>>> [log in to unmask] 02/03/05 4:29 PM >>> > But is this a reasonable comparison? I may be wrong, but DC doesn't in > any way control the type values; does it? http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-type-vocabulary/ > If that's right, then here > you're just introducing another element to hold content that could just > as easily be coded directly in mods:genre. And you're moving the > problem (which is how to validate the content of the node based on the > authority) to that schema. That is precisely the bug/feature dichotomy. If the foreign genre terms etc. are in separate schemata, the maintainers of MODS do not have to keep their schema in sync with controlled vocabularies outside their purview. > Right, so again you want to make the instance (and everything that goes > along with that; from editing to query to processing) more complex to > make the other stuff "easier"? Namespaces make obvious the complexity inherent in supporting multiple vocabularies, I think. > The problem isn't really that complicated in the abstract (e.g. > notwithstanding any implementation details) is it? Yes. From the user guidelines, here are the possible values for the authority attribute on <genre>: http://www.loc.gov/marc/sourcecode/genre/genresource.html Even using RNG, you must admit it would not be practical to support all those vocabularies within the MODS schema. --Andy