On Jul 20, 2007, at 5:03 AM, Graham Triggs wrote: > From: "James Rutherford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Assigning or displaying? I find it hard to believe that you actually >> have a problem with giving identifiers to files, but I can understand >> why you might not want your users to know about them. > > Because I don't believe that an identifier should be assigned to > something > unless you are accepting the possibility for it to be used - there > are too > many implications to it's assignment.
We need to reiterate and recognize that in the DSpace 2.0 Architectural Model it was of strong interest that "Metadata" can be attached at any level of the Data Model (Community, Collection, Item, Manifestation and Content). That for all practical purposes, and External Identifiers are "just Metadata" and as such should be assignable across the entire model either manually or dynamically. The ExternalIdentifier implementation simply assures that the "identifier" is truly backed by a "Metadata Registry" service that can provide what amounts to Minting, Validation and a Controlled Vocabulary on that unit of metadata "and" that it can be done so in a very decoupled manner. There are some interesting possibilities when we consider taking this strategy and making it generic for metadata that may not even be considered "Identifiers" such as Authors, Subject Classifications, Dates, etc. Suddenly, we see the possibility for backing any Metadatum with an extensible delegatable mechanism for authority control. I think this is "very important" concept and need that needs to be explored and considered across much of the architecture. Cheers, Mark Diggory ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mark R. Diggory - DSpace Systems Manager MIT Libraries, Systems and Technology Services Massachusetts Institute of Technology Office: E25-131 Phone: (617) 253-1096 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Still grepping through log files to find problems? Stop. Now Search log events and configuration files using AJAX and a browser. Download your FREE copy of Splunk now >> http://get.splunk.com/ _______________________________________________ DSpace-tech mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-tech
