On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, Houghton,Andrew wrote:

>
> A problem that I have is that MODS defines no recordset or
> dataset element.  With MARC21 for example, I can specify
> multiple records in a single MARC file.  The way MODS is
> specified is that it only defines a record.  You should
> consider having the <mods> element as the recordset or
> dataset element and have a separate <record> element.
> This would allow placing multiple MODS records into one
> XML data file.  For example:
>
>   <?xml version="1.0" ?>
>   <mods ...>
>     <record ... />
>     <record ... />
>   </mods>
>
> The recordset or dataset level element should allow zero
> or more records, like the record element allows zero or
> more elements.  For a single record you now have introduced
> an additional node level but that doesn't bother me because
> the abstraction allows me to easily determine how many records
> are in the dataset by looking at the number of child elements,
> in the XMLDOM, that are attached to the document node <mods>.
>
> Andy.

I have to strongly agree with this proposal.  I've written a MARC to MODS
conversion program and it can be very messy to create hundreds of output
files.  A <record> element would be very handy for creating sets of
records within one file.  In this case would the record identifier element
serve as the unique id for each record, or would an XML ID attribute be
assigned to each <record id=xxx>?  I'm ready to try this out.

Dick Thaxter

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*    Dick Thaxter  [log in to unmask] 202 707-7208                   *
*    Automation Specialist                                     *
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