[OAI-implementers] clarifying a point about NSDL

Naomi Dushay Naomi@cs.cornell.edu
Wed, 6 Aug 2003 09:58:22 -0400


I think Bob's note has a misconception about the NSDL, and I just want
to clarify it here, before misinformation is disseminated.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Donahue [mailto:bob_donahue@wgbh.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 8:33 AM
> Subject: [OAI-implementers] Re: Reconsidering mandatory DC in OAI-PMH
> 
> In our repository, many of the digital assets are video.  However due
to
> extreme short-sightedness on some group's part, video isn't included
in
> the
> list of media formats and is deprecated to "image".  So, anyone
finding
> our collection through (for example) the NSDL gets the first
impression
> that we're a collection of still images and a few documents.   This
> hinders
> our efforts considerably.  I don't think anyone would say this isn't a
> fundamental problem.

NSDL search limits use a combination of the DC Type and DC format
fields, 
so if materials are identified as video in the format element, the items
will appear properly as "video", even if Image is in the Type element 
(the current DC recommendation).

The above implies that the NSDL *is* able to distinguish items as
videos.

As for concerns about what *can't* be expressed with oai_dc:  oai_dc is
*simple* DC.  Anyone is always welcome to provide metadata in qualified
DC or in any other rich format, in *addition* to simple DC.   The NSDL
prefers to harvest qualified DC, but most sites only provide us with
oai_dc.

So if simple DC doesn't meet your needs, serve an additional format.  

Both DCMI (www.dublincore.org) and the NSDL have schemas for qualified
DC. 

	http://www.dublincore.org/schemas/xmls/  

      http://metamanagement.comm.nsdlib.org/record_examples.html  Follow
the schema chains (xsi:schemaLocation) to find the schemas for nsdl_dc.

- Naomi