RE: use of skos:inScheme and rdf:type in SKOS modeling

There is probably another approach, Solution C, that you could use which would be to create a controlled vocabulary of aspects (facets?) in SKOS, e.g., topical, geographic, chronological, personal names, corporate names, etc. and then use skos:broadMatch to link to them from lcsh, lcshac, naf, lctgm, gmgpc, etc. and would also allow other vocabulary maintainers to assert that their concepts are part of a broader scope.

The downside to making lcsh:genreConceptScheme is that its in the lcsh namespace.  So would you be proposing the same solution for naf, lctgm, gmgpc, etc., e.g., lctgm:genreConceptScheme and gmgpc:genreConceptScheme?  These aspects (facets?) don't seem like concept schemes, e.g., versions or editions of the vocabulary. 

Solution B seems to me to be better modeled than Solution A, but you could also achieve the same thing without subclassing skos:Concept and use dc:type with a controlled list of names, e.g., genre, personal name, topical, etc. which again could be used by other vocabulary maintainers, but this mimics Solution C without anybody being able to assert that their concepts are part of a broader scope.

Yet another approach, Solution D, would be to use collections and assert that a concept is in a particular collection, e.g., topical, geographic, chronological, etc.  From the SKOS reference: "Collections are useful where a group of concepts shares something in common, and it is convenient to group them under a common label, or where some concepts can be placed in a meaningful order."  Seems to me that the 1XX tags in MARC-21 fit the definition of collections.

Just my 2 cents, Andy.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-swd-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-swd-wg-
> request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Ed Summers
> Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 11:44 AM
> To: SWD Working Group; public-esw-thes@w3.org
> Cc: Barbara B Tillett; Clay Redding
> Subject: use of skos:inScheme and rdf:type in SKOS modeling
> 
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I am trying to solicit some responses to a particular SKOS modeling
> question I have. I apologize in advance if similar questions have come
> up and been answered before.
> 
> Some initial work [1] has been done to examine how the Library of
> Congress Subject Headings [2] can be represented as SKOS. Since the
> Répertoire d'autorité-matière encyclopédique et alphabétique
> unifiéshares (RAMEAU) [3] shares some lineage with LCSH, it is hoped
> that this effort could also inform a SKOS representation of RAMEAU as
> well.
> 
> The LCSH vocabulary has different types of concepts within it:
> topical, geographic, chronological, personal names, corporate names
> ... to name a few. It is anticipated that use cases within the library
> community will require applications to be able to distinguish between
> the types of concepts. There's been some private discussion about the
> best way to use SKOS to achieve this granularity. The thought was that
> perhaps it would be better to have that discussion in the open.
> 
> Solution A is to group them into sub concept schemes using
> skos:inScheme, while also keeping the concepts part of the larger LCSH
> concept scheme:
> 
>  lcsh:sh85124200 a skos:Concept ;
>    skos:prefLabel "Sociology"@en ;
>    skos:inScheme lcsh:topicConceptScheme ;
>    skos:inScheme lcsh:conceptScheme .
> 
>  lcsh:sh85056381 a skos:Concept ;
>    skos:prefLabel "Grand Canyon (Ariz.)" ;
>    skos:inScheme lcsh:geographicConceptScheme ;
>    skos:inScheme lcsh:conceptScheme .
> 
> Solution B is to create extensions of skos:Concept such that:
> 
>  lcsh:TopicalConcept rdfs:subClassOf skos:Concept .
>  lcsh:GeographicConcept rdfs:subClassOf skos:Concept .
> 
>  lcsh:sh85124200 a lcsh:TopicalConcept ;
>    skos:prefLabel "Sociology"@en ;
>    skos:inScheme lcsh:conceptScheme .
> 
>  lcsh:sh85056381 a lcsh:GeographicConcept ;
>    skos:prefLabel "Grand Canyon (Ariz.)" ;
>    skos:inScheme lcsh:conceptScheme .
> 
> The discussion so far has centered around two issues.
> 
> 1. A may result in better tool support since it does not require
> inferencing
> 2. B uses rdfs:type instead of skos:inScheme to indicate the type of a
> concept...which fits in better with RDF as it is deployed on the web.
> 
> Perhaps there are more arguments in favor or against? One counter
> argument to 1 is that serializations of B could include asserted
> triples for tool convenience.
> 
>  lcsh:sh85056381 a lcsh:GeographicConcept, skos:Concept ;
>    skos:prefLabel "Grand Canyon (Ariz.)" ;
>    skos:inScheme lcsh:conceptScheme .
> 
> If you have a particular opinion about this your feedback would be most
> welcome.
> 
> //Ed
> 
> [1] http://dcpapers.dublincore.org/ojs/pubs/article/view/916
> [2] http://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/subject/
> [3] http://rameau.bnf.fr/
>

Received on Thursday, 29 January 2009 18:21:35 UTC