Challenges in representing/modeling library data

• From: Houghton,Andrew <houghtoa@oclc.org>
• Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:36:38 -0400
• To: <public-xg-lld@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <6548F17059905B48B2A6F28CE3692BAA072A425B@OAEXCH4SERVER.oa.oclc.org>

Today I had a discussion with Jeff Young, XG participant, about how to model information about library institutions in SKOS. It brought up the challenges in representing library data using just one ontology.  Jeff's use case is that he has a registry of library institutions and an institution can have zero or more branches associated with it.  SKOS allows this data to be represented in multiple ways.  This is not a criticism of SKOS.  SKOS is trying to provide a general framework for multiple knowledge organization schemes such as thesauri, subject heading and classification systems.  Here are three way that a publisher of this information might represent library institutions which would create interoperability issues:

<!-- Concept Scheme View -->

<rdf:RDF xml:base="http://example.org/registry/">

  <skos:ConceptScheme rdf:about="#institions" />

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2231#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="2315#skos:ConceptScheme" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Branch 2231</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:Concept>

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2211#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="2315#skos:ConceptScheme" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Branch 2211</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:Concept>

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2212#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="2315#skos:ConceptScheme" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Branch 2212</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:Concept>

  <skos:ConceptScheme rdf:about="2315#skos:ConceptScheme">
    <skos:prefLabel>Branches</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:ConceptScheme>

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2315#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Library 2315</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:ConceptScheme>

</rdf:RDF>

<!-- Subject Heading System "Like" View -->

<rdf:RDF xml:base="http://example.org/registry/">

  <skos:ConceptScheme rdf:about="#institions" />

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2231#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Branch 2231</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:Concept>

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2211#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Branch 2211</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:Concept>

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2212#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Branch 2212</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:Concept>

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2315#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Library 2315</skos:prefLabel>
    <skos:related rdf:resource="2231#skos:Concept" />
    <skos:related rdf:resource="2211#skos:Concept" />
    <skos:related rdf:resource="2212#skos:Concept" />
  </skos:ConceptScheme>

</rdf:RDF>

<!-- Thesaurus "Like" View -->

<rdf:RDF xml:base="http://example.org/registry/">

  <skos:ConceptScheme rdf:about="#institions" />

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2231#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Branch 2231</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:Concept>

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2211#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Branch 2211</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:Concept>

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2212#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Branch 2212</skos:prefLabel>
  </skos:Concept>

  <skos:Collection rdf:about="2315#skos:Collection">
    <skos:prefLabel>Branches</skos:prefLabel>
    <skos:member rdf:resource="2231#skos:Concept" />
    <skos:member rdf:resource="2211#skos:Concept" />
    <skos:member rdf:resource="2212#skos:Concept" />
  </skos:Collection>

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="2315#skos:Concept">
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="#institutions" />
    <skos:prefLabel>Library 2315</skos:prefLabel>
    <skos:narrower rdf:resource="2315#skos:Collection" />
  </skos:ConceptScheme>

</rdf:RDF>

Received on Wednesday, 16 June 2010 16:37:09 UTC