[OAI-implementers] Reconsidering mandatory DC in OAI-PMH

[Jose Borbinha]

I'm confused... I far as I understood from Carl's initial challenge, the
idea is not "forget DC", but "lets open OAI to other formats". And it
was because I understood it this way that I said "yes".

Yes, I know that I can use OAI-PMH to transport records in ANY metadata
schema. In fact that is what we been FORCED to to, EVEN WHEN THAT SCHEMA
AS NOTHING TO DO WITH DCMES (and that is when I feel stupid, because I'm
paying an overhead for nothing...).

Resuming, what I really would like to have would be a simple protocol to
transport metadata, ANY metadata, including DC! Than I'd supposed to be
disciplined enough to understand that if what I want to do is publish my
resource descriptive metadata for a wide audience, than I should use
DCMES.
This should not be a problem for NSDL, NDLTD, and all of those nice
projects over there!

But it would make it easier, for example, for this nice project, where
what we want is to transport Authors descriptions:
http://www.crxnet.com/leaf/ (this has nothing to do with DCMES! I can
follow Jeff's recommendation and use DC to describe the
UNIMARC-Authorities, MARC21-Authorities, and the other few more formats
that we are using in this project, but all of that is useless for us,
and is cheating the model...).

Regards
josé borbinha


-----Mensagem original-----
De: oai-implementers-admin@oaisrv.nsdl.cornell.edu
[mailto:oai-implementers-admin@oaisrv.nsdl.cornell.edu] Em nome de Naomi
Dushay
Enviada: terça-feira, 5 de Agosto de 2003 15:17
Para: oai-implementers@oaisrv.nsdl.cornell.edu
Assunto: RE: [OAI-implementers] Reconsidering mandatory DC in OAI-PMH


I don't have any problem with Jose's suggestions, but:

1.  Jose, do you know that the current OAI-PMH allows any number of XML
schema validating formats, *in addition* to oai_dc?  From your message,
I wasn't sure, and we've encountered many, many, MANY folks who think
that OAI-PMH only allows oai_dc.   While a crosswalk repository may be
useful, it sounded like you were hoping to use crosswalks to
interoperate, rather than using an additional, richer metadata format.

2.  Validating OAI-PMH served metadata to its format, structurally, is
exactly equivalent to XML schema validation of OAI-PMH responses.
OAI-PMH requires an XML schema for each format served.  The XML schema
is the way that computer recognizable structural information about the
metadata is stored.


As for my stance on the oai_dc requirement -- I'm wondering about the
impact on my current employment, the National Science Digital Library.
If NSDL sites have trouble providing oai_dc, and that requirement is
removed, then what?  Can the documents be written in a way that
encourages folks to use oai_dc, particularly if they don't have another
format in mind, or if they're somewhat baffled by OAI-PMH?  Many of our
sites fall into those categories, and losing the basic metadata
interoperability provided by oai_dc could have negative ramifications on
the NSDL.  On the other hand, perhaps the NSDL could provide more
documentation for its contributors.

Lastly, I do believe that the OAI protocol itself could well be "format
neutral", and that would free it up to be used in other ways --
primarly, to exchange any schema validating XML that can be sensibly
broken up into "records."

- Naomi Dushay

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