[OAI-implementers] Archaeological Metadata

[Rohit Kelapure]

Dear All,

I would like to know your thoughts on the following problem :

I need to expose metadata related to Archaeological artifacts/records. 
Archaeology is characterized by complex, dynamic and highly structured 
datasets consisting of visual as well as textual information. Therefore this 
discipline would  benefit from a representation in a  standardized fashion for 
the large number of internal and external cross-references among the 
individual elements of archaeological datasets.There doesn't exist a single 
archaeology specific metadata description language. A family of metadata 
standards is required to describe a single resource like Qualified Dublin 
core, FGDC, GCMD, DIF etc.

I am looking at RDF to solve this problem. RDF does not stipulate semantics 
for each resource description community, but rather provides the ability for  
communities to define metadata elements as needed. Would RDF be the correct 
approach to take here or would it be better to expose each resource in 
different metadata formats.What is the support provided by OAI for RDF? As 
OAI-PMH necessitates a schema for other metadata formats, is such a schema 
available for RDF? Has anyone exposed collection records with  RDF metadata 
through OAI?

What are other the other options for exposing complex hierarchical datasets 
using OAI.

All suggestions are welcome.


--Thanks
Rohit Kelapure.
Virginia Tech.