[OAI-implementers] ListMetadataFormats problem

[Young,Jeff]

I'm working on an OAI repository for a group that wants to define it's own
metadata format. The trick is, this format will be a combination of Dublin
Core elements and some new elements yet to be defined. The examples in the
OAI specs, however, all assume that the metadata will consist of elements
from a single namespace. I believe, for the most part, that the OAI spec
doesn't preclude the use of multiple namespaces. For example, I imagine that
the following XML fragment is likely to be acceptable:

<combined xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:myelems="http://www.myelems.com/"
	xmlns:xsi="..."
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
		http://www.myelems.com/
		http://www.myelems.com/combined.xsd">
  <dc:title>This is the title</dc:title>
  <myelems:shoesize>12</myelems:shoesize>
</combined>

(As far as I can tell, specifying multiple namespaces in the
xsi:schemaLocation attribute is perfectly valid.)

Assuming no one sees any problems with this, I do think I see a problem with
ListMetadataFormats.xsd. Now that multiple namespaces are involved, I expect
that ListMetadataFormats will need to accommodate them with multiple
metadataNamespace elements. The XML schema for ListMetadataFormats, however,
sets the maxOccurs for metadataNamespace to one. I suspect this is easily
changed to unbounded.

Hopefully, the problem is no more involved than this, but someone may want
to check my assumptions.

Thanks,
Jeff

---
Jeffrey A. Young
Senior Consulting Systems Analyst
Office of Research, Mail Code 710
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
6565 Frantz Road
Dublin, OH   43017-3395
www.oclc.org

Voice:	614-764-4342
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Email:	jyoung@oclc.org