Re: vocabs, metadata set, datasets

All:


This is touching on two other issues we have been discussing: granularity, and
data packaging.
 
Take a simple "record" as an aggregation of some triples:
 
:R :p1 "text".
:R :p2 :Z.
:R :p3 "other text".
 
Librarians are used to seeing this record with Z substituted by an appropriate
literal (usually something akin to the value of the corresponding
skos:prefLabel):
 
:R :p1 "text".
:R :p2 <:Z skos:prefLabel> "label". // this touches on the data packaging issue
(btw, is there a syntax to show a triple chain like this?)

:R :p3 "other text".
 
So the subject of the record is apparently exclusively the resource R. Note that
this pertains to any level of granularity of the record (isbd:Resource,
frbrer:Work, frbrer:Expression, etc.)
 
But in RDF:
 
If :p2 owl:InverseOf :p4. // e.g. p2 has label "hasAuthor", p4 has label
"isAuthorOf".
Then :Z :p4 :R.
 
And we have an inferred triple with the subject Z (typically a person,
organization, subject, etc.). Which can be aggregated into an authority record:
 
:Z skos:prefLabel "label".
:Z :p4 :R.
 
And the subject of the record is apparently exclusively the entity Z.
 
So there are different points-of-view, and it is probably always possible to
constrain a "record" to triples with one, and only one, subject. Does RDF let us
have the cake, and eat it?
 
Cheers
 
Gordon
 


 

On 21 January 2011 at 03:15 Thomas Baker <tbaker@tbaker.de> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 02:59:23PM -0800, Karen Coyle wrote:
> > >I see the argument but still see a problem with the notion of
> > >a record being "about" something.  Looking at a bibliographic
> > >record through traditional bibliographic glasses, one does see
> > >a set of data elements "about" a book.  Looking at that same
> > >record through RDF glasses, however, one may see statements
> > >"about" several different things -- the book, its author,
> > >the publisher, etc.
> >
> > As I said before, I don't see it this way. Even though RDF is much
> > more flexible than the old record model, it has the concept of
> > "subject" -- the subject of the statements, in my mind, defines the
> > "about".
>
> Yes, agreed.
>
> >          Library data contains things like author identification as
> > an object, but the author is a subject only in the name authority
> > record (or foaf Person description set). I really don't see
> > statements about authors, publishers, etc. in a library catalog
> > record for a book. All of the data there should be with the book as
> > the subject.
>
> I'm not sure I follow you...  Are you saying that all of the
> information in a library record can always be expressed with
> triples with the same subject?  Even, for example, if FRBR
> distinctions are introduced?
>
> > In other words, what Jeff said.
>
> Jeff introduced the unimarc notion of "primary entity" which,
> if I correctly infer, nicely captures the notion that a record
> is focused on a particular resource without implying that all
> of the information in that record may be expressed directly
> as an attribute of the primary entity.
>
> Tom
>
> --
> Tom Baker <tbaker@tbaker.de>