On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 09:02, Houghton,Andrew wrote:
> So I will reiterate the direction that I would like to see MODS move
> towards: controlled lists in MODS should be URI based or use a URI for
> the "controlling authority" along with the term from the controlled
> list, so that other metadata communities can plug in their own controlled
> lists. Doing that would still be in alignment with CORES work that LC has
> already undertaken.
Yes, it's definitely better to allow users to insert their own lists
rather than trying to make one list that meets all needs. In addition to
be doomed to failure ;-), by combining terms from multiple lists you
lose the context that helps define the term. I worry about terms that
mean different things in different contexts -- if you have a term like
"review" that means "review article" in a scientific database but means
"book review" in a literature database, you'll need to know which one it
is, and that is defined by the "controlling authority" for that list.
One question though: what do we do with lists that aren't being
presented by the controlling authority in a URI-addressable form? Should
MODS endeavor to create and keep these lists, i.e. for Endnote and
others? What will be our mechanism for determining what consitutes a
valid list?
--
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Karen Coyle
Digital Library Specialist
http://www.kcoyle.net
Ph: 510-540-7596 Fax: 510-848-3913
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