[mei-catalog-ig] non-MEI metadata

[Roland, Perry D. (pdr4h)]

Following up on a multiple requests and recent TEI activity, I'd like to suggest the addition of a <extMeta> element within the header that can contain any non-MEI markup.

<elementSpec ident="extMeta" module="MEI.header" mode="add">
  <desc>(external metadata) - provides a container element into which metadata in non-MEI
    formats may be placed.</desc>
  <classes>
    <memberOf key="att.common"/>
    <memberOf key="att.whitespace"/>
  </classes>
  <content>
    <rng:zeroOrMore>
      <rng:group>
        <rng:choice>
          <rng:text/>
          <rng:ref name="macro.anyXML"/>
        </rng:choice>
      </rng:group>
    </rng:zeroOrMore>
  </content>
</elementSpec>
<macroSpec ident="macro.anyXML" module="MEI.shared" type="pe" mode="add">
  <desc>Permits any XML elements except those from the MEI and SVG namespaces.</desc>
  <content>
    <rng:element>
      <rng:anyName>
        <rng:except>
          <rng:nsName ns="http://www.music-encoding.org/ns/mei"/>
          <rng:nsName ns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"/>
        </rng:except>
      </rng:anyName>
      <rng:zeroOrMore>
        <rng:attribute>
          <rng:anyName/>
        </rng:attribute>
      </rng:zeroOrMore>
      <rng:zeroOrMore>
        <rng:choice>
          <rng:text/>
          <rng:ref name="macro.anyXML"/>
        </rng:choice>
      </rng:zeroOrMore>
    </rng:element>
  </content>
</macroSpec>

Of course, any metadata placed here won't be "interoperable"; that is, it can't be guaranteed to have any use or meaning to anyone other than the one who placed it there.  In fact, I think <extMeta> should never be allowed to "connect" with any data or metadata in the file, for example, via @decls or @data attributes.  Nevertheless, it could be helpful to some users to permit non-MEI metadata "blobs".  I'm not sure if it's a good thing, but this could help turn the MEI header toward becoming a more general-purpose metadata wrapper.

--
p.

________________________________
Perry Roland
University of Virginia
P. O. Box 400874
Charlottesville, VA, 22904
434-982-2702 (w)
pdr4h (at) virginia (dot) edu

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