RE: Back to identifiers

Corey,

You're not crazy. A URI is an identifier. 

There is no good reason to model identifiers as both URIs and non-URI text-strings now-a-days. The latter need to carry too much context to be effective. Nevertheless, they exist in legacy systems. The mechanism that's being proposed creates a bridge from legacy string identifiers to the URI identifiers. Only systems that are coupled with the legacy forms will care about this bridge. Whether Schema.org cares enough about the past to adopt such an identifier bridge is unclear. That's why Richard suggests tabling this discussion in favor of SKOS patterns (which are effectively the same).

The reason the example is weird is because you're overlooking the implications of Cool URIs for the Semantic Web. 

http://www.w3.org/TR/cooluris/


The example doesn't identify OCLC metadata, it identifies a Book that OCLC has coined a URI for. The metadata entity has a different URI identifier. The 303 redirect from the former to the latter is merely a convenience mechanism.

Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Corey Harper [mailto:corey.harper@gmail.com]
> Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 2:42 PM
> To: kcoyle@kcoyle.net
> Cc: Young,Jeff (OR); public-schemabibex@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Back to identifiers
> 
> Karen, et al.,
> 
> How is a URI not an identifier? That's what the "I" stands for, right?
> Am I missing something here? Why would we want two different design
> patterns for actionable http identifiers & text-strings as identifiers?
> 
> The kinds of additional metadata one might associate with an identifier
> (who maintains it, when it was issued, &c) seem to apply irrespective
> of whether the identifier is a URI or a string of text, no? I agree
> that the URI for the ISBN does not *need* to be defined.
> But should that prevent an agency that manages library identifiers from
> defining it? I'm not sure I agree that this is out of scope, as this is
> exactly the kind of metadata libraries & related organizations provide.
> Now, it's out of scope for a discussion of schema.org metadata about
> the books themselves; that I agree with.
> 
> And I also agree that it's weird that the example claims that the ISBN
> "identifies" some OCLC metadata. That seems wrong to me. If anything,
> both identifier point, though indirectly, to a book.
> 
> Thanks,
> Corey
> 
> On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 2:21 PM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
> > No, a URI is a URI. The identifier property extension that we have
> > talked about is for identifiers that are not URIs. I believe at one
> > point we had something like:
> >
> > Identifier
> >  - value
> >  - source/authority
> >
> > Thus, the URI for the ISBN does not need to be defined using the
> > identifier property extension. Yet the example on the identifier page
> is:
> >
> > <http://bowker.com/identifiers/isbn/9780553479430>
> >     a schema:Identifier;
> >     schema:name "9780553479430";
> >     schema:inStandard "ISBN";
> >     schema:issuedBy <http://viaf.org/viaf/142397918>;
> >     schema:issueDate  "1997";
> >     schema:identifies <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38264520>.
> >
> > Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but as long as there is a URI for the
> > ISBN (and there always is because there is a defined URN for ISBN),
> > then there is no need to re-describe it with the identifier
> extension.
> > This description of the identifier I believe is out of scope for our
> > work. (And looks a lot like ARK, which possibly had everything right
> > but did not get wide-spread traction). I think we should stick to our
> > task of finding a way to use identifiers that do not yet have URIs.
> > If, instead, you are intending to mint URIs for those identifiers
> (issuedBy: above) then that is another case.
> > This construct appears in the examples but not in the text, and I
> > don't think we discussed that here. I think it would be over-reaching
> > at this point in time.
> >
> > But what really baffles me here is that the Bowker ISBN is stated as
> > identifying a WorldCat "thing." If anything, that would be reversed
> > since the ISBN is assigned to the book before any library data is
> > created. I do consider the ISBN to be *the* book identifier in our
> > world and that perhaps our examples should look more like publishing
> > examples than library catalog examples.
> >
> > kc
> >
> >
> >
> > On 1/18/13 9:52 AM, Young,Jeff (OR) wrote:
> >>
> >> I'm not sure I follow. The WorldCat URI is a URI, but it wouldn't
> >> make sense to say that its rdf:type is xyz:Identifier. Is that the
> concern?
> >> That's what I thought Richard was saying for awhile too, but if you
> >> look at this examples he does keep them separate.
> >>
> >> Jeff
> >>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: Karen Coyle [mailto:kcoyle@kcoyle.net]
> >>> Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 12:48 PM
> >>> To: Young,Jeff (OR)
> >>> Subject: Re: Back to identifiers
> >>>
> >>> Worldcat URI is a URI. ISBN URI is a URI. Any problem there?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> kc
> >>>
> >>> On 1/18/13 9:42 AM, Young,Jeff (OR) wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Note that a WorldCat.org URI is not a number. The Linked Data 303
> >>>
> >>> (See
> >>>>
> >>>> Other) redirect is important because the 1st URI identifies "the
> >>>
> >>> thing"
> >>>>
> >>>> and the second identifies "a description of the thing" (what Corey
> >>>> call "a record"). Both can have the same legacy number in them
> >>>
> >>> without
> >>>>
> >>>> causing ambiguity.
> >>>>
> >>>> Jeff
> >>>>
> >>>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>>> From: Karen Coyle [mailto:kcoyle@kcoyle.net]
> >>>>> Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 12:36 PM
> >>>>> To: Wallis,Richard
> >>>>> Cc: Corey Harper; public-schemabibex@w3.org
> >>>>> Subject: Re: Back to identifiers
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 1/18/13 8:58 AM, Richard Wallis wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>> For practical reasons, I don't support the notion that an OCLC
> #
> >>>
> >>> or
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> an LCCN are strictly identifiers for a book.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Neither do I
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Well, that's news to me, because when I suggested this to you,
> you
> >>>>
> >>>> came
> >>>>>
> >>>>> back with (and I quoted this before):
> >>>>>
> >>>>> "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."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And in another post:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ***
> >>>>> URIs are about providing dereferencable identifiers for 'things'.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> So when for instance the British Library asserts that the URI for
> >>>>> a book in the BNB is sameAs in the German National library  they
> >>>>> are saying the books are the same, not the records they have.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It is the same with WorldCat - it's not just a pile of records it
> >>
> >> is
> >>>>>
> >>>>> [becoming] a graph (to use the current label) of relationships
> >>>>> between things - people, places, organisations, concepts, and
> >>>>> bibliographic works.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The URIs represent the things not the records that are being
> mined
> >>>
> >>> to
> >>>>>
> >>>>> build descriptions of those things.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ***
> >>>>>
> >>>>> You might see why I have been confused.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Here's my take:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Because of how we have done things in the past, we have
> >>>>> identifiers
> >>>>
> >>>> for
> >>>>>
> >>>>> records that describe some level of bibliographic item. De facto,
> >>
> >> we
> >>>>>
> >>>>> have also used those identifiers for the "things" they describe.
> I
> >>>>> suspect that this is a common situation for anyone in data
> >>>>> processing, and I suggest that we not agonize over it but live
> >>>>> with
> >>>
> >>> the ambiguity.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And in this ambiguous world, ISBNs, LCCNs, BNB #s, OCLC#s, all
> >>>>> work reasonably well to identify a creative output. They may also
> >>>>> at
> >>>
> >>> times
> >>>>>
> >>>>> represent the record. That's life.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> So, back to identifiers (and I do NOT want this wrapped up in the
> >>>>> discussion about SKOS because I DO NOT see SKOS:concept as valid
> >>
> >> for
> >>>>
> >>>> an
> >>>>>
> >>>>> identifier), I think our identifier proposal should be for
> >>>>> identifiers that are not in URI format. full stop.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> kc
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Karen Coyle
> >>>>> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net

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

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

> > ph: 1-510-540-7596
> > m: 1-510-435-8234
> > skype: kcoylenet
> >

Received on Friday, 18 January 2013 21:05:23 UTC