<P>hi all,</P>
<P>thank you Margret for your prompt reply. and am happy to see that my query has generated a discussion on this subject. even i tend to agree with Dr. Goodman and Alfred on this. the basic goal of the DCMI was to give a 'core' set of metadata that would help in cross-domain search. but if the elements create ambiguity in usage then it is better they not be included in the core set of DC or its usage be optional.</P>
<P>thank you again for your time and help,</P>
<P>best regards,</P>
<P>dp.<BR><SMALL>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> Margret Branschofsky <margretb@MIT.EDU><BR><B>Date:</B> 2004/06/21 11:47:36<BR><B>To:</B> "dp007" <dp007@coolgoose.com>, dspace-general@MIT.EDU<BR><IF ?? ne><B>Cc:</B> <BR></IF><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Dspace-general] metadata: source and creator<BR><BR></SMALL><FONT size=3>DSpace uses the Contributor element instead of the Creator element because this relieves the user of the burden of deciding who, of all the people involved in the production of an item, is "primarily responsible" in the creation of the item. We added roles to contributor, thinking that was more specific than the vague "creator" field. So we have Contributor. author, Contributor.editor, Contributor.illustrator...etc. And if anyone wants to leave it vague, they can use the unqualified Contributor field.<BR><BR>Our guide in this decision was the Libraries Application Profile (LAP) of the Dublin Core, which was in an early d!
raft stage at the time of DSpace launching. This draft conflated the Contributor and Creator elements into one. When the DC Libraries Group published the present draft of the LAP (officially called DC-Lib), the contributor and creator elements reappeared as separate elements. However, there is a comment under both of these elements that states "Creator and Contributor may be conflated if desired by the application".<BR><BR>We left Creator in our schema only because we anticipated that we might in the future harvest metadata that contains values in the Creator element, and we wanted to be able to accept that information.<BR><BR>As time goes by we see that this decision is proving to be somewhat inconvenient for metadata harvesters. <BR><BR>As for Source, at the time of DSpace launching the LAP (and also the DCMI) were counseling people not to use Source because it had been mis-used by some applications, in their opinion. Since then I have seen i!
ts use being recommended again, so it might be time for us to change t
hat line in our guidelines. This would be fairly simple. Changing Creator/Contributor would be more complicated.<BR><BR>This is the historical explanation. I'd love to hear more comments about how to proceed in light of developments to date. <BR><BR>Margret Branschofsky<BR>DSpace User Support Manager<BR>Digital Library Research Group<BR>Bldg. 14S-M24<BR>(617)253-1293<BR>margretb@mit.edu<BR><A href="http://dspace.mit.edu/" eudora="autourl">http://dspace.mit.edu<BR><BR><BR></A>At 02:48 AM 6/21/2004 +0550, dp007 wrote:<BR></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=cite cite="" type="cite">hi all,<BR><BR>dspace recommends not to use the metadata creator and source. it <BR>says "only for harvested metadata". can anyone explain this?<BR><BR>thanks in advance,<BR>regards,<BR>dp<BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Dspace-general mailing list<BR>Dspace-general@mit.edu<BR><A href="http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/dspace-general" eudora="autourl">http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/dspace-general</A> </BLOCKQUOTE><X-SIGSEP>
<P></X-SIGSEP>Margret Branschofsky<BR>DSpace User Support Manager<BR>Digital Library Research Group<BR>Bldg. 14S-M24<BR>(617)253-1293<BR>margretb@mit.edu<BR><A href="http://dspace.mit.edu/" eudora="autourl">http://dspace.mit.edu</A></FONT> </P>