Subject: Re: DC in Bib1? (Was: GILS Use Attributes merged into Bib-1)
William E. Moen (wemoen@jove.acs.unt.edu)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 15:30:01 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
From: "William E. Moen" <wemoen@jove.acs.unt.edu> To: gils@cni.org Subject: Re: DC in Bib1? (Was: GILS Use Attributes merged into Bib-1) In-Reply-To: <35B73F40.58C0CF16@fgdclearhs.er.usgs.gov> Message-Id: <SIMEON.9807231501.O@slis-NT85151.unt.edu> Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1998 15:30:01 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, Douglas Nebert <ddnebert@fgdclearhs.er.usgs.gov> wrote:
>
> You are not alone. A number of us have been scratching
> our heads over these decisions. Things like this (and the CIMI
> effort most recently) have been striking out on inventing new
> attribute numbers and not worrying about interoperability. I believe
> the genesis of it is that in Version 3, your Use Attributes are or
> can be qualified by the Attribute Set they come from, so one can
> have bib1/4 and dc/1097 asked as two terms in the same query.
> Not that this solves anything, but the software now supports
> such operations and I think the practicality of juggling lots of
> sets at once is considered out of scope to narrowly defined
> disciplines who mostly talk to themselves (figuratively).
>
> I very much agree with you that a base set of use attributes,
> such as bib-1, should be endorsed and re-used wherever
> semantically appropriate if cross-discipline search is sought.
> If this key aspect of Z39.50 is abandoned in practice, then
> a number of us will abandon Z39.50 when it no longer supports
> "easy" cross-domain searching. There are discussions of
> an Attribute Architecture that might heal some of this semantic
> matching, but I don't know if its progress or effect.
>
> It would appear that Dublin Core wants to be the "center"
> and pretend bib-1 tags as we know them don't really exist. I
> don't think this is a smart move, and it's likely one we'll
> regret, since it effectively isolates information communities
> who have a potential to coming together over a simple set of
> base search terms!
Doug:
In your response below to Kevin about BIB-1, GILS, and DC, you
reference the CIMI effort and its resulting profile for searching
cultural heritage resources (available at
<http://www.cimi.org/products/cimi_products.html#THREE>). You state
that by implication that CIMI was gratuitously "inventing new attribute
numbers and not worrying about interoperability." Your basis for such
a claim is really unclear. It'd be enlightening to hear more
specifically your concerns.
The CIMI-1 Attribute Set (available at:
<http://www.cimi.org/downloads/ProfileFinalMar98/appendixa.htm>)
imports a selection of Bib-1 Use attributes precisely because we
envisioned interoperability for users searching museum databases, image
databases, and library catalogs or other bibliographic-like databases.
In addition, CIMI-1 defines a set of new Use attributes to adequately
express the types of searches museum researchers do. That's the beauty
of separate attribute sets developed by communities of interest (e.g.,
museums, geospatial, biological specimen) to adequately allow
expression of the types of searches for the various types of data found
with the communities.
Your comments may really only be referring to the three
geospatially-related attributes defined in CIMI-1. The CIMI Profile
reflects not only work done by CIMI but also the Aquarelle Project in
Europe -- and it reflects Z39.50 specifications used in both projects.
Aquarelle had requirements for referencing location of architectural
monuments and other artifacts. The CIMI-1 Use attributes reflect their
approach for expressing those searches. We would be interested in your
suggestions for the best approach to these attributes.
If your comments are referring to the DC-like attributes defined in the
CIM-1 Attribute Set, what can we say. The Profile (Release 1.0) was
completed prior to the June ZIG meeting when the decision about DC and
BIB-1 was made. CIMI had specific requirements for including DC-like
attributes within the attribute set, precisely because we wanted to
support cross-domain searching. We may agree to disagree about this,
but CIMI concluded that DC can be the "base set of use attributes" you
mention for cross-domain, cross discipline searching.
The CIMI Profile will evolve as we all gain implementation experience
with the specifications. The Attribute Architecture effort you mention
holds promise to resolve some of the concerns and as more
implementations in the US move to Version 3 (which is where many Z39.50
implementations are already at in Europe and elsewhere) the
availability of discrete attribute sets that have no/little semantic
overlap in use attributes can move us forward.
Cheers,
Bill Moen, CIMI Z39.50 Project Manager
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* William E. Moen, Ph.D. *
* School of Library and Information Sciences *
* University of North Texas *
* PO Box 311068 *
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* Email: wemoen@jove.acs.unt.edu *
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