Re: Redefine and reuse?

On 7/23/13 5:18 AM, Dan Brickley wrote:

> Just for contrast: there is another example of where Good Relations
> and the BibExtend work also overlap in their interests: FRBR-like
> models.
>

Actually, Dan, the BibExtend group is quite torn about FRBR-like models, 
with a good part of the group (perhaps the majority) opposed to 
introducing the concepts into schema.org.

The handling of "mass-produced thing" vs. "individual for sale or loan" 
seems to be handled by /sku (or /isbn on the part of books) and 
/IndividualProduct. However, it might be good to clarify "model" vs. 
"individual." Any lending or leasing activity (think car rental) will 
need to keep track of individuals. I would suggest extending the 
definition of IndividualProduct, which now reads:

"A single, identifiable product instance (e.g. a laptop with a 
particular serial number)."

to say, perhaps:

"A single, identifiable product instance (e.g. a laptop with a 
particular serial number or the license number of a rental car)."

That said, what are the pros and cons of, say, using something as 
specific as /sku for (e.g.) the individual shelf number of a book in a 
library? Is this "too far?" The definition reads:

"The Stock Keeping Unit (SKU), i.e. a merchant-specific identifier for a 
product or service, or the product to which the offer refers."

Other than the term Stock Keeping Unit, this does reflect the meaning of 
the individual book number. However, no one in libraries would ever 
refer to the book number as a SKU. The question becomes whether we are 
looking at the schema.org property as a general concept or a specific 
thing. I can see good arguments for both:
  - associating with a general concept, like Offer, brings together 
offers from different communities, even if they natively use different 
terminology
  - not using the terminology of the community is likely to impede 
adoption of schema.org, as people will look for their terminology and 
will not find it.

The latter problem, in library terms, is called an "entry vocabulary 
problem." If there were a way to say: "shelf or call number -> use /sku" 
then it could be solved. In essence, this is a skos:altLabel in 
functionality, or it could be an owl:sameAs.

I suspect that these issues are not specific to the bibliographic world, 
but they are BIG issues, and not easily solved.

kc

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
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m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

Received on Tuesday, 23 July 2013 13:56:07 UTC