Re: Open Items from SIMILE/History System Call Today

Hi Folks!

Jason has the following questions:

> 1. The DSpace system uses CNRI Handles to identify certain
> objects.  Given that  Handles are generally useful for
> refering to resources, should the Handle refer to the
> current version of the resource, or to the version current
> at time of creation?

JSE: Actually, Handles refer to aggregations of typed metadata; the most
common practice is for the HDL client (or the proxy server, which is how most
people resolve handles) to retrieve the first property, and for that to be of
type URL.

One possibility is for a particular property to point to the "current" version
of the resource, and for one or more additional properties to point to other
versions. Another possibility is to have a property point to a list of other
versions aggregated under another Handle. Just depends upon how you want to
model and manage it.

> ...Should Handles be used universally to refer to all
> objects or just those actually retrievable through
>  resolving the Handle?

JSE: If it is likely to be useful to persist the entity, then it should be
named.

Not all Handle-named objects need to be globally registered, but it would
probably be useful to keep all naming consistent, as if they were.

John

Received on Thursday, 8 May 2003 14:24:05 UTC