AW: [Spam-Wahrscheinlichkeit=45]Re: vocabs, metadata set, datasets

Dear Karen,

[snip]
> 
> > I'm willing to believe that most records _do_ have a single
> > focus, but administrative data is a good example.  I took
> > a few minutes to look up some examples of library records,
> > and the first one I saw had information along the lines of:
> >
> >      Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1992.
> >
> > ...which I would be more inclined to translate into triples as:
> >
> >     :X dct:date             "1992"
> >     :X dct:publisher        :Y
> >     :Y ex:name              "Springer Verlag"
> >     :Y ex:location          "Berlin"
> >
> > ...rather than as, say:
> >
> >     :X dct:date             "1992"
> >     :X dct:publisher        "Springer Verlag"
> >     :X ex:publisherlocation "Berlin"
> >
> > ...where "Berlin" is directly an attribute of resource "W" --
> > which, among other things, would lose the relationship between
> > "Berlin" and "Springer Verlag".
> 
> In fact, library data does a terrible job with publishers in general.
> The publisher datum is not a reference to a corporate entity that is a
> publisher, it is a transcription of the name of the publisher from the
> title page and in no way is intended to link to an entity. Ditto the
> place. That's in essence a quote from the title page. Oftentimes (and
> I just had a discussion about this on some list and I am totally
> losing track anymore) what is on the title page is not the publisher
> but the imprint ("Penguin Classics"). In that case, that is what you
> will find in the bibliographic record. This datum should not be called
> "Publisher" at all, but that's the shorthand that is used.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprint
> 
> illustrates some of the difficulty of deciding what is a publisher.
> 
> But in any case, the actual message is:
> 
> This book has "Springer Verlag" on its title page.
> This book has "1992" on its title page
> This book has "Berlin" as the place of publication on its title page.
> 
> And if you suggest, as I did on some list, that it would be a good
> idea to have a reference to the Publisher of the book, as an entity,
> you will face wrath, as I did.#

I think it's an excellent idea to have publishers as first class
entities (they really are a subset of corporate bodies, right?). When we
use RDA in the SemWeb way we'll have the possibility to link publisher
to a corporate body, or am I mistaken?

All the best,

Lars

Received on Monday, 24 January 2011 10:55:04 UTC