AW: VIAF contributor model

Hi Jeff,
 
+1 for your approach using skos:Concept.
 
One key advantage I see in this is that it can be adapted and used easily inside and outside the library world, with standard tools which support homegrown keyword lists or open or custom taxonomies of any kind. An important area for such tools are autosuggest services for keyword selection, hinting from skos:altLabel to skos:prefLabel, with support for skos:hiddenLabel if necessary (you can find an example implementation of such a service at http://zbw.eu/beta/stw-ws/examples/suggest.html).
 
I'd also suggest to add a skos:prefLabel to every VIAF cluster. skos:prefLabel is meant to "unambiguously represent this concept within a KOS and its applications" (SKOS Primer). Especially in the case personal names, this encourages building unique literals like "Chen, Li, 1954-" (different from "Chen, Li, 1810-1882") in VIAF or "Müller, E. 19..-.... traducteur" in BNF or "Schmidt, Hans (Musiker)" in GND.
 
If I got it right, you already did a lot of disambiguation for your viaf:Headings. Adding a skos:prefLabel to every VIAF cluster would express clear commitment to strive for uniqueness and also allow easy reuse by tools (where skosxl:Label properties are significantly more difficult to handle), and thus could be tremendously useful.
 
Cheers, Joachim


________________________________

Von: public-lld-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lld-request@w3.org] Im Auftrag von Young,Jeff (OR)
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 28. Oktober 2010 23:21
An: public-lld
Betreff: VIAF contributor model



 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
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