- From: Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net>
- Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:36:29 -0800
- To: "public-schemabibex@w3.org" <public-schemabibex@w3.org>
On 11/12/12 7:27 AM, Richard Wallis wrote:
> Thanks for clarification Karen.
>
> The thing we need to take into account when using something like Schema.org
> is that they use classes to describe real world Things, such as people -
> their names, and possibly pseudonyms, being just properties of that Person.
>
> So a [library world] personal name will end up being mapped to the 'name'
> property of a Person <http://schema.org/Person>. Likewise a [library world]
> corporate name will end up being mapped to the name property of an
> Organisation <http://schema.org/Organization>.
>
> We may suggest that the description for the additionalName property of
> Person be adjusted to allow for it to contain a pseudonym.
Richard,
I'm sure there could be some use for such a property, however, that is
the opposite of what libraries do. At least post-ALA rules libraries in
the Anglo-American cataloging world. There is no attempt in our library
data to identify a pseudonym as such, nor to distinguish between the
"real person's name" and a pseudonym. "Mark Twain" has equal existence
to "Samuel Clemens" and they each have a pointer to the other in their
"see also" references. But the "real" person is not given any
precedence, and I'm not at all sure that you can even tell which name
represents the real person and which the pseudonym. Now, it may be that
in some future this information will be available in library data, but
what I'm saying is that I hesitate to add to a schema today a property
for data that we cannot provide today. Maybe I should be more
fore-sighted. ;-)
I did look at DBPedia, out of curiosity, and interestingly the entry for
Mark Twain [1] has these two properties:
dbpedia-owl:pseudonym "Mark Twain"
dbprop:alternativeNames "Samuel Langhorne Clemens"
There is no page for SLC, and if you produce a DBPedia URI with SLC as
the page name, you are directed to the Mark Twain page with no
explanation. All of the "sameAs" properties link to various "Mark
Twain"s. When it comes to "real world" it's hard to know which is more
real. Biographies of Mark Twain exist, and in the minds of some folks
Twain is more "real" than "Clemens" - just as Mary Lincoln is more real
than Mary Todd (who married Abraham Lincoln).
My point is that the distinction between real person and pseudonym may
be more than we should take on, at least based on library data.
Oftentimes the difference is not known. If we do ask for it, it needs to
go in both directions: from pseudonym to "real name" and from "real
name" to pseudonym. But again, I'm for putting this off for the first
round of bibliographic data, until we see how it might be used.
kc
[1] http://dbpedia.org/page/Mark_Twain
>
> ~Richard.
>
>
> On 12/11/2012 15:07, "Karen Coyle" <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 11/12/12 8:31 AM, Richard Wallis wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Two authors writing under a single name has me stumped at the moment,
>>> and I think we would have difficulty in convincing the Schema.org folks
>>> to make changes to cope with such an edge case. Perhaps we should
>>> default to describing them as a Person with an explanatory note as a
>>> description (not liking that I have just said that.)
>>
>> Richard, I don't think that the library data that we have today
>> distinguishes between "real" names and pseudonyms. I see nothing in the
>> authority record that encodes this either. So what we have is "personal
>> names" (and it's not "person" it's "personal name"), corporate names,
>> family names, and each of these can either be an Agent (1XX, 7XX, 8XX)
>> or a subject (6XX). That's it, at least in the MARC world. It would be
>> interesting to hear from a wider international group if there are
>> library standards that include more information about the relationship
>> between the name and a Real World Object.
>>
>> kc
>>
>>
>>>
>>> ~Richard.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 09/11/2012 19:58, "Owen Stephens" <owen@ostephens.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Not to mention fictional representations of real people in
>>> literature, film etc.
>>>
>>> I understand the desire to label characters/organisations as
>>> fictional, but I'm not clear what the use case is? What are we
>>> trying to enable with this apart from 'better description'?
>>>
>>> Owen
>>>
>>> Owen Stephens
>>> Owen Stephens Consulting
>>> Web: http://www.ostephens.com
>>> Email: owen@ostephens.com
>>> Telephone: 0121 288 6936
>>>
>>> On 9 Nov 2012, at 21:25, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> The "fictional" category here is a bit ambiguous, if I interpret
>>> this discussion correctly. There are characters that appear in
>>> fiction (Sherlock Holmes); there are named personae that
>>> represent a person, such as pseudonyms ("Mark Twain"), and there
>>> are also personae that are not 1-to-1 with a person, such as two
>>> or more authors who write together under a single personal name.
>>> The former is fictional, the latter two are real. To my
>>> knowledge, library cataloging treats these two cases, invented
>>> fictional characters and personae that function as creators, as
>>> two different things. Only one of these is an Agent in the sense
>>> of dc:creator.
>>>
>>> Finding a bright line to separate these two types of "persons"
>>> is not easy. Film librarians have told me that users expect to
>>> find "Mickey Mouse" or "Nemo" in the same way that they would
>>> find the names of actors in a film. And the "Lassie" example is
>>> a real poser since Lassie was both a character but also the
>>> "actor" in the films. Library cataloging only treats the
>>> fictional characters as subject headings (and topical, not
>>> personal subject headings).
>>>
>>> I think one needs to follow the example of FOAF and say that if
>>> someone gives it a personal name then it is a person. That's the
>>> reverse of what has been the main approach so far, which is "if
>>> it's a person, then code it as a personal name."
>>>
>>> kc
>>>
>>> On 11/8/12 1:29 PM, Richard Wallis wrote:
>>>
>>> Assuming that you define a ghost as a Person, yes.
>>>
>>> Presuming that we lobbied successfully to add a Boolean
>>> 'isFictional'
>>> property to the Schema.org <http://Schema.org> Thing class
>>> any other class that inherits from
>>> Thing could use it.
>>>
>>> Check out the description of the Person class
>>> <http://schema.org/Person> 'A
>>> person (alive, dead, undead, or fictional).' and you will
>>> see the five
>>> properties inherited from Thing listed at the top.
>>>
>>> ~Richard.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 08/11/2012 16:17, "Pilsk, Suzanne" <PilskS@si.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>> This is the discussion that goes on in the library
>>> cataloging standards group
>>> - that crops up when a new batch of catalogers are
>>> trained and are surprised
>>> by the "rules".
>>>
>>>
>>> Casper the friendly ghost - fictional to some, a real
>>> ghost to others.
>>> Lassie - the dog - a real dog - actually played by
>>> multiple canines.
>>>
>>> I like the idea of a person is a person who is fictional
>>> vs taking a "fake
>>> personality" and making it a "thing".
>>>
>>> We have a linked data project in the works with FAKE
>>> Botanists.
>>>
>>> So Richard, are you saying it would be person (is
>>> fictional) - under "Thing"?
>>>
>>> Suzanne
>>>
>>>
>>> Suzanne C. Pilsk
>>> Head, Metadata Unit
>>> Smithsonian Institution Libraries
>>> Connecting. Ideas. Information. You.
>>> 10th & Constitution Avenues, NW, NH2207
>>> MRC 154, P.O. Box 37012
>>> Washington, DC 20013-7012
>>> v. 202.633.1646
>>> PilskS@si.edu
>>> Please consider the environment before printing this
>>> email.
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Richard Wallis [mailto:richard.wallis@oclc.org]
>>> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 4:15 PM
>>> To: Dawson, Laura; public-schemabibex@w3.org
>>> Subject: Re: Itemprop for person
>>>
>>> In the Schema.org world the 'Thing' class is what every
>>> other class inherits
>>> properties from, so a Person, an Organization, a Book, a
>>> Product, are all
>>> Things.
>>>
>>> ~Richard.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 08/11/2012 16:12, "Dawson, Laura"
>>> <Laura.Dawson@bowker.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Is a fictional character a person or a thing?
>>>
>>> Oooh, philosophy! "What is the nature of a thing?"
>>>
>>> Laura Dawson
>>> Product Manager, Identifiers
>>> Bowker
>>> laura.dawson@bowker.com
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: Richard Wallis [richard.wallis@oclc.org]
>>> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 4:07 PM
>>> To: Dawson, Laura; public-schemabibex@w3.org
>>> Subject: Re: Itemprop for person
>>>
>>> The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to
>>> suggest that this
>>> is a suggested new property for 'Thing' - most any
>>> type of thing you
>>> describe could be fictional.
>>>
>>> ~Richard
>>>
>>>
>>> On 08/11/2012 15:55, "Dawson, Laura"
>>> <Laura.Dawson@bowker.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I like this very much!
>>>
>>> Laura Dawson
>>> Product Manager, Identifiers
>>> Bowker
>>> laura.dawson@bowker.com
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: Richard Wallis [richard.wallis@oclc.org]
>>> Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 3:48 PM
>>> To: Dawson, Laura; public-schemabibex@w3.org
>>> Subject: Re: Itemprop for person
>>>
>>> Interesting thought also applicable for
>>> Organization (such as
>>> Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry)
>>>
>>> ~Richard.
>>>
>>> On 08/11/2012 15:35, "Dawson, Laura"
>>> <Laura.Dawson@bowker.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Could we possibly add an ³isfictional² tag? To
>>> identify characters
>>> (such as Sherlock Holmes)? Some fictional
>>> characters will eventually
>>> have ISNIs and we¹ll need to structure data
>>> around them.
>>>
>>> Laura Dawson
>>> Product Manager, Identifiers
>>> Bowker
>>> Land: (908) 219-0082
>>> Cell: (917) 770-6641
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>
--
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Monday, 12 November 2012 20:36:56 UTC