[OAI-implementers] XSD file for qualified DC

[Ann Apps]

Herbert,


I agree entirely with your suggestion about using OpenURL as a 
parallel metadata format.


However, as the question which started this was about qualified 
DC, I would like to point out that there may be some confusion 
about the meaning of 'citation', especially about the DC-Citation 
stuff, which has also been referred to as connected with OpenURL 
by the Ariadne paper 
(http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue27/metadata/). A confusion which 
probably wasn't helped by my earlier email.


The term 'citation' is used to describe 2 similar but different things. 
It is easiest to desribe this for journal articles.


1. The bibliographic citation information (journal, issue, pagination) 
for an article as part of the metadata for the article itself. This is 
what publishers refer to as the header information for the article.


2. The citation information for papers cited by an article which are 
listed in the references section of the article.


The DC-Citation work is, so far, about (1). Maybe the choice of the 
term 'citation' was unfortunate, because everyone assumes it 
means (2), but it's difficult to think of a better word. This is why the 
encoding suggested for dc-citation is within a dc:identifier element, 
because of the recognition that the bibliographic citation can 
effectively identify the article. [This could obviously be extrapolated 
to (2) but would be within a dc:relation/dcterms:references element.]


The scenario you describe is for citation (2). Here the parallel 
metadata format within a context object you describe looks perfect. 
This is obviously a major OAI requirement, for initiatives such as 
Citebase.


But I think that citation (1) will also be needed as OAI is used for 
more than just eprints repositories. For instance, if you wanted to 
provide OAI records from an A+I database, or a journal article table 
of contents database, you would need to be able to detail the 
journal/issue information within each record. I could see this being 
of use for harvesting records for the latest journal issues available 
in such a service. I think you can still use the OpenURL metadata 
for this but that it would be 'nested' within the DC record, similar to 
the noddy example I previously wrote. At the moment we're still 
stuck with using unrecognised DC structured values in literal 
strings within simple DC to pass this information around. 


But at present, I think that the OAI priority is citations(2), and this 
current development looks really promising. Citations(1) will need 
more discussion within DC.


Best wishes,

	Ann



On Tue, 18 Jun 2002 herbert van de sompel wrote:


<color><param>7F00,0000,0000</param>> 1. In the context of the OAI-PMH, it would make a lot of sense to

> treat citations as a parallel metadata format.  The unqualified DC

> record describes the "paper", whereas another record (under the same

> item) describes all the citations made in the "paper".  That is what

> Carl suggested in his mail.  And that is the approach that Stevan

> Harnad and I discussed at last year's OAI-related conference in

> Geneva.  This approach makes sense in that it is extensible: it allows

> other stuff related to the "paper" (for instance usage logs,

> certification metadata, preservation metadata, etc.) to be treated in

> yet other parallel records under the same item.

> 

> 2. When it comes to choosing a "metadata format" to describe those

> citations, looking at OpenURL makes a lot of sense.  Not only because

> it is becoming a standard, but because its purpose really IS to

> describe stuff (read "citations" in this context) by building on a

> broad range of identifier-namespaces and a multitude of metadata

> formats.  Moreover, OpenURL allows not only for the description of a

> "citation" but (optionally) also of entities that make up the context

> in which the "citation" appears.  That is very significant when

> thinking about the possibility of open linking at the level of OAI

> service providers. And it is significant when thinking of using

> "OpenURL" as a parallel metadata format, as it allows the citation to

> remain attached to the thing in which it is cited.

> 

</color>[...]


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Mrs. Ann Apps. Senior Analyst - Research & Development, MIMAS,
     University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 161 275 6039    Fax: +44 (0) 0161 275 6040
Email: ann.apps@man.ac.uk  WWW: http://epub.mimas.ac.uk/ann.html
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