>Well I'll try to pull together a few thoughts scattered throughout earlier
>messages, for a more coherent purpose:
>
>These would be a set of search points that:
>
>1. would have the best chance of corresponding cleanly to indexes when the
>database is mods,
>
"when the database is mods..." Here we get into the different ways that
one can implement a record format as a database. There are times when a
database design and a record format are closely aligned, such that the
fields in the record are pretty much the searchable fields in the
database. I wouldn't expect this to be the case with mods due to 1) the
general complexity of fields and subfields 2) the re-use of data
elements in different contexts (e.g. name as subject v. name as creator,
or the whole related record structure that consists of the mods record
inside itself). My assumption is that indexes are not equal to fields in
a bibliographic database using mods or marc as their record formats, for
these reasons. With dublin core, because of its flat structure, I can
imagine an implementation in a small database that treats each of the
fields as an index, but my experience with more complex bibliographic
data is that indexes are constructed and do not correspond directly to
the record's fields. I guess that's what has confused me about this
exercise -- because I see indexes as being a database implementation and
not a function of the record.

But, you asked for comments on your list.... so I would propose that
these elements are NOT useful for searching:

edition
issuance (enumerated)
frequency
extent
location URL
part- detail - number
part- detail - caption

part - extent - start
part - extent - end
part - extent - total
part - date

And I'm not clear on the element "part- detail - title". I believe that
we have only "part-title" and that it refers to a host item, not a
detail of the item in the bibliographic record. This would suggest that
you would need an element "title-host" because "part-title" would seem
to be a reference to the title of the part, and that is in the main
title data element (equivalent to the MARC 245). I also note that there
are no search fields here for the "related item" fields, like earlier
and later titles for serials.

In terms of the identifiers,

identifier-hdl
identifier-doi
identifier-isbm
identifier-isrc
identifier-ismn
identifier-issn

... does it make sense that the search term and/or the index will be
identifier specific, or that the identifiers themselves will carry their
own identification, like "doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2004.12.001"? Should
there be a generic identifier element that can carry the many other
identifiers that can be found in a mods record?

I'll see if other things strike me when I look over your list again.

kc

> but would also be mapable to other formats, perhaps not
>quite as cleanly; and
>2. are implementable; and
>3. are considered useful for searching.
>
>--Ray
>
>
>
>

--
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Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
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