[CF-metadata] Detaching Standards Name Table

From: Roy Lowry <rkl>
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 09:28:38 +0100

Dear All,

In principle I am attracted to Steve's idea and if the demand is there
from the user community would be happy to map the BODC dictionary to the
Standard Names schema and provide an export in compatible XML. This
could also support Steve's suggestion of versioning definitions as once
the major overhaul of the BODC dictionary is completed mechanisms will
be turned on that archive previous versions of all updated records in
the dictionary tables.

I would, however, make one plea. If a culture where individual groups
are encouraged to develop their own vocabularies is established, then I
would strongly recommend some measure of control and a forum where these
vocabulary developers can collaborate. As Ag points out, these
vocabularies will inevitably overlap and the overlaps need to be covered
by thesauri. I can tell you from fairly unpleasant experience that
building the thesauri as the vocabularies develop (or agreeing to use
each other's terms where appropriate) is much less painful than mapping
independently-developed dictionaries each containing thousands of
entries.

Cheers, Roy.
Received on Wed Jun 23 2004 - 02:28:38 BST