Comments for Yee Cataloging Rules Weblog

Comment on About the model: Question 1 by sethunath

sethunath — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 09:50:33 +0000

give model question for +2

Comment on Yee Cataloging Rules by marthamyee

marthamyee — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:14:39 +0000

I have gotten side-tracked by RDA development (serving on the RDA MARC Working Group) and a paper critiquing RDF as a vehicle for bibliographic data (based on my experience developing this model) that is just about to be published in Information Technology & Libraries, but I have a number of ideas for improving the model that I am just about to go back to; one is to add a class at the expression level called surrogate to deal with reproductions of unique art works and the like which are not enough like editions of works intended to be reproduced to fit into the expression class. Your work sounds very intriguing and I will definitely take a closer look at it and use it to inform my model. Thanks so much for writing.

Comment on Yee Cataloging Rules by Dan Brickley

Dan Brickley — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:59:12 +0000

I’ve just stumbled across this work … very interesting! But the thread went quite over a year ago. Is the model still being developed?

After DC2008 discussion with Karen and others, I started playing with an idea for an alternative RDF/OWL modeling style. It takes FRBR more loosely as a requirements document for distinctions that should be made, rather than a set of specific classes.

Some notes here – http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-owl-dev/2008JulSep/0110.html
rough diagram here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/danbri/2891150205/

Thinking was that the FRBR distinctions can also be made using RDFS/OWL’s subclassing machinery, by subsetting the universe at different levels of specificity.

This is entirely an exploratory exercise, I’m not suggesting it as a mature alternative to any of the FRBR-as-classes designs. I just suspect that some data will naturally take this shape, and so documenting the design pattern could be worthwhile.

All that aside, I’m interested to hear of any updates to the models here… especially the RDF expressions…

Comment on About the model: Question 11 by Bruce D'Arcus

Bruce D'Arcus — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:32:50 +0000

If you look at SKOS, they have properties like prefLabel and alLabel. If you couple that with the ability to assign a language to a property, this is a really simple solution that goes a long way. I’d say another triple that indicates the original source language of the resource would add still more value, since you can then assume that, say, a dc:title property with a language value of “en” for a resource that is a translation of a resource with another language is, in fact, a translated title.

Comment on About the model: Question 11 by marthamyee

marthamyee — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:52:47 +0000

Actually, with the addition of key identifier (discussed in Question 12 below), FRAD has taken a four class approach!

Comment on About the model: Question 11 by marthamyee

marthamyee — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:50:47 +0000

In trying to think through how to provide users access in multiple languages, scripts and transliteration methods, I formulated the following question: What is the best way to model variant names for entities (works, expressions, persons, corporate bodies, concepts, objects, genre/forms, disciplines, etc.) in different languages, scripts and/or transliteration schemes than those being used by the catalog such that users who prefer a different language, script and/or transliteration scheme can use these variant names as their preferred forms (with a computer automatically switching from the default preferred form to the new preferred form in every place where a name for an entity must display)? Should “variant title for a work in a different language” be treated as a property of work, for example? Or should “language of variant” be treated as a property of a property? And should “preferred form for speaker of language X” be treated as a property of a property of a property? This is getting quite complex! Can RDF handle this degree of complexity? (Or is there a simpler and more elegant way of handling this in RDF that I am missing?)

I realize that this may be at least a partial explanation for the three class approach taken by FRAD (person/name/controlled access point) as described above. But that seems rather complex, too, and not intuitive.

Comment on About the model: Question 2 by marthamyee

marthamyee — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:35:27 +0000

It still appears to me (based also on a conversation with Bradley Allen) that we can model “preferred name” in an RDF model for all entities except work (and expression). For works and expressions that need to be identified using the name of the principal author in conjunction with the title, this preferred name convention cannot be specified in the model but must be left to the individual programs that are designed to work with the data (the same situation we have now in which systems people cannot seem to understand that the work/expression identifier (preferred name) consists of *both* the name of the principal author in the 1XX field in MARC *and* the uniform title of the work in the 24X field in MARC). If I am right about this, I think it could be argued that the RDF model is not yet sophisticated enough to handle bibliographic data.

Comment on About the model: Question 4 by Martha M. Yee

Martha M. Yee — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 01:14:45 +0000

I foolishly switched to email to query further about this; Sherman has graciously allowed me to copy our email exchange here:

On Dec 13, 2007 5:33 PM, Martha M. Yee wrote:

Very interesting. I’ve been thinking for years that there must be a better way to collocate the various drafts of a script, the costume designs, the various drafts of music scores, etc. that are created in the course of planning and then shooting a film. This would probably apply to various drafts of manuscripts of a written or musical work, as well.

Is it possible, though, that the superwork level is not needed so much as a particular kind of relationship? Perhaps, following your language below, a pre-work relationship and an post-work relationship? And perhaps when there is this special kind of relationship, the work naming for a pre- or post- work should consist of naming the work itself and then adding something to identify the pre-work or post-work? In the past, I have conceptualized the film bits as having a part-whole relationship to the final work such that the name of the whole (the final film) is necessary to name and identify the part (the script draft, for example)…

I have resisted creating the superwork level because I’ve thought that that would create a situation in which a work must move to superwork status as soon as the first adaptation or other related work is created. If we can explicitly code the nature of various relationships between works, isn’t it enough to link work to work with an encoding of the relationship? What would we gain by adding a another level to the hierarchy? Can you help me think this through?

Thanks very much for all your careful thought about these issues, Sherman…

—–Original Message—–
From: Sherman Clarke [mailto:sherman.clarke@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 9:03 AM
To: Martha M. Yee
Subject: Re: [Yee Cataloging Rules Weblog] Comment: “About the model: Question 4″

In the chapter that Murtha and I wrote for Arlene’s book, we postulate (in Murtha’s words at that point) that a study is a related work rather than another part of the superwork. I think this is where the access means has to come into play (which is, of course, where our catalogs (book, card, online) have always been) and has to file similar things together. You are right that the first adaptation might lead from work to superwork.

Have you ever seen any of Mark Lombardi’s works? He does drawings of the links between politicians and financiers, etc. Just so you have a picture: http://www.pierogi2000.com/flatfile/lombardiavailable07.html
This is sort of how I imagine a complicated work might become, e.g., Midsummer night’s dream, St Peter’s, Hamlet.

The relationship is the important part. I’m picturing now some of the faceted-browse catalogs where there are various aspects of the resource in question that one can click on: topic, genre, name, call number, more details, followon searches in Google, indexes, subject guides. I guess what that makes is a superwork on the fly.

Rather disjoined thoughts at the moment but it’s something.

Comment on About the model: Question 18 by Martha M. Yee

Martha M. Yee — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:49:27 +0000

Rob Styles kindly gave me permission to post his December 11 NGC4LIB posting as follows:

On 10 Dec 2007, at 17:39, Martha Yee wrote:

> So my question
> to you all is: what are the implications of reusing the FRBR
> work/expression/manifestation entity definitions? Would that not
> imply
> reusing the entity mapping of bibliographic elements that are part
> of the
> FRBR RDF expression?

The FRBR ontology at http://vocab.org/frbr/core was not produced by
the same people that produced the FRBR model and marc mappings. So
not necessarily. The FRBR ontology really maps to the FRBR
specification, so if you agree with the basic definition of the four
WEMI classes then you should ideally use the existing work to markup
your data.

rob

Rob Styles

Comment on About the model: Question 17 by Bruce D'Arcus

Bruce D'Arcus — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 23:33:28 +0000

I’m not exactly following, but maybe rdfs:subPropertyOf? That would in effect say that a primaryCreator is also a creator.