Re: BIBFRAME and schema.org

James,

I think we need to have an open mind on this. Clearly, the disjoint WEMI classes with properties that have tightly bound domain/range are a major bottleneck. But if we stop trying to pigeonhole all bibliographic descriptions into one of these classes and focus on a more open sense of broader/narrower (call it what you will), I think we could actually accommodate/develop some of the stronger notions of WEMI on a per case basis, even if that takes some time. Some resources can clearly benefit from having a few identifiable levels of abstraction, be it 2 or 20.

Jeff

Sent from my iPad

On Jun 30, 2013, at 5:43 PM, "James Weinheimer" <weinheimer.jim.l@gmail.com<mailto:weinheimer.jim.l@gmail.com>> wrote:

I haven't posted to this list yet, but I have been following it. Here are some thoughts I have: BIBFRAME doesn't yet exist. It will be a long time yet in the making; at least I hope there will be some sort of real testing done on different user communities--not only running it by a few catalogers for a few months--before anything is adopted, and then what will really take a lot of time will be for catalogs to adapt to it...

As a result, schemabibex can exist not only *long* before BIBFRAME will, but it can also start being used very quickly and if it is well done, has the potential to become very popular and widespread. It seems to me that relating all of that to FRBR can only hinder the adoption. While I have discovered that, when in a community of catalogers, questioning the validity of FRBR is about as popular as questioning the Trinity in front of a group of bishops, outside the cataloger community--and this includes non-cataloging librarians--FRBR describes something very strange, where you will find very little agreement about the goals, purposes and even validity of FRBR.

Anyway, BIBFRAME itself is already overthrowing the FRBR data model, in favor of instance and work, or what I have always called description and headings.

It just seems to me that after schemabibex is adopted, it will 1) exist, and 2) be easy to implement. Therefore it should be used quite widely. BIBFRAME will have to adapt to schemabibex.

--
James Weinheimer weinheimer.jim.l@gmail.com<mailto:weinheimer.jim.l@gmail.com>
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