Re: Open Library and RDF

>>
>> While these statements are quite reasonable, they don't apply well to
>> the actual practices of the library community. There is no 'wild' of
>> library metadata, no users taking it in different directions for their
>> own purposes, no re-interpretation by creative souls. There is little
>> creation of metadata outside of standards-based library systems, which
>> are expressly required to enforce the standards, and which will only
>> accept data that meets the standards.
>
> True, but libraries still have data of various quality, and other
> parties make metadata about objects you might find in libraries.
>
> I favor application profiles; FRBR is already being used in non-library
> contexts, and as danbri says, ontology users don't necessarily "read the
> instruction manual".
>
> Enforcing stricter constraints on library-produced data makes sense;
> from there it's a question of the best way to accomplish it.
>
>> What this all comes down to is that if we take the view that library
>> metadata must embrace different principles than it does today in order
>> for libraries to interact on the Web, then we've got a non-starter.
>
> I think I understand what you mean, but I worry about this way of
> expressing it, because I worry that the principles and procedures may be
> entangled with one another.


Maybe we can agree that libraries should embrace new principles/procedures, but not necessarily drop the old ones that proved useful and are still likely to be relevant.

In particular, for the FRBR case, I'd favor asserting explicitly that W, E, M and I are disjoint--if that's what is intended by the designers of the model. Let's not forget that "No commitment" is also an enemy of minimal commitment. Given the genericity of FRBR's classes, formal hints can be of great use for users to understand the model. And indeed it makes a great difference whether WEMI are disjoint or not.
Also, if people want to use constructs at their face value in a AAA fashion [1], well, let's allow them to do so. But I don't see why this would be at the expanse of others' ability to sort out what commits to the model as agreed by the community from what does not make that commitment. These who don't want to commit are still free then *not* to "apply" the ontology's formal semantics.
In the alternative case (i.e., if no formal semantics specified in the first place) then the first category (the ones who agree on the original model) will never be "free" to apply them. So we have not much choice if we want both sides to leave their own life.

Cheers,

Antoine

PS: I cannot refrain from associating AAA to the French http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_amicale_des_amateurs_d%27andouillette_authentique. The fact that they are now moving in disguise (
http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-concepts/#section-anyone in the latest version) certainly indicates a secret plot to make the web of data a smelly place of low-quality bits aggregated together ;)

Received on Monday, 16 August 2010 13:08:39 UTC