Re: Audiobook proposal - discussion

Dan, briefly before meeting: content size sounds great. I missed that. 
Let's not worry about CreativeWork extent just yet.

kc

On 7/16/13 7:31 AM, Dan Scott wrote:
> Thanks Karen!
>
> On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 12:29 PM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
>> I added the audiobook proposal to the agenda for tomorrow, hoping it would
>> be a short item. Looking again, though, I see some areas that we might want
>> to discuss.
>>
>> First, I think it is uncontroversial that audiobooks do need to be
>> represented, and to be distinguishable from hard copy books. The rise of
>> their importance is unmistakable. The question, therefore, is how best to
>> make these visible through schema.org.
>>
>> Q1: schema.org Class or product ontology
>>
>> - Right now the example shows a newly defined schema.org class "Audiobook".
>>
>> [Note that there is an enumeration http://schema.org/BookFormatType for
>> ebook, hardcopy and paperback. This predates the productontology merge with
>> schema.org. Can we agree that we do not want to make use of this
>> enumeration?]
>
> Agreed here, given that we can't use the schema.org extension
> mechanism to add to the base enumeration options, and there's no good
> base BookFormatType to extend.
>
>> -- Arguments for a separate Class:
>> --- Makes Audiobook visible in the schema.org list of schemas, so easier for
>> folks to find
>> --- Adds audiobook-specific properties only to audiobook, not to book
>> ("readBy")
>
> Note that in the "additional super-classes" portion of the Audiobook
> proposal, I've pointed at the more specific "Thing > CreativeWork >
> MediaObject > AudioObject" instead of at MediaObject; hopefully this
> is acceptable.
>
> As an alternative, if we used schema.org's extensions mechanism, we
> could use CreativeWork.contributor/readBy to identify the narrator
> instead of defining a new property.
>
>> -- Arguments for productontology
>> --- Doesn't add a separate Class for just one or a few properties
>
> I sympathize with this view, but as
> http://www.productontology.org/doc/Audiobook itself hits on the
> importance of whether the work is "abridged" or not, I think we need
> the property somewhere.
>
>> Q2: "abridged" and "extent"
>>
>> - In addition to "readBy" there are two properties that are needed:
>> "abridged" and "extent".
>>
>> -- extent: schema.org/duration already exists for media files, but many
>> creative works have an extent, whether it is multiple volumes, multiple
>> disks in a set, numbers of maps, etc. This seems like a logical addition to
>> CreativeWork.
>
> I worry a bit that the definition of "extent" that we use in the
> library / archive world is unfamiliar to many. In addition, we use it
> for two different physical descriptions, per
> http://www.loc.gov/ead/tglib/elements/extent.html : "the quantity of
> the materials being described or an expression of the physical space
> they occupy".
>
> On the "trying to work with existing schema.org properties", there is
> already a MediaObject.contentSize property for file size, and Product
> includes height and width properties that would potentially satisfy
> the "50 linear feet" form of extent; I'm wondering if
> Offer.includesObject would be a reasonable way to satisfy the "set of
> 12 CDs" / "1 map (5 plates)" form of extent.
>
>> -- abridged: "abridged" is an important piece of information for audiobooks,
>> but logically could be applied to any book. At the moment it is listed as a
>> property of Audiobook. I'm less sure whether it fits CreativeWork in
>> general, however.
>
> I agree that it should be added to Book, at least, which would also
> lend support to the notion of having Audiobook derive from Book.
> Checking for "abridged" versions of movies and TV seasons in the wild
> is currently leading me mostly to spoofs, which wouldn't be what we're
> looking for. I can think of edited versions of films that were made
> available for various cultural and religious communities, but again,
> I'm not sure that fits the definition of "abridged".
>
> Slightly off-topic, but given that the value of "abridged" is either
> true or false, I modified the proposal & example to take a Boolean
> instead of a Text value, and used the proposed simple "true" / "false"
> values that make RDFa happy as well per
> http://www.w3.org/2011/webschema/track/issues/14, rather than the
> "http://schema.org/True" value.
>
>> Q3: subclass to CreativeWork or Book
>>
>> - Right now Audiobook is listed as subclassed to CreativeWork, with a note
>> saying that it could be subclassed to Book. If we decide that Audiobook
>> should be a class, which of these seems best?
>
> I would be tempted to go with the most specific parent, and thus
> subclass it from Book. I mean, hey, Audiobook has "book" as a
> substring :) More seriously, I'm sure the Book properties
> "bookEdition" and "isbn" could be useful for Audiobook, and if we
> propose adding "abridged" to Book, then there's even more reason to
> subclass it from there.
>

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

Received on Tuesday, 16 July 2013 14:55:09 UTC