Re: Back to identifiers

Hi Cory,

On 18/01/2013 16:40, "Corey Harper" <corey.harper@gmail.com> wrote:

> Richard, Karen, et al.,
> 
> I can't help but feel that the hairs being split here aren't
> particularly helpful to our cause.

I tend to agree and was happy to put identifiers on the back burner until at
least we had looked at SKOS - if nothing else because we will have
established some patterns that we might be able to reuse.

> But if we are going to spiral down
> this path, I would posit that the argument being applied to ISBN's
> actually applies to all the other identifiers we're discussing...

Most definitely!  Whatever pattern we use must fit all identifiers - ISBNs
should not be treated as a special case.

> 
> For practical reasons, I don't support the notion that an OCLC # or an
> LCCN are strictly identifiers for a book.

Neither do I 

> At best, they're identifiers
> for a metadata record in the particular system coded in the 003. MARC
> tells us the 003 indicates the context of the "system control number"
> in the 001.
> I'm not sure how Richards sentence "That is when an
> administrator of identifiers, for example Bowker for ISBNs, publishes
> structured data about the identifiers they have published, who/what
> they have issued them to, what for, and when etc.." applies any less
> to WorldCat IDs and other "system control numbers" than it does to
> ISBNS.
> 
> But, from a practical perspective, I think I agree with Karen, that
> this level of additional metadata about an identifier that's already
> represented as a URI is at cross purposes with the goal of
> representing our data in schema.org.
> 

If you were expecting to include this data in the structure of the page
about the book, I would agree with you.   If you were on a page describing
the identifiers allocated by a standards body, who they issued them to, and
what for, it would be a different issue.  Both scenarios are valid in a
broad schema world.


> I think I'm increasingly persuaded by the portions of the
> public-vocabs thread, such as Martin Hepp's message about SKOS [1]. I
> fear that we're going down the path of attempting to completely
> recreate RDF in schema.org.

I wish to avoid that too.   What I am hoping is that we can draw inspiration
and example from places such as SKOS to develop the mark-up tools to enable
people to describe their stiff in simple ways.  Not introduce complex rules
which do not get adopted.

~Richard.
> 
> Thanks,
> -Corey
> 
> [1]http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2013Jan/0096.html
> 
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Richard Wallis
> <richard.wallis@oclc.org> wrote:
>> Thanks for bringing this to the list Karen.
>> 
>> Let me hopefully clarify a couple of things.
>> 
>> The particular circumstance, Karen and I have been going around in circles
>> about, is one, currently hypothetical, one.
>> 
>> That is when an administrator of identifiers, for example Bowkes for ISBNs,
>> publishes structured data about the identifiers they have published,
>> who/what they have issued them to, what for, and when etc..
>> 
>> In publishing that information they ideally will publish URIs for those
>> identifiers so that others can link to that information.  Thus this example:
>> 
>> 
>>  <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430>
>>       a skos:Concept;
>>       schema:name "9780553479430";
>>       schema:inScheme <http://bowker.com/concept-scheme/isbn> ;
>>       schema:focus <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.
>> 
>> Which tells us that this Thing - with a URI of
>> <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430> - is a Concept - has a
>> name/label/string of characters ³9780553479430² - the concept is in a scheme
>> defined at this URI <http://bowker.com/concept-scheme/isbn>  - and it is the
>> focus of another thing, a book in this case, with this URI
>> <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.
>> 
>> Moving on to the book that has been given the ISBN ³9780553479430².  In this
>> scenario it has the URI <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.  That URI
>> is the identifier for the the conceptual thing, that has had associated with
>> it the standard number allocated by Bowkers.
>> 
>> When describing that book the URI you would use to linked to its allocated
>> standard number would be <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430>:
>> 
>> 
>> <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>
>>      a schema:Book;
>>      schema:name ²War and Peace²;
>>      schema:identifier <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430>.
>> 
>> That is not to say that when marking up html, you would probably also
>> include the string.
>> 
>> The above examples are using a mixture of SKOS and not yet existent schema,
>> so would not be exactly as shown.
>> 
>> 
>> It is complex to clearly describe the subtleties here as, isbn is already
>> partially addresses in schema already, we are talking about two different
>> types of Œidentifiersı, and as I say the situation is slightly hypothetical
>> (yet one that could well occur).
>> 
>> Hopeful I have clarified things a bit.
>> 
>> ~Richard.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 18/01/2013 15:20, "Karen Coyle" <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> After my last identifier post, Richard and I got into a long off-list
>>> conversation that should have taken place on-list. I'll try to bring it
>>> back.
>>> 
>>> Look at:
>>> 
>>> <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430>
>>>      a skos:Concept;
>>>      schema:name "9780553479430";
>>>      schema:inScheme <http://bowker.com/concept-scheme/isbn> ;
>>>      schema:focus <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.
>>> 
>>> <http://bowker.com/concept-scheme/isbn>
>>>      a skos:ConceptScheme;
>>>      schema:name "ISBN Identifier Scheme".
>>> 
>>> 
>>> which is on our identifier page. http://tinyurl.com/balwg8h
>>> 
>>> It was my impression that the identifier property was needed only for
>>> those identifiers that do not have a URI. Ones I can think of include
>>> the government document numbers issued by the US gov't printing agency,
>>> and the music publisher numbers.
>>> 
>>> Government doc no.
>>> 
>>>      Y 4.B 22/3:S.HRG.104-869/V.1-
>>> 
>>> Publisher no.
>>> 
>>>      M 640 Victor (set : manual sequence)
>>>      15827 Victor
>>> 
>>> Essentially, we need to be able to carry the context/authority along
>>> with the identifier so you know whose identifier it is.
>>> 
>>> In the above example from the page, the ISBN, we have learned, *does*
>>> have a URI and therefore should not need any further information.
>>> However, Richard has stated to me that:
>>> 
>>> *****
>>> 
>>> "The ISBN is a string of characters (in ISBN scheme that Bowkers
>>> administer)
>>> that they have issued to represent the book - it is not the book.
>>> 
>>> The WorldCat URI identifies the Book.
>>> 
>>> Follow this bit of logic, using your assumption.
>>> 
>>> <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>
>>>   a schema:Book;
>>>   schema:isbn <http://bowker.com/isbn/9780553479430>;
>>>   schema:name "War and Peace".
>>> 
>>> <http://bowker.com/isbn/9780553479430>
>>>    a schema:Book;
>>>    schema:name "War and Peace";
>>>    owl:sameAs <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.
>>> 
>>> This in effect is saying that the isbn is a Book.  You end up in a
>>> circular
>>> loop.
>>> 
>>> The WorldCat URI is just that, a URI that represents the book.
>>> An ISBN URI is a URI that represents the string of characters that have
>>> been assigned.
>>> 
>>> *****
>>> 
>>> So the difference in viewpoint here is that I consider the ISBN (whether
>>> as a URI or not) to be an identifier for the book. Richard's view is
>>> that the ISBN URI is an identifier for the ISBN. Thus the example on the
>>> page.
>>> 
>>> I think that much of the confusion here has to do with equating SKOS and
>>> URIs for strings. However, I do not see identifiers as skos:concept.
>>> They are identifiers. Thus an ISBN is a Book, and for use an ISBN in URI
>>> form is as much a Book as a Worldcat ID or an LCCN or a National
>>> Bibliographic Number.
>>> 
>>> That's it in a nutshell.
>>> 
>>> kc
>

Received on Friday, 18 January 2013 17:00:11 UTC