Re: BIBFRAME and schema.org

Hi Karen,

There is a subtle but important difference here.

I said that it 'references' the thoughts, discussions, and proposals
within the SchemaBibEx group.

Which you interpret as 'representing' thoughts and proposals within the
SchemaBibEx group.

I can assure you that there is not an OCLC corporate view or position on
this, other than the general opinion that there is potential in aligning
thoughts between SchemaBibEx and BIBFRAME, I think Jeff hinted at this
earlier in this thread. I spend far too much time in discussions for that
to be true. 

Jean in producing this report, for BIBFRAME, commenting on and referencing
SchemaBibEx, is obviously influenced by her significant experience in
bibliographic metadata, and the colleagues around her.  However, it is her
report to BIBFRAME - not a report on behalf of SchemaBibEx.

As to bias in the report, as with most reports, it is probably biased
towards what the author believes to be a sensible way forward.

As I said in my earlier email to you, which you kindly reproduced on list:

"it is clear that there are different interpretations of the purpose,
intent, and approach of the report.  I believe that for that reason there
is probably a need for clarification of the approach of the report in
referencing proposals and discussions within the SchemaBibEx group."

Subject to schedules at ALA, where I am at the moment, I will work towards
that.

~Richard.

 


On 28/06/2013 11:54, "Karen Coyle" <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:

>
>
>On 6/28/13 9:18 AM, Wallis,Richard wrote:
>
>>
>> As such it does references the thoughts, discussions, and proposals
>>within
>> the SchemaBibEx group.  I may have missed it in rereading, but I didn't
>> see any specific decisions being referenced as such.
>
>Richard, it does not represent the thoughts and proposals within the
>SchemaBibEx group. It represents OCLC's thoughts and proposals, may of
>which the group has argued against or simply ignored. You may have
>assumed that OCLC's proposals were = the group's proposals, but that is
>not the case. For example, OCLC has stated that it advocates the use of
>the productontology. No one else has taken that up as a positive
>proposal. Therefore, one person (or organization) making a suggestion is
>NOT the same as it being a proposal of the group. You have confused
>OCLC's view with that of the group. Anyone can say anything during the
>calls, but these do not become the "thoughts" of the group. I actually
>spoke out against productontology [1] -- is that a thought of the group?
>(It definitely isn't mentioned in the report, since only OCLC's view
>seems to appear there.)
>
>Richard, the report is biased to support what OCLC wants, and ignores
>that actual interactions and discussions of the group. You may have been
>hearing the discussion through OCLC glasses, but if you go back to the
>emails you will see that what is said in the report as the thoughts of
>the group is not true -- it is the thoughts of OCLC, ignoring what group
>members have said.
>
>kc
>
>[1]http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-schemabibex/2013Feb/0014.htm

>l
>
>
>>
>> Yes it is obviously an OCLC Report, which expresses Jean's (with some
>> cooperation from colleagues) view, of SchemaBibEx group's efforts and
>> proposals, referencing and exploring some of the examples in our open
>> public discussions.  As such I don't see it claiming to represent any
>> 'decisions' of the SchemaBibEx group.
>>
>>  From the discussions on our list it is clear that there are different
>> interpretations of the purpose, intent, and approach of the report.  I
>> believe that for that reason there is probably a need for clarification
>>of
>> the approach of the report in referencing proposals and discussions
>>within
>> the SchemaBibEx group.  Specifically that all references to SchemaBibEx
>> proposals are in fact just that - 'proposals' under discussion.  And for
>> clarity are not proposals by SchemaBibEx to the Public-vocabs list
>> following decisions by the group.
>>
>> I intend to catch up with Jean in the near future, subject to us both
>> being in different parts of the same enormous conference centre, to
>> discuss how this would be achieved.
>>
>> ~Richard.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 28/06/2013 10:26, "Karen Coyle" <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Richard, Jean's report is an excellent analysis of the issues. But it
>>> attributes to the schema BibEx group thoughts and decisions that are
>>> not ours but OCLC's. The entire report should be a report on OCLC's
>>> thinking on the topic, and should not attribute that thinking to the
>>> group. That attribution is nothing less than false. (Jean may not have
>>> known this.) By attributing the thinking in the report to the group,
>>> OCLC is claiming a community consensus on its ideas that has not been
>>> demonstrated.
>>>
>>> What the report says about the Schema BibEx group is not true. This
>>> must be rectified.
>>>
>>> kc
>>>
>>> On Fri Jun 28 07:16:18 2013, Wallis,Richard wrote:
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> Let me clarify a few things from my point of view.
>>>>
>>>> Firstly an apology for not posting the document on list as soon as it
>>>> could have been.  I was aware that the publication this report to
>>>> the BIBFRAME community was imminent from Jean Godby, but the actual
>>>> timing, with dependancies on when the document could be loaded on the
>>>> web etc., was not known.  Flight schedules and airport wifi conspired
>>>> to prevent me from monitoring the BIBFRAME list closely enough to be
>>>> able to repost it on this list as soon as I would have liked.  Again I
>>>> thank Karen, and her observant following of these lists, for doing my
>>>> job for me.
>>>>
>>>> Secondly, I believe that we should take note of what prompted the
>>>> report and therefore its context.  To quote Jean '/The analysis
>>>> presented here was prompted by the call at the end of the December
>>>> 2012 BIBFRAME Early Experimenters Meeting for a set of Point or
>>>> Position papers that work out technical issues and make
>>>> recommendations for a number of sketchy, difficult, or controversial
>>>> aspects of the //BIBFRAME model./' and '/This draft is being released
>>>> as an OCLC report, but it is intended to be read as a working paper
>>>> for the BIBFRAME community./'
>>>>
>>>> Jean in producing this report to the BIBFRAME community listened to
>>>> the published SchemaBibEx discussions, read our public email
>>>> conversations, and the documentation on the wiki over several months.
>>>>   Having reread her document I am not aware of any topic she
>>>>attributes
>>>> to SchemaBibEx discussions that has not at sometime been discussed in
>>>> the group.  In the refining of her thinking Jean interviewed some of
>>>> her colleagues, particularly Jeff Young and myself who are involved in
>>>> Schema.org.  We were also able to comment with others who are
>>>> interested in the importance of linked data for the library domain, on
>>>> early drafts.
>>>>
>>>> Next I should address my personal position, as an OCLC employee, in
>>>> this.  Personally I believe that the issues, challenges, and
>>>> opportunities being discussed in groups such as SchemaBibEx and
>>>> BIBFRAME of vital importance to the library, bibliographic, web and
>>>> semantic web communities. That importance is way larger than any
>>>> individual organisation, be they commercial, cooperative, individual
>>>> or government backed. I am fortunate enough to be able to provide some
>>>> hopefully unbiased facilitation in these areas & communities and the
>>>> backing of my employer to invest the time (and some of their
>>>> resources) in doing this.
>>>>
>>>> OCLC I believe has two important roles in these debates.  Firstly as a
>>>> cooperative representing tens of thousands of member libraries, and
>>>> secondly they research and manage on a day to day basis a huge
>>>> aggregation of bibliographic data. The significant experience gained
>>>> into the transformation, analysis, and processing of this data give
>>>> them unique insight in to the issues and challenges that arise.
>>>>
>>>> Back to the report itself.
>>>>
>>>> I am not going to go into a point by point discussion here, but taken
>>>> in the round I believe its description of the general direction of
>>>> travel of our discussions on how Schema.org could be applied to and
>>>> influence the description of bibliographic data is not far off.
>>>>   Especially in support of the conclusion that the BIBFRAME community
>>>> [to whom the report is targeted] should look to take note of our work
>>>> and consider cooperation with.
>>>>
>>>> As  commentator on our activities I believe that Jean possibly over
>>>> emphasises the goal of representing FRBR in Schema.org (something she
>>>> states would not be acceptable by Schema) - I think it is her
>>>> interpretation of our challenge to use Schema to describe resources
>>>> and their relationships – relationships we [library folk] understand
>>>> and often discuss in terms of FRBR.
>>>>
>>>> Again in general, I believe that her report will be an excellent
>>>> addition to the debate in the BIBFRAME community and hopefully broaden
>>>> the debate around the use of library linked data, and most importantly
>>>> its place in the broader web of data.
>>>>
>>>> ~Richard.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> From: Shlomo Sanders <Shlomo.Sanders@exlibrisgroup.com
>>>> <mailto:Shlomo.Sanders@exlibrisgroup.com>>
>>>> Date: Friday, 28 June 2013 05:10
>>>> To: Dan Scott <denials@gmail.com <mailto:denials@gmail.com>>
>>>> Cc: "public-schemabibex@w3.org <mailto:public-schemabibex@w3.org>"
>>>> <public-schemabibex@w3.org <mailto:public-schemabibex@w3.org>>
>>>> Subject: Re: BIBFRAME and schema.org
>>>> Resent-From: <public-schemabibex@w3.org
>>>> <mailto:public-schemabibex@w3.org>>
>>>> Resent-Date: Friday, 28 June 2013 05:11
>>>>
>>>>      +1
>>>>
>>>>      Thanks,
>>>>      Shlomo
>>>>
>>>>      Sent from my iPad
>>>>
>>>>      On Jun 28, 2013, at 10:46, "Dan Scott" <denials@gmail.com
>>>>      <mailto:denials@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>      Thanks Karen. I generally concur with your reaction (although I
>>>>>      have to admit that for the first time in my life I was getting
>>>>>      hung up on the _terrible_ kerning of the font in the PDF, so had
>>>>>      been reading through it rather slowly).
>>>>>
>>>>>      I was surprised by many of the statements in the paper about the
>>>>>      direction, decisions, thoughts, and beliefs of the Schema BibEx
>>>>>      group. Perhaps if all (or most) of those statements were
>>>>>modified
>>>>>      to say they were the direction, decisions, thoughts, beliefs "of
>>>>>      the OCLC employees currently participating in the Schema BibEx
>>>>>      community" that would be more acceptable--certainly closer to
>>>>>the
>>>>>      truth.
>>>>>
>>>>>      I very much value the opinions (& Richard's leadership) of the
>>>>>      OCLC participants in this group, but cannot endorse this paper
>>>>>as
>>>>>      an accurate reflection of the group's positions, direction, etc
>>>>>      as a whole, particularly with respect to BIBFRAME.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>      On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 3:13 PM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net
>>>>>      <mailto:kcoyle@kcoyle.net>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>          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 <http://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
>>>>>              <mailto: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 <http://Schema.org> ŒBib Extensions¹
>>>>>                  Model: A Working Paper. Dublin, Ohio: OCLC
>>>>>                  Research.
>>>>>
>>>>> 
>>>>>http://www.oclc.org/content/__dam/research/publications/__library/2013

>>>>>/2
>>>>> 013-05
>>>>>
>>>>> 
>>>>><http://www.oclc.org/content/dam/research/publications/library/2013/20

>>>>>13
>>>>> -05>
>>>>>                  ..pdf.
>>>>>
>>>>>                  This 41 page(!) paper is an excellent analysis of
>>>>>the
>>>>>                  possible
>>>>>                  relationship between BIBFRAME and schema.org
>>>>>                  <http://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
>>>>>                  <http://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 <http://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 <http://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 <mailto:kcoyle@kcoyle.net>
>>>>>                  http://kcoyle.net

>>>>>                  ph: 1-510-540-7596
>>>>>                  m: 1-510-435-8234
>>>>>                  skype: kcoylenet
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>          --
>>>>>          Karen Coyle
>>>>>          kcoyle@kcoyle.net <mailto: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, 28 June 2013 17:35:05 UTC