> Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 06:43:01 -0500
> From: Eliot Christian <[log in to unmask]>
>
> A specific example occurs with "dc.creator" (and I do acknowledge
> the alias "dc.author"). Its definition in the GILS context is:
>
> The name of the originator of the information resource.
> Note: originator is defined as "The agent, whether person
> or organization, responsible for all or portions of the
> information resource."
>
> The DC context set doesn't provide a definition, but the DCMI site
> defines Creator in version 1.1 as: "An entity primarily responsible
> for making the content of the resource."
>
> In effect, I have overloaded the DC semantics to move the emphasis
> away from "Who gets the creative credit for this?" toward the sense
> of "Who stands behind this?". (I think this reflects the difference
> between an academic and information publishing orientation versus
> a legalistic and information compiling orientation.)
I see what you've done, there. Nice example, clear exposition.
> My question is: Is such unilateral overloading permissible from the
> CQL perspective?
We've not discussed this before, so I can only offer an opinion. The
elegantly designed but almost totally overlooked Z39.50 Attribute
Architecture got this right IMHO:
http://www.loc.gov/z3950/agency/attrarch/attrarch.html
It has two attribute types, Semantic Qualifier and Functional
Qualifier, that you can use to explicitly refine the semantics of an
access point. So, for example, the AA-compliant BIB-2 profile says
that the way to search for Author is to use the Cross Domain attribute
set's "Name" access point with the functional qualifier "Creation".
This is excellent Computer Science, but not as much fun as just typing
"author=Holtz" :-)
CQL has no concepts directly corresponding to functional qualfier and
semantic qualifier. However, we could implement these if we wanted to
by using a relation modifier (slightly overloading the concept, but
then we do that for specifying term structure already so I won't lose
sleep over it):
dc.creator =/gils.authorStandsBehind holtz
This is quite cute, because it means that cross-domain servers that
don't know anything about GILS can silently ignore the unrecognised
modifier and still give you a reasonable response. (Whether that
would be a good thing for interoperability is a whole nother issue,
which I don't propose to go into here.)
So we could go that route. The alternative is just to go ahead and do
what you're suggesting, which is to have the GILS profile specify
that, for application operating under that profile, the semantics of
dc.creator are as stated.
My feeling is that the latter is more practical and maybe even more
desirable, but I am open to be persuaded.
>>> For instance, the index named "identifier" occurs in the Record
>>> Metadata http://srw.cheshire3.org/contextSets/rec/1.1/ as "A
>>> unique local identifier for the record within the current
>>> context". This is quite general and similar to Dublin Core, where
>>> it is defined as "An unambiguous reference to the resource within
>>> a given context."
>>
>> Aha -- not quite! The Dublin Core identifier element is the
>> identifier of the resource you're describing, whereas the Rec set's
>> identifier is that of the record that's describing it.
>
> Understood. But, in both cases the semantics of "identifier"
> specifies that it is application is "within the current context".
> So, Rec could use "dc.identifier" rather than creating
> "rec.identifier".
No, it makes no sense to talk about one context set "using" another.
They are different context sets. Only a profile can use a context
set.
> (And, BTW, I also need "identifier" in GILS and I don't know which
> one to use.)
It depends entirely on whether you want to identify resources (in
which case use dc.identifier) or the records that talk about them (in
which case use rec.identifier). Or it's quite possible that you might
have legitimate uses for both of these.
_/|_ _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/ Mike Taylor <[log in to unmask]> http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\ "Lisp is just glorified C with completely different brackets"
-- Harvey "Max" Thompson.
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