Re: Proposed text for provenance section

John S. Erickson wrote:

>Rob wrote:
>
>  
>
>>\subsection{The Library Domain}
>>
>>    
>>
>:
>  
>
>>No one who actually manages archives expects to track
>>changes to the metadata over time.  In traditional library/
>>information management systems logs are kept around to
>>track metadata changes temporarily, but it's just not
>>considered important to the core mission of managing the
>>\emph{content} over time.  Schemas change, contexts change,
>>resources get described in myriad ways (all at the same time),
>>people make mistakes, fix them, we add stuff, we remove stuff,
>>and libraries do not track all this.
>>    
>>
>
>JSE: This statement is pretty troubling to me.
>
>* Can we reasonably say that "no one who actually manages archives" CARES
>about the provenance of metadata over time? That schemas change AND THEY WON'T
>CARE? That contexts change AND THEY WON'T CARE? I don't think so.
>  
>
Even though Librarians do not track metadata changes over time, they may 
well track the sources of various pieces of metadata.  If a library 
outsources an update of their records to correct references to names 
within some naming authority, they will most likely want to annotate all 
of the records that have been verified with some additional *metadata* 
provenance. 

What is provenance?  It is just metadata.  Some metadata describes 
assets, other metadata describes metadata.  Rob was listing a specific 
situation that Libraries do not care about tracking, but that doesn't 
mean that there is no meta-metadata that is worth tracking.


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Received on Tuesday, 8 July 2003 10:51:44 UTC