metadata

[Heidi Johnson]

Nick Thieberger wrote:
>Dear OLAC implemeenters

>I write to ask if the metadata discusssion is ongoing or is it now closed? As we
>develop our archive we are adding to our controlled vocabularies and wonder if the
>OLAC (that is, the community) want to add these to the standards, or prefer to have
>metadata extensions for each small repository.

>It seems to me that enhancing the OLAC standard would be preferable, so  we are
>suggesting that 'song' and 'instrumental_music'  be added to the datatypes.

>We also ask that 'isTranscriptof', 'isTranscribedby' be added as attributes of the
>relation element.

What did we decide about a revision schedule for metadata terms? Did we decide
anything? Maybe we should have something like an annual revision  protocol,
whereby we discuss revisions on the list for a month or so and then adjust the docs?
Would that make sense?

We certainly need to change the controlled vocabularies from time to time. I
remember that our goal during the workshops was to keep the lists as short as
possible, but my personal feeling is that they should be allowed to grow as needed.
100 terms is a lot to display on a menu, but it's not particularly troublesome to
search. Archives might not need all of them, but as a group we will surely end up
needed a largish set of, for example, genre terms.

I've already added 'chant' to AILLA's genre keywords, even though it's not in either
OLAC or IMDI. But every second thing from Amazonia is a chant, and all the experts
agree that a chant is a chant is a chant: it's not speech+song, or whatever.  We also
have 'song', so I second Nick's amendment, and agree that we need
'instrumental_music' as well.

I think we were being too strict about whether a genre is linguistic or not. In
documenting endangered languages, we get all kinds of materials that properly
belong in the same corpus, although they may not be linguistic data. instrumental
music is certainly one such; teaching materials are another. We are getting more
and more of this kind of thing (calendars, illustrated encyclopedias, primers, etc.) at
AILLA and we strongly encourage archiving and disseminating these things broadly,
because they are so useful for helping everyone think of better ways to revitalize and
support these languages. So, we need genre terms for this stuff, too. Any ideas?

I haven't seen any attributes of the Relation element: is there a document for that?
I would also second Nick's 'isTranscriptof', 'isTranscribedby'. Perhaps then we would
also want 'isTranslationof', 'isAnnotationof'?? The standard companion texts, in other
words.

I think it's worth being fully descriptive rather than strictly parsimonious with terms.

Just my $0.02.

Heidi Johnson