Hi,
Have you looked at PBCore? It's a metadata standard developed by the  
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and is used for tv and other  
multi media cataloging. They should have a pretty good controlled  
vocabulary list. Try this:  formatPhysical (http://www.pbcore.org/ 
PBCore/formatPhysical.html) and formatDigital (http://www.pbcore.org/ 
PBCore/formatDigital.html)

hth,

Esha Datta
Programmer/Analyst
Digital Library Technology Services
Bobst Library
New York University
Ph:212-992-9236

On Jan 14, 2009, at 2:46 PM, Jonathan Rochkind wrote:

> Thanks Diane. That article on RDA/ONIX doesn't seem to include  
> actual terms, the actual vocabularly. I realize there are plans to  
> 'register' it officially, but prior to that, can the actual term  
> list be found anywhere in human-readable format? Or does it not  
> exist yet?
>
> Jonathan
>
> Diane I. Hillmann wrote:
>> Hi, Jonathan,
>>
>> Two points as you search out a solution:
>>
>> 1. I agree with your assessment of the current RDA carrier  
>> vocabulary.  You might want to look at the RDA/ONIX vocabularies  
>> (still not registered, but there are plans to do so: http:// 
>> www.dlib.org/dlib/january07/dunsire/01dunsire.html).
>>
>> 2. These vocabularies are a start, not a finish: once RDA and the  
>> vocabularies are "published" there's an intention to begin  
>> improving them.  The first step was to get the out of the text,  
>> the second to build on the NSDL Registry's vocabulary development  
>> tools (some there, some not yet) to build them up in ways that  
>> will be much more useful.
>>
>> Diane
>>
>> Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
>>> 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 wrote:
>>> 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