RE: Scope of this group's work

I agree with Jerry that we should be erasing boundaries. Libraries may
continue to focus on describing creative works and closely-related
entities, but the web in which those entities are involved extends far
beyond.

 

That's why I'm concerned about the perpetuation of phrases like
"creative work schema" and "particular sub-schema". 

 

A closed-world record by any other name would stink as bad.

 

Jeff

 

From: Jerry Persons [mailto:jpersons@stanford.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 4:14 PM
To: public-schemabibex@w3.org
Subject: Re: Scope of this group's work

 

Karen,

 

>From your notes:

"There doesn't seem to be the structure in schema.org to further
describe a person within a creative work schema"

 

My point is that it doesn't matter that one cannot further describe a
person within a particular sub-schema ... 

it matters that within the overall framework that is schema.org (aka
herein this and all those other  "graph thangs") there are multitudinous
ways to represent info about a person, all of which info is of value in
populating the graph about an individual if we are in fact about the
business of plugging all of what libraries know about people and things
into the web-wide, well-structured connections that are emerging as
linked data.  

 

I tried to suggest to some extent the scope of the much broader context
we need to absorb in the case study example for Stephen Jay Gould [
http://goo.gl/p1QOq <http://goo.gl/p1QOq>  ] wherein a reader
approaching Gould via his "creative work" persona might be equally or
even better served by having extensive access to other facets of Gould's
life and his relationships with roles, institutions, people, events,
organizations, etc.

 

Yes, I understand we are focused here on trying to improve the quality
of schema.org's ability to represent bibliographic entities and the
people and organizations and topics associated with them.

I worry that too often, such discussions devolve into how what we're
doing is going to feed the very next generation of library applications.
All to the good of course, but what would we lose by thinking outside
the "library" and the "application" box just a bit ... 

CRIG said it best some time ago:

                "The coolest thing to do with your data will be thought
of by someone else"  [ http://goo.gl/Jqnse <http://goo.gl/Jqnse>  ]

 

My plea is simply that the 'library community" do everything possible to
get "what it knows" out into the web-wide fabric of structured data ...
whether or not it fits within the bounds of a particular (in this case
bibliographically tuned) schema.

 

A plea which is admittedly in itself reaching somewhat beyond topical
boundaries of "make bib info better in schema.org", but one that might
well generate an innovation or three (or a community or four of
stakeholders as Adrian suggests) in how we approach our objective.

 

Best,

Jerry