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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
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