Re: RDA and ranges

Quoting Emmanuelle Bermes <manue.fig@gmail.com>:

> Thank you Karen for the diagram, which is an interesting starting point to a
> needed discussion on ranges.
>
> In your diagram, I see no middle-term between defining a very precise range,
> and no range at all. However, it could be useful to determine at least if
> the range should be a literal, or a resource with a URI.
> If it's a title, it should probably be a literal (although, for DC:title,
> from the scope note, " In current practice, this term is used primarily with
> literal values; however, there are important uses with non-literal values as
> well. As of December 2007, the DCMI Usage Board is leaving this range
> unspecified pending an investigation of options.")
>
> As far as I know it is not possible, even in an "ontologically strict"
> environment, to define what should be "inside" the literal (what we
> librarians call "the cataloguing rule").
>
> When you state that the range for rdavocab:titleProper(Manifestation) is
> "RDA 2.3.2", what you actually mean is that the range is a literal, and the
> literal should be constructed by the cataloguer following RDA rules 2.3.2.
> This is something that cannot be checked by a machine, and we have to
> remember that ontology semantics is meant for machine interpretation.
> Even in current library systems, the adequacy of the content of metadata
> fields to cataloguing rules is not checked by machines. It is checked in a
> quality assessment process by humans (at least, in my library - well if
> someone knows how to check that in an automated way, please send me an
> e-mail ;-). This adequacy relies on guidelines and training of cataloguers,
> and not on a formal metadata structure (be it MARC, MARCXML, MODS, DC or any
> other).
>
> So, to go back to the model, here is how I see things could be done :
> - rdavocab:titleProper(Manifestation) would be declared as a property with
> "literal" as range
> - in the note or description, it would be stated that the literal is
> expected to be constructed according to RDA rule 2.3.2.
> I have to dive deeper into application profiles to see how they can help
> with expressing this constraint in a more explicit or formal way.
>
> Then the "super-properties" (in your example rdavocab:titleProper and
> rdavocab:title) could be declared with only "litteral" as a range and no
> precision on how the litteral should be constructed. That would make them
> sub-properties of DC:title, which has no range. Maybe they could have at
> least "FRBR group 1 entity" (WEMI) as a domain (well, that's another
> discussion).
> Or even, if they have no domain and no range, I don't see a reason why they
> couldn't be declared equivalent to DC:title (rather than subproperties).
> I guess it was the point made by Dan, but I must admit there are some things
> that are not completely clear to me in his comment.
>
> Obviously, the range discussion is completely different when the range is
> not a literal but a class or a resource.
>
> Emmanuelle
>
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 9:01 AM, Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 2:09 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
>> > There's been something tickling my brain for a bit, so I sat down to try
>> to
>> > draw up a diagram. Essentially, the question is: what is the domain &
>> range
>> > of an RDA property? Then I began to wonder what is the domain and range
>> of a
>> > property based on RDA but not bound to a FRBR domain?
>> >
>> > My unfinished diagram is here:
>> >
>> > kcoyle.net/domainsranges.pdf
>> >
>> > and I now realize that title isn't the best example to use. But the key
>> > element, in my mind, is that the RDA guidance rules both guide the
>> metadata
>> > creator and define the range of the element. Those ranges are inherent in
>> > the rules but have not been extracted into the registry, in part because
>> > many of the ranges are quite complex. In the rules you find how the
>> property
>> > is to be structured and what values are valid, which to me is the
>> definition
>> > of the range.
>> >
>> > Note that in the diagram I have only filled in the domain and range at
>> the
>> > bottom (most specific) level. That is because I'm not sure what to do
>> beyond
>> > that. If we treat the RDA rules as describing the ranges for the
>> properties,
>> > then all of the properties, regardless of whether they are bound to FRBR,
>> > are very tightly defined (probably what Tom would call ontologically
>> > strict). If we wish for other communities to provide guidance rules of
>> their
>> > own for the properties, then it becomes hard to think of them as RDA
>> > properties. (This is a can of worms that has been a matter of discussion
>> > between JSC and the registry.)
>> >
>> > What I am getting at is that we may need a hierarchy that goes like this
>> > (from most specific to most general):
>> >
>> > 1. RDA + FRBR -- range is as defined in RDA; domain is FRBR entity
>> > 2. RDA alone -- range is as defined in RDA; no domain?
>> > 3. Property with definition -- range and domain are open
>> >
>> > I hope I've made some sense here. Although we've discussed whether RDA
>> > properties must be bound to FRBR, in fact I think that RDA's definition
>> of
>> > the values/ranges is more of a constraint than FRBR.
>>
>> This is a useful exercise!
>>
>> Quick question. Going from the diagram alone, it isn't clear to me
>> exactly how dcterms:title is more general than rdvocab:title.
>>
>> * dcterms:title, definition: A name given to the resource.
>> * rdvocab:title, definition: A word, character, or group of words
>> and/or characters that names a resource or a work contained in it.
>>
>> >From those definitions alone, it seems that rdvocab:title allows some
>> cases that aren't anticipated by dcterms:title, namely when the value
>> is a name for a work contained within the main thing we're describing.
>>
>> I read "a word, character, or group of words and/or characters" as
>> approximating the concept of "text", although on a strict reading, it
>> seems a little confused as to whether the group of words/characters is
>> necessarily ordered. Presumably the ordered group of characters [ "H",
>> "a", "m", "l", "t", "e" ] isn't a name given to Shakespeare's Hamlet,
>> whereas the ordered group  [ "H", "a", "m", "l", "e", "t" ] is?
>>
>> If we proceed with this level of nitpicking it'll take forever; is it
>> OK to assume "text that" when I see "A word, character, or group of
>> words and/or characters that"? In which case, next question is whether
>> the text can be a separate entity/resource/thing rather what RDF would
>> call a literal. If 'yes', I can't see anything that would be a value
>> fitting the dcterms:title definition but fails to match rdvocab:title;
>> if 'no', it seems the properties as defined have only partial overlap
>> rather than forming a hierarchy.
>>
>> All that said, your main point seems to be around the RD vocab and
>> FRBR, perhaps the DC aspect is a distraction?
>>
>> cheers,
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>> > kc
>> >
>> > p.s. I will try to locate some better examples of RDA rules as ranges.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Karen Coyle
>> > kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
>> > ph: 1-510-540-7596
>> > m: 1-510-435-8234
>> > skype: kcoylenet
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>



-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

Received on Wednesday, 18 August 2010 14:24:48 UTC