RE: HTML title element, DC.title

Matt,
>From a writer's perspective, I'd like to explore the analogy further. 
1. Book titles and HTML page titles have to fit in a confined space, and
therefore need to be short and to the point to be legible or entirely
visible, respectively. (Likewise chapter and web page headings, for much the
same reason.)
2. Library record cards and DC metadata do not have the same physical
limitations, and it *may* be advantageous to expand on the limited
spine/title information for the assistance of the reader. For example,
imagine that I find 10 books or pages called "Easy vegetarian recipes", and
cannot decide which to look at. Having some extra information on the subject
(e.g. Middle Eastern, gourmet, budget, one-pot, Indian, Chinese...) may well
make it easier to narrow down my choices. But the card/DC title should
*begin* with the book/page title to make it easy to associate the two.
(Re: 'using plain language': all content, unless it is intended for machine
reading only, should be as accessible as we can make it: but the subject
matter can often preclude universal accessibility: for example, complex
technical or academic papers, however clearly written,  will be largely
incomprehensible to people outside the domain since they unavoidably presume
prior knowledge. And Jonathan Chetwynd's experience with peepo, as discussed
on this list in the past, showed that what works for one kind of learning
difficulty may not be helpful for another. That is, what is plain to one
person is not to a second. This message is a prime example of text that
would draw a shrug or puzzled look from many!)
Kind regards,
Lois Wakeman
--------------------------------
http://lois.co.uk
http://siteusability.com
http://communicationarts.co.uk

Received on Wednesday, 19 January 2005 10:14:24 UTC