RE: Recommendations: URIs

Interesting subject. I agree with Ed that organisations should try and use existing vocabularies & ontologies (by the way, can someone explain the difference if there is any? thanks) first.

I'll focus on URIs for "instance data" as it is called here. There are 3 issues here in my mind:

- URI syntax schemes: this is a general linked data issue, not a library related one. Do you really want to give recommendations  specifically aimed at libraries for this? A nice recent article about this: http://blogs.talis.com/platform-consulting/2011/04/21/choosing-uris-not-a-five-minute-task/

- The "unique" part of URIs: also not a specifically library related thing. The http://www.cidoc-crm.org/URIs_and_Linked_Open_Data.html article sums it up nicely: central authority, single point of definition. A pity that the mentioned links and attachment are missing ;-) But it touches on the 3d issue:

- Which entities should libraries create URIs for? If we only consider bibliographic catalogue metadata, then in my view only really unique information would be worthwhile. Looking at the FRBR WEMI structure, it's basically only the "I", the Items that libraries own, or rather the holdings that libraries can give access to (print and digital). The W, E and M parts should ideally be described only once of course. Or at least as less as possible (I hope this is correct English ;-) ). Yes, I know this is very difficult to achieve, but I think that libraries should try to link their holdings to existing trusted Work, Expression and/or Manifestation instances/URIs, instead of publishing the same information over and over again. This is basically the same task as with Persons and Subjects: using authority files.
So, this could/should be a recommendation: try to work together as much as possible. There are already shared/union cataloguing systems out there, so use these. Also the new "next generation ILS" systems (Ex Libris Alma, OCLC WMS, Innovative Sierra, Kuali OLE) use this concept of sharing metadata. These system vendors should start thinking about this as well. (I am doing my best with Ex Libris at the moment).

Lukas Koster
Library Systems Coordinator
Library and Information Systems Department
Library of the University of Amsterdam


-----Original Message-----
From: public-lld-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lld-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Ed Summers
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 3:28 AM
To: Karen Coyle
Cc: public-lld@w3.org
Subject: Re: Recommendations: URIs

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:04 PM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
> Thanks for the comment. It seems to me that you are making a 
> distinction between ontologies (and value vocabularies) and instance 
> data -- do I have that right? And that we should emphasize creating 
> URIs for ontologies FIRST, with URIs for instance data having a second priority.

Personally, I don't think we should recommend that cultural heritage organizations start out with Linked Data by creating ontologies first...much the opposite actually. I think the report should encourage the use of existing vocabularies & ontologies to publish some of their unique data sets, and learn what the gaps and discontinuities are first before creating new ontologies.

It is already the case that the number of URIs for "instance data" in the Library Linked Data space far exceeds the number for vocabulary terms (ontologies).  As such I think it deserves the most emphasis. I think your section about "Develop policies for namespaces" nicely captures some of the issues related to both publishing scenarios.
However, the section on registries seems less relevant for instance data.

//Ed

Received on Wednesday, 27 April 2011 08:51:30 UTC