Perhaps I'm not sure what you're looking for, but the Getty has the Art
& Architecture Thesaurus:

http://www.getty.edu/vow/AATHierarchy?find=dvd&logic=AND&note=&page=1&su
bjectid=300220523 (got your cd, dvd, but not blu-ray... yet)

But when you're talking "digital" (sans container), I guess you're just
talking format, like you said.  For that, there's the PRONOM registry:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pronom/

Either of those helpful?


Mark


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Rochkind
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 12:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] multimedia carrier vocabulary?

Anyone know of any good existing controlled vocabulary for 'format' or 
'carrier' for multimedia materials?  I'm thinking of things like "CD", 
"DVD", "digital", etc.

The closest I can get is from RDA at 
http://metadataregistry.org/concept/list/vocabulary_id/46.html (thanks 
Karen and Diane), but it seems _really_ insufficient. As far as I can 
tell "audio disc" is used for both a CD and a vinyl disc, and there's 
nothing available there for "DVD" at all.   Or for "digital". Although 
I'm not sure what I mean by "digital", I guess CD and DVD are both 
digital, but I was thinking of something to identify a digital file on a

computer network free of particular carrier. I guess that wouldn't be in

a carrier vocabulary at all, after all, that would be sort of a null 
carrier. Phew, this stuff does get complicated quick. Which I guess is 
why nobody's worked out a good one yet.

Too bad RDA's is so _far_ from good though. Any others anyone knows
about?

Jonathan

-- 
Jonathan Rochkind
Digital Services Software Engineer
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886 
rochkind (at) jhu.edu