RE: is FRBR relevant?

Quoting "Young,Jeff (OR)" <jyoung@oclc.org>:


>
> I suspect we are thinking about this problem differently. This URI
> identifies a Web document:
>
> http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273
>
> This URI identifies the concept of WWII:
>
> http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273#concept

I had this debate at length on the ol-tech list when I was developing  
the RDF output from Open Library. I was informed that this is NOT the  
common usage. The arguments go something like this:

- everything on the Web is a web thing
- it is not the web thing-ness that is of interest to people using the  
web, but the meaning behind the web thing
- therefore, it is best to skip the web-thing layer, and instead code  
for the more meaningful layer

For example, you code an ebook as a book in electronic form, not as a  
series of bits. You code an mp3 as a song, not as a file.

This follows library practice where the physical format (bound paper,  
electronic file, CD) is considered secondary.

That said, it's not entirely unambiguous, there are definitely gray  
areas. But I would say that http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273  
represents an intellectual construct, an entry in the LC subject  
authority file which has as its meaning a particular concept. Then you  
can use some other designation, if you wish, to represent the LCSH  
record/web document. This latter is usually considered administrative  
information; it is highly useful, but not the purpose of the data.

kc


>
> Currently, there is no HTTP URI to identify the LC subject heading
> "World War, 1939-1945".
>
> If LC used SKOS XL they could "fix" that.
>
> This is a subtle but important point related to Linked Data. I encourage
> members of LLD XG to puzzle this out. Asking questions will help.
>
> Jeff
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: William Waites [mailto:william.waites@okfn.org]
>> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 2:24 PM
>> To: Young,Jeff (OR)
>> Cc: public-xg-lld@w3.org
>> Subject: Re: is FRBR relevant?
>>
>> On 10-08-10 03:19, Young,Jeff (OR) wrote:
>> > LCSH doesn't need "fixed" exactly. The only problem is that too many
>> > people believe the following URI identifies "the name of the thing"
>> > (i.e. the literal "World War, 1939-1945") rather than "the thing"
>> (i.e.
>> > the concept of WWII):
>> >
>> > http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273#concept
>> >
>> > Switching from skos:prefLabel to skosxl:prefLabel and coining a new
>> URI
>> > for the skosxl:Label would help clarify the difference (IMO):
>> >
>> > http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273#heading
>> >
>>
>> Maybe I'm being dense but I don't understand why this is better
>> than what http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273 gives us now.
>> There are a bunch of labels, a main one and some alternates. You
>> can search on them in whatever way you like without any
>> ambiguity.
>>
>> #heading seems to represent "the concept of the name of the
>> concept". Do we really need this extra indirection?
>>
>> The main problem I see is that neither what the LOC is doing
>> now, nor any extensions with skosxl isn't compatible with Dublin
>> Core.
>>
>>     [ dc:subject [
>>         dcam:member dc:LCSH;
>>         rdf:value "World War, 1939-1945"]]
>>
>> which appears in the wild. If i put,
>>
>>     [ dc:subject <http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273> ]
>>
>> I need to make an ugly query,
>>
>>     SELECT ?x WHERE {
>>         {
>>            ?x a Work .
>>            ?x dc:subject ?s.
>>            ?s rdf:value "World War, 1939-1945"
>>         } UNION {
>>            ?x a Work.
>>            ?x dc:subject ?s.
>>            ?s skos:label "World War, 1939-1945"
>>         }
>>     }
>>
>> As I've said before, this can be converted in an automated way
>> easily enough, but I think we (or one of the follow-on WGs)
>> makes a concrete recommendation that may supercede DC's
>> usage with respect to subjects from LCSH (and possibly
>> other authorities). At the very least if DC encouraged using
>> rdfs:label instead of rdf:value we would get (with description
>> logic) compatibility for free. Compatibility is obviously
>> not as straightforward with skosxl
>>
>> Cheers,
>> -w
>>
>> --
>> William Waites           <william.waites@okfn.org>
>> Mob: +44 789 798 9965    Open Knowledge Foundation
>> Fax: +44 131 464 4948                Edinburgh, UK
>>
>> RDF Indexing, Clustering and Inferencing in Python
>> 		http://ordf.org/
>
>
>
>



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

Received on Wednesday, 11 August 2010 15:00:11 UTC