Re: ALA Session on MODS and MADS: Current implementations and future directions

I wrote:

>> At the same time, Ashley decided that MODS granularity was too fine.
>
> And in other ways MODS doesn't have enough granularity. I'd like
> to see more actual Markup (the type of Markup that the M in
> XML once stood for.)
>
> eg: I'd like to be able to do this sort of thing:
>
> <tableOfContents>Part 1. <work><title>My Book</title>, by
> <name type="..." role="...">Ashley Sanders</name></work>.
> <work><title>Another book</title>, by <name>J. Doe</name></work>.
> ...
> </tableOfContents>
>
> You'd then actually be able to do stuff with the data.

Warming to my theme, should anyone be remotely interested...

Take the following very minimal record from Copac (slightly
edited to remove uninteresting stuff like the record number, etc.)

<mods>
  <originInfo>
   <dateIssued encoding="marc">1840</dateIssued>
  </originInfo>
  <titleInfo>
   <title>Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway Time Tables.</title>
  </titleInfo>
  <name type="corporate">
   <namePart>BIRMINGHAM AND DERBY JUNCTION RAILWAY COMPANY.</namePart>
   <role>
    <roleTerm type="text">creator</roleTerm>
   </role>
  </name>
  <note>In : Midland Counties’ Railway. The Midland Counties’ Railway 
Companion, etc. 1840. 12º.</note>
</mods>

What would be nice is to be able to encode it something like this:

<mods>
  <originInfo>
   <dateIssued encoding="marc">1840</dateIssued>
  </originInfo>
  <title><name type="corporate">Birmingham and Derby Junction 
Railway</name> Time Tables.</title>
  <name type="corporate">
   BIRMINGHAM AND DERBY JUNCTION RAILWAY COMPANY.
   <role type="text">creator</role>
  </name>
  <note>In : <name type="corporate">Midland Counties’ Railway</name>. 
<work relation="In"><title>The <name type="corporate">Midland Counties’ 
Railway</name> Companion</title>, etc. <dateIssued>1840</dateIssued>. 
<format>12º</format></work>.</note>
</mods>

Ie, if we have mixed content in the XML we can drop the need for
having a <titleInfo> tag as a parent for <title>. Likewise we can
get rid of the <namePart> tag inside the <name> tag; and get
rid of <roleTerm> inside <role>. (Actually I'd prefer to get rid
<role> and replace it with an attribute of <name>.)

We would be able to mark-up names, titles and other interesting info
inside notes -- in fact, inside any other element.

I think what we would end up with is the potential for much richer
records, while simplifying the tag structure.

Regards,

Ashley.
-- 
Ashley Sanders               a.sanders_at_manchester.ac.uk
Copac http://copac.ac.uk A Mimas service funded by JISC