Ticket #654

Certain key metadata fields could benefit from an ontological structure that would allow users to start with broad categories and then refine them as needs dictate. Such a feature would require both a server side parsing mechanism for the ontologies as well as a UI mechanism that wouldn't get in the way of the metadata input. With such a feature, a user could create ontological structures that would be reflected in the pulldown menus displayed on metadata input/editing. For example, a user could start with a rough category of "rock," then refine that to add the subcategory "classic rock", then refine that to add "psychedelia" and refine that to add "west coast". The pulldown menu would then display the subcategories as branching sub-menus. At the same time, the solution we choose - if any - must be compatible with Dublin Core metadata standards, especially the 'dumbing down' concept. This website may provide some guidance on how to work with DC structured values. http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-dcsv/