Re: Back to identifiers

Richard, Karen, et al.,

I can't help but feel that the hairs being split here aren't
particularly helpful to our cause. But if we are going to spiral down
this path, I would posit that the argument being applied to ISBN's
actually applies to all the other identifiers we're discussing...

For practical reasons, I don't support the notion that an OCLC # or an
LCCN are strictly identifiers for a book. At best, they're identifiers
for a metadata record in the particular system coded in the 003. MARC
tells us the 003 indicates the context of the "system control number"
in the 001. I'm not sure how Richards sentence "That is when an
administrator of identifiers, for example Bowker for ISBNs, publishes
structured data about the identifiers they have published, who/what
they have issued them to, what for, and when etc.." applies any less
to WorldCat IDs and other "system control numbers" than it does to
ISBNS.

But, from a practical perspective, I think I agree with Karen, that
this level of additional metadata about an identifier that's already
represented as a URI is at cross purposes with the goal of
representing our data in schema.org.

I think I'm increasingly persuaded by the portions of the
public-vocabs thread, such as Martin Hepp's message about SKOS [1]. I
fear that we're going down the path of attempting to completely
recreate RDF in schema.org.

Thanks,
-Corey

[1]http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2013Jan/0096.html

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Richard Wallis
<richard.wallis@oclc.org> wrote:
> Thanks for bringing this to the list Karen.
>
> Let me hopefully clarify a couple of things.
>
> The particular circumstance, Karen and I have been going around in circles
> about, is one, currently hypothetical, one.
>
> That is when an administrator of identifiers, for example Bowkes for ISBNs,
> publishes structured data about the identifiers they have published,
> who/what they have issued them to, what for, and when etc..
>
> In publishing that information they ideally will publish URIs for those
> identifiers so that others can link to that information.  Thus this example:
>
>
>  <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430>
>       a skos:Concept;
>       schema:name "9780553479430";
>       schema:inScheme <http://bowker.com/concept-scheme/isbn> ;
>       schema:focus <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.
>
> Which tells us that this Thing - with a URI of
> <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430> - is a Concept - has a
> name/label/string of characters “9780553479430” - the concept is in a scheme
> defined at this URI <http://bowker.com/concept-scheme/isbn>  - and it is the
> focus of another thing, a book in this case, with this URI
> <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.
>
> Moving on to the book that has been given the ISBN “9780553479430”.  In this
> scenario it has the URI <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.  That URI
> is the identifier for the the conceptual thing, that has had associated with
> it the standard number allocated by Bowkers.
>
> When describing that book the URI you would use to linked to its allocated
> standard number would be <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430>:
>
>
> <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>
>      a schema:Book;
>      schema:name ”War and Peace”;
>      schema:identifier <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430>.
>
> That is not to say that when marking up html, you would probably also
> include the string.
>
> The above examples are using a mixture of SKOS and not yet existent schema,
> so would not be exactly as shown.
>
>
> It is complex to clearly describe the subtleties here as, isbn is already
> partially addresses in schema already, we are talking about two different
> types of ‘identifiers’, and as I say the situation is slightly hypothetical
> (yet one that could well occur).
>
> Hopeful I have clarified things a bit.
>
> ~Richard.
>
>
>
>
>
> On 18/01/2013 15:20, "Karen Coyle" <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
>
>> After my last identifier post, Richard and I got into a long off-list
>> conversation that should have taken place on-list. I'll try to bring it
>> back.
>>
>> Look at:
>>
>> <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430>
>>      a skos:Concept;
>>      schema:name "9780553479430";
>>      schema:inScheme <http://bowker.com/concept-scheme/isbn> ;
>>      schema:focus <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.
>>
>> <http://bowker.com/concept-scheme/isbn>
>>      a skos:ConceptScheme;
>>      schema:name "ISBN Identifier Scheme".
>>
>>
>> which is on our identifier page. http://tinyurl.com/balwg8h
>>
>> It was my impression that the identifier property was needed only for
>> those identifiers that do not have a URI. Ones I can think of include
>> the government document numbers issued by the US gov't printing agency,
>> and the music publisher numbers.
>>
>> Government doc no.
>>
>>      Y 4.B 22/3:S.HRG.104-869/V.1-
>>
>> Publisher no.
>>
>>      M 640 Victor (set : manual sequence)
>>      15827 Victor
>>
>> Essentially, we need to be able to carry the context/authority along
>> with the identifier so you know whose identifier it is.
>>
>> In the above example from the page, the ISBN, we have learned, *does*
>> have a URI and therefore should not need any further information.
>> However, Richard has stated to me that:
>>
>> *****
>>
>> "The ISBN is a string of characters (in ISBN scheme that Bowkers
>> administer)
>> that they have issued to represent the book - it is not the book.
>>
>> The WorldCat URI identifies the Book.
>>
>> Follow this bit of logic, using your assumption.
>>
>> <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>
>>   a schema:Book;
>>   schema:isbn <http://bowker.com/isbn/9780553479430>;
>>   schema:name "War and Peace".
>>
>> <http://bowker.com/isbn/9780553479430>
>>    a schema:Book;
>>    schema:name "War and Peace";
>>    owl:sameAs <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.
>>
>> This in effect is saying that the isbn is a Book.  You end up in a
>> circular
>> loop.
>>
>> The WorldCat URI is just that, a URI that represents the book.
>> An ISBN URI is a URI that represents the string of characters that have
>> been assigned.
>>
>> *****
>>
>> So the difference in viewpoint here is that I consider the ISBN (whether
>> as a URI or not) to be an identifier for the book. Richard's view is
>> that the ISBN URI is an identifier for the ISBN. Thus the example on the
>> page.
>>
>> I think that much of the confusion here has to do with equating SKOS and
>> URIs for strings. However, I do not see identifiers as skos:concept.
>> They are identifiers. Thus an ISBN is a Book, and for use an ISBN in URI
>> form is as much a Book as a Worldcat ID or an LCCN or a National
>> Bibliographic Number.
>>
>> That's it in a nutshell.
>>
>> kc

Received on Friday, 18 January 2013 16:40:49 UTC