Re: Planned changes to the VIAF RDF

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 10:54 AM, Ed Summers <ehs@pobox.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 10:48 AM, Ross Singer <ross.singer@talis.com> wrote:
>> Does Barbara Tillett have broader/narrower resources?  "Tillett,
>> Barbara--Criticism", "Tillet, Barbara--Biographies", etc.  This is where I
>> have a hard time leaping.
>
> Me too, and it's why in my previous email I said that if it were up to
> me (which it isn't) loc.gov would publish one identifier for Barbara
> Tillett, and it would be of type foaf:Person (or some other suitable
> class for a Person) and not a skos:Concept.

I agree that unnecessary complexity should be avoided.  What does
"Tillet, Barbara--Biographies" provide that couldn't be done with
subject: Barbara Tillet, genre: Biography ?  Even in the card catalog
world, I'd argue that "Tillet, Barbara--Biographies" isn't actually a
narrower concept than the subject "Tillet, Barbara" but rather a
combination of two orthogonal facets.  They're grouped together to
make for convenient collation and browsing, not because it makes any
kind of ontological sense.

Tom

Received on Wednesday, 13 April 2011 17:01:12 UTC