Re: Library data diagram

Hi Jeff,

I'm not sure I'm following you...

On Wed, Sep 01, 2010 at 12:38:21PM -0400, Jeff Young wrote:
> The "metadata record" use case doesn't seem that different to me. For
> example, we could content-negotiate representations of a MARC bib record
> in a variety of models including FRBR OWL AND a DC application profile:
> 
> http://example.org/bib/12345/x-dc.rdf 
> http://example.org/bib/12345/frbr.rdf
> http://example.org/bib/12345/marc21.xml
> http://example.org/bib/12345/marc21.mrc
> etc.

Okay. 

(I wonder whether the filenames are ideal, because all
MARC XML records would be called "marc21.xml" when mechanically
downloaded with, say, "wget", but that's beside the point...)

> In the FRBR OWL representation, a lightweight connection between
> "BibRecord" and FRBR could arguably be made like so:
> 
> <owl:Class rdf:about="&ex;BibRecord" />
> 
> <owl:ObjectProperty rdf:about="#&ex;describes">
>   <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="&ex;BibRecord" />
>   <rdfs:range rdf:resource="&frbr;Manifestation" />
> </owl:ObjectProperty

Okay, though I wouldn't normally expect this
class to be declared in instance data, e.g., in
http://example.org/bib/12345/frbr.rdf...?

> <ex:BibRecord rdf:about="http://example.org/bib/12345">
>   <ex:describes>
>     <frbr:Manifestation
> rdf:about="http://example.org/manifestation/98765">
> ...
>     </frbr:Manifestation>
>   </ex:describes>
> </ex:BibRecord>
> 
> The interesting information in the MARC record can then be expressed
> using FRBR OWL. "Application profiled" DC seems like one of many
> possible variant representations to me.

I want to make sure we're on the same page here.  AFAICT,
this same information ("exb:12345 ex:describes exm:98765")
could be expressed in metadata based on what the Singapore
Framework calls a "Dublin Core application profile".  Note [1]:

    The DC notion of the application profile imposes no
    limitations on whether those properties or encoding schemes
    are defined and managed by DCMI or by some other agency:
    the key requirement is that the properties referred to
    in a DCAP are compatible with the notion of property in
    the Resource Description Framework.

Specifically, the notion of application profile described in
the Singapore Framework is _not_ tied to the use of (any of)
the fifteen elements of "the Dublin Core" as an RDF vocabulary.

In this context, the point of a "DC application profile"
would be to specify the pattern of resource descriptions using
RDF properties and classes.  For example, the application
profile would specify that the property ex:describes be used
when relating an instance of ex:BibRecord to an instance of
resource (which would be inferred to be a frbr:Manifestation).
It would specify the template by which instance metadata,
such as 12345/x-dc.rdf, is created.

Whether the Singapore Framework should continue to be tied
specifically to DCAM is currently up for discussion.  However,
it is not clear to me how an RDF expression of DCAM-based
metadata [3] -- as

    http://example.org/bib/12345/x-dc.rdf 

might very well be -- would necessarily be any different from
what you are calling FRBR OWL:

    http://example.org/bib/12345/frbr.rdf

The Scholarly Works Application Profile, for example,
specifies a record consisting of a set of descriptions of
related instances of FRBR entities (except that it uses [5]
instead of frbr:Manifestation).

Tom

[1] http://dublincore.org/documents/singapore-framework/
[3] http://dublincore.org/documents/dc-rdf/
[4] http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Scholarly_Works_Application_Profile
[5] http://purl.org/eprint/entityType/Manifestation

-- 
Thomas Baker <tbaker@tbaker.de>

Received on Wednesday, 1 September 2010 18:40:49 UTC