Re: SemWeb terminology page

Quoting Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl>:

> Hello Karen,
>
> Would that definition of Svenonius be compatible with the view in [1]?

I don't believe it is, which is why I posted it here. This definition  
has also helped me think about the models developed by FRAD and FRSAD,  
which both have an entity for the authoritative term itself. (And this  
relates to the post I forwarded about MADS.) A primary purpose of  
library authority data is to control the text string itself as a  
surrogate for the thing it represents. This is in addition to  
developing an identity for the thing. (I'm not saying this is *right*,  
I'm just saying this is what libraries claim to be doing.)

I think it is easiest to see this in terms of subject (concept)  
authorities. The concepts have relationships to each other, such as  
broader and narrower. Those can be modeled with URIs that represent  
the concepts. Each concept, however, also has one authoritative  
expression in "natural" language. In the library sense of controlled  
vocabulary, those terms identify the concept for the user and control  
the interaction between the library data and the library (human) user.

One thing that may undermine the library emphasis on controlling  
actual language terms is that these terms are allowed to change (after  
careful and lengthy deliberation :-)). In this sense they do seem to  
me to be a kind of prefLabel rather than an actual identifier (because  
when you change an identifier you have a different thing; when you  
change a label the thing has not changed).

Now the question is: is skos:prefLabel = controlled vocabulary term?  
The MADS in RDF creates madsrdf:authoritativeLabel, presumably because  
skos:prefLabel was not considered adequate to express this. In a sense  
this becomes a question about SKOS and the meaning of prefLabel.

If skos:prefLabel had been named skos:authorityLabel, I think  
librarians would be more willing to use it. "Authority" is a stronger  
concept than "preference." But in the end I think that the library  
emphasis on terminology is an artifact of past technologies. I  
consider the library practice to be out-dated, but I note that the  
practice is being carried forward into RDF and LD representations.

So.... I would like to hear Marcia's take on this from the FRSAD  
"thema, nomen" point of view.

kc

> I have the feeling that yes: reference datasets in LD still control  
> the terminology, even if in the LD case the importance of "terms"  
> becomes secondary to the one of the resources that these terms refer  
> to. But I'm really curious to hear from you (and others of course  
> :-) ) on this.
>
> Antoine
>
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lld/2010Dec/0029.html
>
>
>> In her book "The intellectual foundation of information  
>> organization" Svenonius has a section on controlled and  
>> uncontrolled vocabularies. Her statement about controlled  
>> vocabularies says:
>>
>> "[Controlled vocabularies] are constructs in an artificial  
>> language; their purpose is to map users' vocabulary to a  
>> standardized vocabulary and to bring like information together."  
>> (p.88) [1]
>>
>> Do we agree that this is the role of our #1 group? I ask because I  
>> perceive this to be different from the original proposed definition:
>>
>> "These describe concepts that are used in actual metadata."
>>
>> If you look at FRAD [2] you see that the assignment of terminology  
>> to the concept is of equal or greater importance than any  
>> description of the concept itself. In fact, that's what I would  
>> emphasize as the role of a controlled vocabulary: that it is a  
>> method to *control* *language terms*. Many controlled vocabularies  
>> have minimal information about the concepts, but all exist to make  
>> a selection of particular terms of use.
>>
>> kc
>>
>> [1] http://openlibrary.org/works/OL475973W -- a basic foundation  
>> for how librarianship views KO.
>> [2]  
>> http://www.ifla.org/publications/functional-requirements-for-authority-data
>>
>> Quoting "Young,Jeff (OR)" <jyoung@oclc.org>:
>>
>>>>> It would be odd to dismiss SKOS because we determined it was
>>> designed
>>>> to
>>>>> manage "concepts" rather than "controlled vocabularies".
>>>>
>>>> I certainly wouldn't want to dismiss SKOS! The point is that
>>>> SKOS organizes sets of lexical strings via underlying concepts.
>>>
>>> I would argue that "organizing" concepts or labels is getting into
>>> optional features of SKOS. Your other comments indicate you would agree.
>>> The essential features for authority control, in my view, are the
>>> ability to identify something real (a skos:Concept), associate them in a
>>> scheme (via skos:inScheme) and give them skos:pref/altLabels
>>> (potentially "real" via skosxl:Label). Some forms of authority control
>>> may want to use additional gravy from SKOS, but others could just as
>>> well link out to other models via foaf:focus and organize from there.
>>> Either or both ways, SKOS can act as a schematic naming network.
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>



-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

Received on Saturday, 4 December 2010 12:16:34 UTC