RE: Open Library and RDF

Thanks, Jeff. Some of this I will need to think about more, but here  
are a few comments:

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


>
> The URI in the rdf:about currently behaves by returning 200 (OK) for
> Accept: application/rdf+xml or else 301 (Moved Permanently). I suggest
> changing this behavior to conform to Linked Data r303uri
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/cooluris/#r303uri>. In other words, change the RDF
> negotiation behavior to do a 303 to
> http://openlibrary.org/works/OL15168504W.rdf and change the 301 for HTML
> to a 303. The same would hold true for the author URIs and any others
> like it.

I can pass this on to the OL developers, but the fact of the matter is  
that OL is not terribly focused on RDF, so if such a change takes  
notable effort or interferes with anything else, it will not be done.

>
> You should consider using frbrCore:creator in your frbrCore:Work rather
> than (or at least in addition to) dcterms:creator:
>
> <frbr:creator rdf:resource="http://openlibrary.org/authors/OC34266A" />


First, from what I can tell, "creator" is not a FRBR property,  
although it was included in frbrCore. Unfortunately, frbrCore and  
IFLA's FRBRer have a number of significant differences. I used "Work"  
from FRBRcore because there is no way to indicate Work in a more  
common vocabulary, like DC, and there was a sense that frbrCore is the  
current standard for FRBR properties. I used dcterms:creator because  
my impression is that folks prefer encountering a metadata set that  
they are already familiar with, and every time I use something *other  
than* DC I get asked why I didn't use DC :-). If I used the official  
FRBRer [1] entity, it would be "isCreatorPersonOf" -- and I think you  
can see why I don't want to go there. (Note: the term "Creator" is not  
used in the FRBR document, so the predicate isCreatorPersonOf must be  
coming out of the committee work, but I can't find it documented  
anywhere.)

[1] http://metadataregistry.org/schema/show/id/5.html


>
> Since the range on frbrCore:creator is frbrCore:ResponsibleEntity,
> though, you should consider the confusion created by the fact that
> http://openlibrary.org/authors/OC34266A currently identifies a
> foaf:Person. People don't seem to like my idea of keeping these typed
> identities separate, so I will let them suggest solutions. Hopefully
> they won't twist your arm to switch your XML from <frbr:Work...> to
> <rdf:Description...>


When I was working on the RDF for OL authors there was a strong desire  
on the part of folks advising me on ol-tech to make use of foaf for  
persons. I've done that here, but would like to hear a few more voices  
about this, since I realize that much of this is still very much  
speculative.


>
> I believe you should change rdf:value to rdfs:label in the following
> snippet:
>
>         <dcterms:creator>
>           <rdf:Description
> rdf:about="http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL34266A">
>           <rdf:value>Aimee Bender</rdf:value>
>           </rdf:Description>
>         </dcterms:creator>
>

I copied that from the "editions" template, so I didn't really think  
about it. Label sounds correct to me... Any other opinions?


>
> On the "Author" side, I don't see how rdg2 properties can be justified
> for foaf:Person since their rdfs:domain is
> http://RDVocab.info/uri/schema/FRBRentitiesRDA/Person. If the assumption
> is that using this property inferentially forces the individual to
> become rdf:type <http://RDVocab.info/uri/schema/FRBRentitiesRDA/Person>,
> my feeling is that we're encouraging a muddle. This also brings us back
> to my complaint about conflating rdf:types for an individual.

I'll let you discuss that with Ross S and edsu and Rob S and various  
others who were in the conversation on ol-tech, if they can remember  
it. There was a lot of back and forth about whether RDA Person and  
foaf:Person are the same. (I was in the minority with "no" and wanted  
to use RDA properties exclusively for persons.) If you can advise on  
other options for those properties ( which are:
   variantNameForThePerson
   biographicalInformation
   titleOfThePerson )

... I can substitute them. I could use bio:Biography, but I couldn't  
find elements for the other two, so just grabbed them all from RDA  
Group 2. (We did discuss foaf:nick but that's really not a variant  
name in the bibliographic sense; and foaf:title is "Mr., Ms., Dr."  
etc., again, not what will be in this field in OL.)

I'd post links to the discussion at ol-tech but it's not public and I  
just looked and it doesn't seem to be archived -- so that whole  
discussion is gone. I'll try to get that fixed, at least going forward.

kc

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

Received on Friday, 16 July 2010 18:37:45 UTC