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From: Jens �stergaard Petersen

> In MODS, @type is used to subcategorize. We don't have <personalName> and

> <corporateName> and so on - and lucky for that.

 

I don't agree that we are lucky for that.  MODS name, using a type attribute
rather than defining separate element names, reflects design thinking of
perhaps 12 years ago. It did not consider (too early to) the implications of
trying to represent MODS in RDF. 

 

If you were creating RDF properties for these, and you knew up front that
there most likely would never be more than a small number of types -
personal, conference, corporate, and family, to begin and possibly a small
handful added over time - you would create properties personalName,
conferenceName, corporateName, and famililyName (all subproperties of
property 'name').   I think the same applies to title: uniformTitle,
abbreviatedTitle, etc. 

 

In fact, for a MODS element where there might be hundreds of types, some
well-known and others not - let's say, <note>  - it isn't clear that just
defining <note> with @type is necessarily the best approach.   Suppose you
decide that 90% of the time you will use 15 note types and the other 10% the
type may be arbitrary.  I would define properties for the more popular
types, e.g.  actionNote, adminNote, languageNote, etc. whose objects are all
string, and one property 'note" where the object is an object property where
the type can be explicitly stated. 

 

Something to consider for version 4 perhaps. 

 

Ray