Dublin Core vs COinS vs ? What is the long-view?

Swindle
As we use our content management system to publish the profiles (including publications) of our faculty, should we be making use of one or both of the Dublin Core and COinS schemes? Are they likely to remain robust schemas or something we could expect to see replaced?
  • noksagt
    I won't speak for the Zotero developers, but I think that unAPI+MODS XML is extremely useful. MODS XML is supported by the Library of Congress so, while it isn't a perfect format, there are A LOT of records in it & it is better than most alternatives. There are plenty of third-party tools that work with it & you'll be able to convert from it if it does become deprecated. unAPI is relatively new, but it is so simple & it works right now. It is the best "standard" way to host Zotero-readable metadata.

    There are many problems with COinS. However, it is easy to implement & is a reasonably good idea for any references not hosted at the site, as people will be able to accomplish what they were designed for--locating the reference on their own OpenURL resolver of choice. There seems to be little reason to use COinS to self-describe content, other than that it is "easy." COinS does not have the same richness as unAPI+MODS (very limited types, no abstract, etc. Yes--DC has been hacked on, but it is far from perfect).

    DC is here to stay--it is used very widely. However, it is often part of some other protocol (such as DC in COinS or DC as part of hCite or another ontology). Therefore, "implementing Dublin Core" isn't well defined. It isn't a bad idea & you'd probably be able to recycle functions for other purposes. But you won't get special functionality from many third party tools just yet.

This is an old discussion that has not been active in a long time. Instead of commenting here, you should start a new discussion. If you think the content of this discussion is still relevant, you can link to it from your new discussion.