Re: Open Library and RDF

On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 09:38:51PM +0100, gordon@gordondunsire.com wrote:
> Would it be possible for me to give a presentation to the joint session in
> Pittsburgh?
>  
> I am involved in the development of an RDF representation of the International
> Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD). ISBD is a mix of bibliographic
> attributes (RDF properties) with a generic domain of (bibliographic) Resource
> (unlike the WEMI model in FRBR and RDA), content guidelines (like RDA), and
> display format based on punctuation (unlike FRBR or RDA). Preliminary
> registration of RDF properties can be found in the Open Metadata Registry. ISBD
> specifies repeatability and mandatoriness constraints (unlike RDA, which just
> recommends "core" properties for each of WEMI) and sequence of elements when
> displayed (along with punctuation). We have decided that the best way to model
> all this is with an ISBD application profile (and XSLT or equivalent for
> generating the punctuation). The ISBD Review Group is assisting me with expenses
> to attend the Pittsburgh meeting ... and I'll be submitting a use case to the
> LLD XG real soon now.

Sure - that would be great.  The way I picture the meeting,
we would not so much focus on the particular selection of
properties for meeting the particular requirements of ISBD.
Rather, I would like for us to take one step back from such
details and consider what, for your group, constitutes an
"application profile".  For example, are you following DCMI
guidelines, some other guidelines, or no particular guidelines?
What sort of information do you need to capture in the
application profile, and how do you picture its function?  As a
rough consensus document?  A guide for software developers?
Something else?

> I'd like to think of me and my colleagues as gamma-testers of the application
> profile approach.

Hopefully we will be able to give you some useful feedback.

> At some point in the future, probably under the aegis of the newly-approved (but
> not-yet formally constituted) IFLA Namespaces Technical Group (more news from
> IFLA!), we'll attempt to relate ISBD, FRBR/AD/SAD, and (as a result of stronger
> links with JSC) RDA, 'cos there's huge overlap between properties.

That's great to hear.

> (And a reminder that the third goal of the DCMI RDA Task Group is the
> development of an RDA application profile - as far as I'm concerned, that is
> still our intention, and now that JSC has brought RDA to the market-place, I'm
> hoping we can resume progress ...)

Would you like to present something about that as well?

> I'd also be willing to work with Marcia (of course :-) on your proposal for a
> presentation on the subject domains, which I consider to be the most significant
> area where libraryland can contribute to linked-data and the core of the
> Semantic Web. And libraryland really does need advice and support from
> ontologyland; I suspect "further work" is indeed needed.

Let's sharpen our pencils then and help define those future work items...

Tom

Received on Monday, 16 August 2010 22:24:46 UTC