[uf-discuss] Citation: next steps?

Thu Aug 31 20:18:36 PDT 2006

On Aug 31, 2006, at 11:52 AM, Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
> Hmm .. is an illustrator a creator or a secondary contributor?

I'd say that's a matter of the item you're citing and your point of 
view. There are books where the illustrator is the primary creator, 
and the author is a secondary contributor (Many artist portfolio 
coffee table books fall into this category). There are books where 
author and illustrator deserve equal billing (For (regrettably 
obscure) example: Kenneth Koch (author) and Alex Katz (Illustrator) 
get equal billing as primary creators of their work Interlocking Lives).
So hCite should permit multiple creators, and use role for 
clarification purposes. And I totally agree that in many works there 
are primary and secondary creators. I like your proposal:
> Yeah, I was thinking that, though the general approach is to just use
> "contributor." So if the role-based approach, I'd then say probably
> have creator and contributor, with an optional role.
>> Typically, in citations, one only includes role labels for
> non--primary roles (translator, editor, etc.) though.

creator + role for primary creators and contributor + role for non- 
primary creators, as you propose, really allows for the flexibility 
that a good citation format needs (in those Best American 
compilations, for example, editor is really the primary creator, and 
authors are contributors).
> hCard has a role term, though I don't know if it is consistent with 
> this?

Certainly an appealing possibility. Unless the proprietors of hCard 
object, I think we should use it. Do you agree?
> It is; really more a "producer". The DC group considers it a
> contributor, and has wanted to get rid of dc:publisher and use that
> instead.

Dropping publisher and marking it up as a contributor with a role of 
publisher sounds like a good proposal to me.
The drawback is in cases where you want to mention the publisher 
without indicating their role (as in a conventional bibliographic 
citation, where the roles are implied by position, punctuation, and 
type style). Do you just use CSS to hide .role? Is there another way 
of putting role into the markup so that you don't have to display it 
to say it?
Tim