PBCore Genre Picklist from Hell
Let's be honest: The controlled vocabularies for pbcoreGenre suggested at pbcore.org lack relevance in many cases. I mean, "boat"? The main genre list suggested, "PBCore + Tribune Media Services Genre Categories (TiVo)," is mostly very good as far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough.
And here's the problem: Because it's on the official PBCore website, it looks to many people like the Official PBCore Genre List. I've spoken with several PBCore users (speak up if you wish) who wanted to use certain genre terms not on the list, but didn't think it would be valid. It is valid, as long as you also declare the genreAuthorityUsed to identify the genre list.
This really matters when you want to exchange stuff between systems that speak PBCore, and you want that stuff to show up in the right places. By using a controlled vocabulary that is common to the systems exchanging the stuff, things work as intended. If I call something "boat" and you're expecting "marine," things fall apart. If I use "Horse" as in the suggested picklist, and your system wants to call it "Equestrian," we have a problem.
So what would move this forward? I'll suggest something: People should compile a genre list for a given PBCore user community (yes these really exist), and document it clearly for that community. Code it into applications (in drop-down lists for example) so everyone selects terms from the same genre list. Name that list, and you've got a valid new PBCore genreAuthorityUsed.
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