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Hi Rebecca,

thanks for the reply, I appreciate your help.

On 11-Apr-07 at 15:48 -0400 Rebecca S. Guenther wrote:

> Thank you for this feedback. Part of the problem in having
> "suggested values" instead of an enumerated list, of course, is
> inconsistency. People can use anything they want, but you are
> right, there is benefit in using a controlled list for
> interoperability purposes.

Having simply "suggested values" (instead of a fixed enumerated
list) for detail @type and extent @unit is fine, though it would
greatly help if the online documentation would make a consistent
recommendation on best practices. A clear recommendation for common
unit names would help implementers to maintain interoperability.
Thanks for considering this.

> Our intent at the time (as I recall and as I find in some early
> documentation) was to have the type attribute under detail in the
> singular and the unit attribute as plural. Rationale is that the
> detail is a generic "type" and unit is under extent, which usually
> has a start and an end-- that suggests the plural. 

This makes sense to me. However, personally, I'd prefer the simpler
approach to always use exactly the same word to describe a
particular type/unit, i.e. always use either plural or singular.

> As to the example that you mention with detail type=page number
> and extent that has a start and no end, we need to fix that. I
> don't think the type=page number makes sense, although we did use
> a real example at the time. What you use in <part> depends on how
> your document is structured.
> 
> Originally <part> was included in MODS to be able to give a parsed
> citation and it was only available under relatedItem with
> type="host". In that case you would specify the volume and issue
> that the article appeared in under <detail> (using <number>,
> <caption>, etc.). We later included <part> at the MODS level to
> enable the description of parts of a whole. In the case of a
> single page, I would recommend using extent with the start and end
> (as the schema specifies, we would repeat the single page number
> in <end>).

Thanks for the clarification.

> If others have used <part> differently, please let us know.

Bibutils and refbase currently use for single-page items (such as
journal articles or book chapters, under 'relatedItem type="host"'):

 <part>
   ...
   <detail type="page">
     <number>37</number>
   </detail>
 </part>

and for multi-page items:

 <part>
   ...
   <extent unit="page">
     <start>37</start>
     <end>47</end>
   </extent>
 </part>

Here are four sample MODS records as exported by refbase that
demonstrate cases for single page, multiple pages, and total pages:

 <http://demo.refbase.net/show.php?records=3,6,7,12&submit=Export&exportFormat=MODS%20XML&exportType=file>

But if I understand your suggestions correctly, the recommended way
would be for single-page items:

 <part>
   ...
   <extent unit="pages">
     <start>37</start>
     <end>37</end>
   </extent>
 </part>

and for multi-page items:

 <part>
   ...
   <extent unit="pages">
     <start>37</start>
     <end>47</end>
   </extent>
 </part>

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

> We will correct the documentation. Thank you for bringing this to
> our attention.

Thanks for considering any improvements to the documentation.

Regards, Matthias
__________________________________________
Matthias Steffens   ----   www.refbase.net