Re: Works and instances

Richard,

"I contend that the majority of people start their journeys in the
search engines at that work level before drilling in to find what they
are looking for in terms of format, availability, etc. By not
linking/identifying our bibliographic resources at that level we are
failing to get those resources under the noses of the people looking
for them.    To that end, I believe it is worth striving towards
providing the metadata capability to describe that relationship, if
the [data] publisher is aware of it."

I mostly agree with the above paragraph but search engines may not
need "metadata capability": they parse all of the content on a page.
For example, most people will search "The Hunting of the Snark" simply
to find a copy to purchase or read online. A very few will want to
find the First Edition, Second printing. Or, a person may want a
limited A-Z edition copy. Search engines will display those particular
copie from information presented on the webpage. I don't know how
beneficial "metadata" would be for these works.

Sean

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Wallis" 
To:"Karen Coyle" , 
Cc:
Sent:Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:42:46 +0000
Subject:Re: Works and instances

Re: Works and instancesKaren,

 I have much sympathy with your thoughts on the loose hooking together
of CreativeWorks with similar content – especially recognising that
the similarity is in the mind of those doing the hooking.  versionOf
could be a good replacement for instanceOf here.

 Being immersed in the graph based world of linked data, I try to
avoid (not always with much success ;-) the use of structured
hierarchical terms such as vertical & horizontal, as they tend to
precondition thinking.  versionOf again may be useful here.

 Having said all that, you only have to listen in on general
conversation between your colleagues, friends and relatives to realise
that we all have an implicit understanding of the concept of a
creative work and [what us frbr exposed folks would label] expressions
and manifestations of that work (without using those labels).  

 I contend that the majority of people start their journeys in the
search engines at that work level before drilling in to find what they
are looking for in terms of format, availability, etc. By not
linking/identifying our bibliographic resources at that level we are
failing to get those resources under the noses of the people looking
for them.    To that end, I believe it is worth striving towards
providing the metadata capability to describe that relationship, if
the [data] publisher is aware of it.

 ~Richard.

 On 06/01/2013 22:53, "Karen Coyle"  wrote:

Richard, I would be more comfortable with a relationship property that
 did not presume a hierarchy - that is, did not presume that one
 description is subordinate ("instance of") another. My gut feeling is
 that we will have many descriptions at various levels of detail, but
 that there is no universal ordering that resembles WEMI.  Still,
people
 will want to say that *this* is similar to/another version of *that*.
So
 we'll have lots of citations of Tom Sawyer, most of which will
include
 publisher information, and people will want to hook them together.
And
 we might have movies and ebooks and audio books and various other
things
 that also have similar content. That "hooking together" constitutes a
 Work in the minds of the "hookers" (:-)). But there may be no "Work"
 description in the FRBR sense to point to. So I would prefer a
 horizontal relationship property to a vertical one. Or, in fact, I
would
 prefer a property that allows people to make the relationship without
 having to think any more about the relationship than "these are kind
of
 the same content."

 And, no, I don't know what to call it. "versionOf" comes to mind, but
is
 not entirely satisfactory.

 kc

 On 1/6/13 1:35 PM, Richard Wallis wrote:
 > Hi Karen,
 >
 > The key points I pick out of your well reasoned email are that
there is no
 > accepted definition of "workness", yet [it] would make sense to
many people.
 >
 > Schema already includes a CreativeWork - it is an issue already
being
 > addressed by the wider community.  If we (the community who have
probably
 > have spent more time, effort, scholarly article pages, and
conference
 > sessions on the topic, than any other) can not help improve the
approach, we
 > will be missing a massive opportunity.
 >
 > Dare I suggest it would be too easy to over-think this, and put it
onto the
 > 'too difficult' pile.
 >
 > Both Painting & Sculpture are sub-types of CreativeWork.
 >
 > I agree that schema:manuscript is an omission and is something that
should
 > be discussed further (under the heading of content vs carrier ?).
 >
 > Back to 'instanceOf' and 'instance', I am not totally happy that
they are
 > the best property names (too much baggage inherited from other
disciplines),
 > but I have failed to come up with anything better.
 >
 > In my view schema:CreativeWork is aligned with frbr:Work as well as
 > frbr:Expression, frbr:Manifestation, and probably frbr:Item - they
all could
 > be considered to be CreativeWork descriptions of more or less
abstractness.
 > If my assumption is a working one, an expression could be described
(in
 > Schema terms) as the instanceOf a Work as well as having an
instance (the
 > manifestation).
 >
 > Sorry for my slightly rambling response - its a bit late in the
evening here
 > ;-)
 >
 > ~Richard.
 >
 >
 >
 >
 >
 > On 06/01/2013 20:08, "Karen Coyle"  wrote:
 >
 >> I have been attempting for a while to respond to the definition of
 >> properties relating works and instances. The problem may be that I
have
 >> been reading (too much?) about the work concept lately, and so I
try to
 >> cover too much ground.
 >>
 >> (Aside: recommended reading on the library concept of Work: Martha
Yee's
 >> four part series "What is a work?" [1] It is a relatively easy
read,
 >> there are examples, and the first part gives excellent historic
background.)
 >>
 >> I will try to simplify with only a few comments:
 >>
 >> 1) "instanceOf" between two schema:creativeWork descriptions would
only
 >> be meaningful under certain conditions (e.g. one describes a work
in the
 >> abstract only), conditions which I consider to be (at this point
in
 >> time) unlikely to occur. Point 2 is one of the reasons for this
opinion.
 >>
 >> 2) There is no accepted definition of "workness" even within the
LAM
 >> environment. cf. FRBRoo,[2] ISTC,[3] FaBIO, [4], not to mention
BIBFRAME
 >> [5], all of which differ from each other and from the description
on
 >> this group's wiki. (cf the example on the wiki, of 2 books and a
movie,
 >> is not aligned with FRBR:Work, but would make sense to many
people).
 >>
 >> 3) It isn't clear to me whether works will be things (with
identifiers),
 >> post-description clusters (with or without IDs. a la' VIAF), or
 >> relationships between bibliographic descriptions (e.g. "sameWork"
 >> between two schema:Book descriptions)
 >>
 >> 4) The term "instance" for a mass-produced product is not helpful.
It
 >> could be applied to "singularities" like works of art, but not for
 >> products. schema:creativeWork may describe both products and
 >> singularities, without distinguishing which it is. Most
schema:Book
 >> descriptions will be manufactured products, but note that there is
no
 >> schema:manuscript. (schema:Painting and schema:Sculpture, which
should
 >> describe singularities, appear to be place-holders since they do
not
 >> extend schema:creativeWork.)
 >>
 >> Beyond this, it gets even more complex, and I do not believe that
we can
 >> resolve this at this time. My recommendation is that it is
premature to
 >> introduce this concept into schema.org. There are other
relationships,
 >> in particular the part/whole relationship that Richard also has
included
 >> on the wiki, that are more useful. We should concentrate on those.
 >>
 >> kc
 >>
 >>
 >> [1] Linked from http://myee.bol.ucla.edu/workspub.htm [3]
 >> [2] http://www.cidoc-crm.org/frbr_inro.html [4]
 >> [3] http://www.istc-international.org/html/ [5]
 >> [4] http://www.essepuntato.it/lode/http:/purl.org/spar/fabio [6]
 >> [5] http://www.loc.gov/marc/transition/news/bibframe-112312.html
[7]
 >
 >
 >

 --
 Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net [8] http://kcoyle.net [9]
 ph: 1-510-540-7596
 m: 1-510-435-8234
 skype: kcoylenet

 

Links:
------
[1] http://ghkn-qgld.accessdomain.com/kcoyle@kcoyle.net
[2] http://ghkn-qgld.accessdomain.com/kcoyle@kcoyle.net
[3] http://myee.bol.ucla.edu/workspub.htm
[4] http://www.cidoc-crm.org/frbr_inro.html
[5] http://www.istc-international.org/html/
[6] http://www.essepuntato.it/lode/http:/purl.org/spar/fabio
[7] http://www.loc.gov/marc/transition/news/bibframe-112312.html
[8] http://ghkn-qgld.accessdomain.com/kcoyle@kcoyle.net
[9] http://kcoyle.net