http://www.w3.org/RDF/Overview.html
Regarding Stuart's question about whether these standards are
complimentary or contradictory, if I understand RDF correctly it sounds
like they would be complimentary. RDF sounds like a structure to allow
top level navigation amongst broad classes of information, and it sounds
like Dublin Core elements could be applied underneath RDF for navigation
within or amongst the selected broad classes...I didn't stick around
long enought to find out if RDF has a specific class for archives, or
archival finding aids (this brings back nightmares of MARC format
integration discussions concerning certain leader bytes). I also suspect
that EAD might be used underneath a Dublin Core description of an
encoded finding aid...So perhaps the hierarchy is supposed to work like
this:
RDF: Select information type "archives" or "text" ("Book" was used as an
example at W3c)
Dublin Core: Select title or author/creator
EAD: Display and navigate archival finding aid for the collection -
access specific digital objects (e.g. a specific photograph in the
collection...)
I suppose you could enter the hierarchy at any level and hopefully
sufficient metadata would exist to provide appropriate context....I'll
probably pick up alot more about this in Washington next week....
Rob Spindler, Head
Dept. of Archives and Manuscripts
Arizona State University Libraries, Box 871006 Tempe, AZ 85287