RE: VIAF contributor model

Diane,

I do care about RDA and FRAD and I want VIAF to support their
development. I mentioned a nexus in VIAF where "we" decided to support
both foaf:Person and skos:Concept despite "our" uncertainty about the
need and/or relationship between the two. (I put "we" and "our" in
quotes because for some reason Thom trusts me to make these decisions.)

In fact, this explanation was an oversimplification because I also
decided to support RDA "Person" as a separate entity alongside
foaf:Person and skos:Concept:

http://viaf.org/viaf/102333412/#skos:Concept 
http://viaf.org/viaf/102333412/#foaf:Person
http://viaf.org/viaf/102333412/#rdaEnt:Person 

You say that rdaEnt:Person "is neither FOAF nor SKOS" and IMO we (i.e.
everyone) MUST believe you. I assume there is SOME kind of relationship
between foaf:Person and rdaEnt:Person, but without formalization (ala
foaf:focus) I am extremely reluctant to have VIAF assert dual rdf:types.
Until this is resolved I plan to keep the individuals distinct. Expect
to see rdaEnt:CorporateBody identified in parallel to foaf:Organization
in the next VIAF release.
 
My sense is that there is ideological naming war happening between
skos:prefLabel/skosxl:prefLabel and RDA's preferredNameFortheFoo. SKOS
appears to be open-model and RDA appears to be a closed model. I don't
know how to reconcile these perspectives.

Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Diane I. Hillmann [mailto:dih1@cornell.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2010 5:40 PM
> To: Young,Jeff (OR)
> Cc: public-lld
> Subject: Re: VIAF contributor model
> 
> 
>   Jeff:
> 
> I'm wondering if you've been thinking beyond the immediate term and to
> the point when RDA and FRAD may be available, and whether, given that
> these are optimized for the kind of library data you're talking about
> (which neither FOAF nor SKOS are, IMO), it might be well to consider
> those issues as well?
> 
> FRAD can be seen here:
> http://metadataregistry.org/schema/show/id/24.html
> RDA can be seen here: http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm
> 
> [And yes, the RDA vocabularies resolve, the IFLA ones do not (yet).]
> 
> Diane
> 
> On 10/28/10 5:21 PM, Young,Jeff (OR) wrote:
> >
> > The VIAF RDF is badly in need of an update. For example, VIAF has a
> > bad habit of assuming that "clusters" automatically map to "Person".
> > Upgrading it to recognize the reality of "Organization"  and perhaps
> a
> > few others shouldn't be too hard, but there are other issues worth
> > considering.
> >
> > After closer inspection, it looks like the VIAF ontology
> > <http://viaf.org/ontology/1.1/> reinvents some key aspects of SKOS.
> It
> > would be nice to start factoring out these misalignments ASAP. This
> > group's input on the possibilities would be greatly appreciated.
> >
> > Background: VIAF started out using foaf:Person for its "real world
> > objects", switched to skos:Concept, and was starting to wobble back
> to
> > foaf:Person. At that point, the decision was made to identify both
> for
> > the sake of argument:
> >
> > http://viaf.org/viaf/102333412/#foaf:Person
> >
> > http://viaf.org/viaf/102333412/#skos:Concept
> >
> > It was far from clear at the time whether both made sense, separate
> > identity was necessary, or what property should be used to connect
> them.
> >
> > At the F2F, Martin Malmsten (who is involved with contributions to
> > VIAF via SELIBR) pointed out the new foaf:focus element that seems
to
> > do a very good job of rationalizing for the connection.
> >
> > http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_focus
> >
> > Like VIAF, SELIBR also coins URIs for foaf:Person and skos:Concept
> and
> > this seems like a good model for other contributors and VIAF itself
> to
> > follow.
> >
> > I'm also inclined to believe that skos:ConceptScheme should be used
> to
> > differentiate different "sources" in VIAF. This could and probably
> > should be done regardless of whether the contributors understand or
> > publish SKOS themselves. The attached UML is intended to show how
> this
> > could be conceptualized. This presumably requires some explanation,
> > but hopefully a picture is worth a thousand words.
> >
> > I'm also pretty convinced that the
> > http://viaf.org/ontology/1.1/#Heading class needs to be bound to
> > skosxl:Label class in some way (rdfs:subClassOf?). I don't think it
> > can completely go away, though, because of inconvenient restrictions
> > on the skosxsl:prefLabel and skosxl:altLabel.
> >
> > Thoughts or questions?
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > ---
> >
> > Jeffrey A. Young
> > Software Architect
> > OCLC Research, Mail Code 410
> > OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
> > 6565 Kilgour Place
> > Dublin, OH 43017-3395
> > www.oclc.org <http://www.oclc.org>
> >
> > Voice: 614-764-4342
> > Voice: 800-848-5878, ext. 4342
> > Fax: 614-718-7477
> > Email: jyoung@oclc.org <mailto:jyoung@oclc.org>
> >

Received on Friday, 29 October 2010 00:51:44 UTC