Bruce D'Arcus wrote:

>As for my own standpoint I've sort of come to the conclusion that our
>citation needs are rather different than the needs of libraries.  I am
>trying to push that OpenDocumen include DC and Qualified DC out of the
>box, and provide a framework for predictable (RDF) extension.
>
>
>  
>
There is one extension that I would love to see in DC or in any other 
metadata format that will be encoding journal-type items: enumeration 
and chronology. The MARC format does this well (logically), but it is 
hard for people to grasp because of the MARC structure, I think. 
Essentially, one of the great complications of serial publications are 
these hierarchies of volume, number, etc. What's complicated is that 
there is a near-infinity of patterns that has been used in actual 
practice. Some journals have parts that are hierarchically superior to 
volume, others have parts that are subdivisions of volume, some journals 
go straight to number, and some have no numbering at all. A fairly 
simple structure could encode many (probably not all -- serials can be 
very weird) of these by allowing any number of levels as long as they 
are 1) in order and/or 2) named. So I'm thinking that a structure like:

<enumAndChron>
   <level>1</level>
   <caption>Volume</caption>
   <designation>5</designation>
</enumAndChron>
<enumAndChron>
  <level>2</level>
  <caption>Part</caption>
  <designation>B</designation>
</enumAndChron>
<enumAndChron>
  <level>3</level>
  <caption>Number</caption>
  <designation>12</designation>
  <chronology>December, 1996</chronology>
  <codedChron>19961200</codedChron>
</enumAndChron>

Which essentially translates to: Volume 5, Part B, Number 12, December, 
1996, but if your journal had the part before the volume, then part 
would be level 1, etc.

This should also be able to accommodate journals with un-captioned 
levels, any number of levels, lack of chronology, journals with only 
chronology, etc. This is what the 85x and 86x fields in the MARC 
holdings record can do. It will probably need another data element or 
two for exceptions (i.e. for index volumes), but we should be able to 
come up with something that works pretty well without much effort. Or am 
I totally deluded?!

kc

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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
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