Re: BIBFRAME and schema.org

Richard, now that I've gotten further along in reading this, I think 
that "posting it to the list" is the least that you should have done. 
This document, written by OCLC and not vetted by this list, attributes 
to the schema bibex group a number of decisions and thoughts that I do 
not recognize. It uses "we" to mean not OCLC but the bibex group. I 
find this more than just problematic - this is at least arrogant and 
possibly dishonest. I now find decisions attributed to this group that 
I cannot condone, yet as a member of the group one could infer that 
they are mine as well.

OCLC cannot speak for this group, and it definitely cannot speak for 
this group in a document that this group did not even see. Godby stated 
that this would be presented at the BIBFRAME session at ALA. If it is 
presented as the thoughts of the bibex group and not OCLC, you should 
be ashamed.

Here are just a few examples from the document:

"This shift in focus implies a decision by the SchemaBibEx community to 
defer to the important standards initiatives of the library community, 
including BIBFRAME, to develop vocabulary required for detailed 
descriptions of library resources." p. 11 - I do not think we have 
discussed this at all. In fact, we haven't really discussed the 
relationship of schema.org and BIBFRAME in any detail, and I'm not sure 
it is necessarily appropriate for us to do so in this forum. There may 
be some folks on the group who aren't even paying attention to 
BIBFRAME, but who wish to mark up bibliographic displays unrelated to 
libraries.

"Though the BIBFRAME initiative needs to develop its own policy with 
regard to the Product Types Ontology, the SchemaBibEx community sees 
little need to define and maintain a competing vocabulary for content 
types and carriers." p. 17 - Again, a decision that I do not recall. 
Also, AFAIK, no one except Jeff has promoted the use of the product 
types ontology, and we haven't discussed its use in any detail in the 
group.

"The SchemaBIBEx community is exploring the possiblity that 
schema:IndividualProduct ... corresponds reasonably well to the 
definition of FRBR Item." p. 17 - We haven't really touched on the item 
level yet. This is one idea, but it is premature to attribute this 
thinking to the group.

"To move forward, two issues must be resolved. First, we must reach 
agreement on working definitions of key concepts. Then we must solve 
the technical problem of mismatched expectations about domain and range 
values..." p. 18 - I object to the use of "we" here because it is 
talking about the work of the SchemaBibEx group, not OCLC. This implies 
that the document is coming from the bibex group, not OCLC. That is not 
true.

Sorry for the blunt talk, but this document must be re-written to 
reflect that it is the thoughts and opinions of OCLC, not the bibex 
group. And that absolutely must be made clear at ALA.

kc


On Thu Jun 27 10:41:15 2013, Wallis,Richard wrote:
> Thanks Karen for posting this to the list.  Travelling got in the way of
> me ensuring that it was published here and on the BIBFRAME list at about
> the same time.
>
> ~Richard.
>
> On 27/06/2013 11:59, "Karen Coyle" <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
>
>> All,
>>
>> If you are on the BIBFRAME list you will have seen a message from Jean
>> Godby with a link to her paper:
>>
>> Godby, Carol Jean. 2013. The Relationship between BIBFRAME and the
>> Schema.org ŒBib Extensions¹ Model: A Working Paper. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC
>> Research.
>> http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/library/2013/2013-05
>> .pdf.
>>
>> This 41 page(!) paper is an excellent analysis of the possible
>> relationship between BIBFRAME and schema.org. This is a topic which we
>> have not discussed directly in this group, and I would like to propose
>> that we could merge this discussion with our consideration of
>> "instanceOf" and "has Instance" -- which we decided to push to this list
>> at the end of our last webex meeting on Tuesday, June 25.
>>
>> The paper presents the alignment of schema.org and FRBR as a primary
>> goal of this group [1]. I take exception to that, as may others. But I
>> believe that the underlying question is the coordination of BIBFRAME and
>> schema.org, and that should be discussed first. There are obvious
>> benefits to the library community to bringing these two into alignment,
>> but we should also discuss whether we can do so without silo-ing library
>> data once again.
>>
>> kc
>>
>> [1] "The main objective of the redesign is to improve the representation
>> of the FRBR hierarchy using concepts already defined in Schema.org.
>> Since the application of the FRBR hierarchy requires the association of
>> descriptions with differing degrees of abstraction, the schemaBibEx
>> community has also proposed the properties hasInstance and isInstanceOf,
>> whose semantics resemble the BIBFRAME properties with the same names."
>> (Godby, p. 11)
>> --
>> 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 Thursday, 27 June 2013 19:13:58 UTC