So, this decimal form appears to show hemisphere as minus or plus with the
actual plus sign being omitted. There does not appear to be a requirement
for a leading zero when the number of degrees is less than 100, nor a
requirement for a particular number of places to the right of the decimal.
Decimal degrees: + -ddd.dddddd (hemisphere[+/-]-degrees.decimal degrees [+
for N and E, - for S and W with + being optional]):
034 1 a ‡d +079.533265 ‡e +086.216635 ‡f -012.583377 ‡g
-020.419532
Decimal degrees without the optional +:
034 1 a ‡d 079.533265 ‡e 086.216635 ‡f -012.583377 ‡g
-020.419532
So, it seems optional to use letters or minus and plus for hemisphere in
OCLC. The usage here includes a leading zero for degrees less than 100.
Hoping this helps a little with the communication.
Jimmie Lundgren
-----Original Message-----
From: Subject Coordinates Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Tom Elliott
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2005 11:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SUBCOOR] Question on form of coordinates (no vcard)
There are standards for the digital encoding of coordinates and other
related essential information (e.g., coordinate systems, datums,
spheroids). Two places to start:
One of the major bodies dealing with the establishment of such standards
is the Open Geospatial Consortium ( http://www.opengeospatial.org/ ),
which publishes relevant specifications.
One also might care to look at the work of the Alexandria Digital
Library Gazetteer project, whose gazetteer protocol includes
specifications for the encoding of coordinates (
http://www.alexandria.ucsb.edu/gazetteer/ ).