OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

tm-pubsubj-comment message

[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [Elist Home]


Subject: Re: [tm-pubsubj-comment] Relevance of dc:subject to PSIs


At 15:54 25/04/02 +0000, Murray Altheim wrote:
>>>Steve continues:
>>>
>>>>Let me try and make it easier for you to help me. In the following 
>>>>example of a piece of text used as a PSI and employing DC semantics, 
>>>>what might go in the spot marked "*****"?
>>>>
>>>>   Title:        Norway
>>>>   Description:  Country in the Scandinavian peninsula bordering
>>>>                 on Sweden, Finland, and Russia.
>>>>   Identifier:   http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/country.xtm#no
>>>>   Subject:      *****
>
>The exact content of "*****" would be a subject indicator
>string from a known vocabulary such as LoC, DDC, WorldCat, whatever.

OK, now I'm starting to understand. "Subject indicator string" is not a 
term that has precise meaning as yet, so I'll assume you mean "a value from 
a controlled vocabulary or formal classification scheme" (Dublin Core wording).

If I understand correctly, you're saying that a dc:subject metadata 
property on a published subject indicator would be used to state identity 
relationships between the subject indicated by that PSI and subjects 
represented in other controlled vocabularies. By extension this means you 
would be establishing equivalence relationships between the published 
subject *identifier* (the "Identifier" field, above) of the PSI in question 
and the value taken from the controlled vocabulary.

I think the code for Norway in DDC is "914.81", so that could be the value 
of the dc:subject property of the PSI shown above, right?

And if OCLC were to publish a PSI set for DDC following the PubSubj TC 
recommendations, "914.81" might instead be something like 
"http://www.oclc.org/ddc/914.html#81";, right?

Assuming my interpretation is correct, I have the following comments.

(1) In general, establishing mappings like this would (obviously) be very 
useful. If the purpose of Murray's examples was to demonstrate that, then I 
fully agree.

(2) However, I'm uncertain whether we should encourage people to establish 
such mappings in a formal manner through metadata attached to the PSI, 
since this involves making assertions and goes beyond the mere act of 
"indicating a subject". It would be better to encourage people who want to 
establish mappings to do so formally via a topic map, thus:

     <!-- excerpt from a topic map whose purpose is to establish mappings 
between
          ISO 3166 and DDC subject identifiers for countries -->
     <topic id="no">
       <subjectIdentity>
         <subjectIndicatorRef
           xlink:href="http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/country.xtm#no"/>
       </subjectIdentity>
       <subjectIdentity>
         <subjectIndicatorRef
           xlink:href="http://www.oclc.org/ddc/914.html#81"/>
       </subjectIdentity>
     </topic>

Steve

--
Steve Pepper, Chief Executive Officer <pepper@ontopia.net>
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG3  Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps)
Ontopia AS, Waldemar Thranes gt. 98, N-0175 Oslo, Norway.
http://www.ontopia.net/ phone: +47-23233080 GSM: +47-90827246



[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [Elist Home]


Powered by eList eXpress LLC