as keywords,
    > key phrases or classification codes that describe a
    > topic of the resource.
    >
    > Everything clear now?

    Karl,

    You're being crystal clear. My argument that they combined things that
    shouldn't be combined still stands though, regardless of whether they
    are librarians or not. Their choice of names (identifiers) is also still
    inadequate. You cannot define "Subject" as "Subject and Keywords". If
    anything, their choice of names is misleading at best and I think it
    would be a bad decision to follow their lead:

    <dc:subject> => <dc:subject-and-keywords>

    You don't need to be a librarian to understand the semantics of a
    language. It would be wrong of me to define a "computer" as "what you
    know as a 'computer' and a monitor" even though computers and monitors
    go hand-in-hand and are often seen together. This isn't about their tags
    being wrong - I'm fine with combining subject & keywords into one item.
    What I'm not fine with is calling it "subject" because it clearly isn't.

    Call apples "apples." Call oranges "oranges." Call bananas "bananas."
    Call apples+oranges+bananas a "fruit salad".

    Dom





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