Let me respond to both Karen and Roy. The identifiers in question here
are standard reference numbers for botanical publications, taken from
Taxonomic Literature 2nd ed. (TL2) and Botanico Periodicum Huntianum
(BPH). Glad you asked? Many databases which are not fundamentally
bibliographic have bibliographic components (e.g., the source from
which an image was taken, catalogs for exhibitions in which a given
work of art was displayed, publications where a particular species was
first identified). In certain topical areas, these may have
discipline-specific identifiers, and it would be nice to have a place
to put them.

I thought MODS was intended to be a lightweight way of representing
metadata that is basically bibliographic in XML, and of providing
semantics that are a more natural fit in a library environment than
those of Dublin Core elements. But I could be wrong. ;)

I did not necessarily see a bias toward conversion from existing MARC
vs. initial creation in MODS. Nor did I see it as the Holy Grail
successor to MARC. I think that the true successor to MARC will only be
developed from rigorous analysis (as Tom Delsey has done for LC) of the
current format and an extensive community process. Given the huge volume
and great complexity of data flow in our community AND the current focus
on how to implement FRBR, it will take time to get this right. I guess I
was thinking that MARCXML and MODS between them would tide us over until
that happy day.

--Robin

Robin Wendler ........................ work (617) 495-3724
Office for Information Systems ....... fax (617) 495-0491
Harvard University Library ........... [log in to unmask]
Cambridge, MA, USA 02138 .............


On Tue, 11 Jun 2002, Roy Tennant wrote:

> I'm certainly not the one to tell anyone what it _is_, but I can
> certainly speak up about what I _hope_ it would be, and that would be a
> general purpose, extensible, and highly granular bibliographic metadata
> standard. I want an XML record schema that is much more extensible than
> MARC, that can take us beyond the limitations of MARC and enable much
> richer records (e.g., tables of contents, reviews, etc.) than is
> presently possible without standing on our heads (just how much can we
> stuff into a 500 field I wonder?). It should be able to take everything
> worth saving from MARC, but also be used to create records from scratch.
> In the best of all possible worlds, it will both replace MARC and take
> us well beyond it. But that's just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.
> Roy
>
> On Tuesday, June 11, 2002, at 06:02 PM, Karen Coyle wrote:
>
> > Robin, can you tell us what those identifers are?
> >
> > Also, when I asked many moons ago about the purpose of MODS I was given
> > the
> > impression that it was intended as a way to transform MARC to XML, and
> > was
> > not expected to be for the direct creation of MARC-like XML. I may have
> > misunderstood that, but I know we had that conversation. Yet, all of the
> > discussions of MODS that I see (outside of this list) are with people
> > who
> > are trying to create MODS records from non-MARC metadata.
> >
> > So, once again, am I thoroughly confused as to the purpose of MODS?!
> >
> > kc
> >
> > At 12:27 PM 6/11/2002 -0400, Robin Wendler wrote:
> >> Hi, all -- Someone here took a look at MODS and rejected it in part
> >> because his data contains two key identifiers that fall outside the
> >> enumerated list in MODS identifierType "type" attribute. There is a
> >> "local" value, but people will need to be able to specify the scheme
> >> when
> >> there is more than one unsanctioned ID number.
> >>
> >> I know MODS cannot be all things to all people, but do you see any
> >> value
> >> to allowing an optional "otherIdentifierType" attribute?
> >>
> >> (NB: In genreType, MODS forks between the enumerated list and an
> >> "otherGenre". The cases are not quite parallel, but the idea is
> >> similar.)
> >>
> >> Thanks for your thoughts on this,
> >>
> >> -- Robin