This should NOT be part of any HTML specification. This fall into the
category of metadata, or what librarians call cataloging data...
information that describes an object for the purpose of resource
discovery, access control, and archiving.
There are many groups working on these issues, and the results of such
work will be included in a record that will eventually go into the meta
section of an html document.
A simple resource discovery description record has been discussed at a
workshop convened at OCLC in March, and will soon be described in a formal
paper.
See http://www.oclc.org:5046/research/conferences/metadata/metadata.html
for further information.
THis is, however, only a small part of the problem, and much more effort
must be invested before anything like a standard will be possible.
I am planning a BOF at the Stockholm IETF, for those who are interested.
Stuart Weibel
Senior Research Scientist
OCLC Office of Research
weibel@oclc.org
(614) 764-6081 (v)
(614) 764-2344 (f)
http://www.oclc.org:5046/~weibel