tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post1264612318889493046..comments2023-09-29T08:51:56.163-07:00Comments on Coyle's InFormation: Bibliographic Framework: RDF and Linked DataKaren Coylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02519757456533839003noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-29476448233089485962012-01-16T14:50:25.192-08:002012-01-16T14:50:25.192-08:00Karen,
Very good points, and that's pretty mu...Karen,<br /><br />Very good points, and that's pretty much why I said "In some contexts, for some resources ..." I think to say that we should always include both forms is just as foolish as to say that we never need both forms. Maybe the latest Stephen King novel doesn't need as much information recorded as does a first printing of a Mark Twain novel (I hope I'll be forgiven in some quarters for using such outdated, irrelevant examples as print resources...). How much to to record and code, and how, will always be up cataloger judgment and institutional policy. It's just important that we have data structures that support those judgments and policies. And I definitely agree with you that we should be looking at alternative methods of identification, such as images.<br /><br />And I'm really glad you pointed out that seemingly "duplicate" elements need not require duplicate data entry! (I'll avoid stepping onto the soapbox that I occupied last Friday on the bibframe list...)Kevin M. Randallnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-37685063469571139892012-01-16T14:06:21.735-08:002012-01-16T14:06:21.735-08:00Kevin,
I agree that if the transcribed elements a...Kevin,<br /><br />I agree that if the transcribed elements are considered essential then they should be clearly defined as "transcribed" and entered as text.* They should not be assumed to play multiple roles in the description. Yet it is essential to understand that textual data will not be usable for linking in the linked data sense. If we want items to link on, say, place of publication, then there will <em>also</em> need to be an identifier for the place coming out of a controlled vocabulary. In some circumstances this can be machine-derived from the transcribed place and presented to the cataloger for verification. I say that because this kind of duplication of data does not necessarily mean that the cataloger has to input the data twice, the way it does in most MARC systems today.<br /><br />* I understand the need for transcription as identification, but I'm not convinced that <br />1) it is always needed<br />2) it is always worth the time<br />3) the same need cannot be satisfied by other means in the future (e.g. digitization of title pages).<br /><br />Since this is information to be displayed to the user, not used for retrieval, a display of the title page may be as good of a surrogate as a transcription into metadata -- and some times perhaps even better.Karen Coylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519757456533839003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-15461226927427473952012-01-16T12:16:46.856-08:002012-01-16T12:16:46.856-08:00There are things that specifically describe the ma...There are things that specifically describe the manifestation, and those cannot be standardized without compromising the purpose of transcribed elements. The recent move to make the MARC bibliographic 440 field obsolete is a case in point. The series statement in a 4XX field is a description of a specific manifestation. If you replace the statement with the authorized heading, then the series statement is no longer reliable as a description of the manifestation, because the authorized heading can be changed. One single element cannot serve both purposes (representation of the manifestation on one hand, and standardized data on the other). We need to determine which elements are needed for which purposes, and make sure that all of the purposes are covered. In some contexts, for some resources, it is very important that the metadata include the place of publication and name of publisher as found on the resource. There may also be a need to create relationships between the place of publication and name of publisher and the resource, which are not dependent on the exact transcribed form of the names on the resource but on the entities to which those names refer. Can it be that RDA may simply need to define more elements, and make it clear for which purposes each is to be used?Kevin M. Randallnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-72106666072224474392012-01-13T11:41:02.090-08:002012-01-13T11:41:02.090-08:00Bill, the British National Bibliography data in li...Bill, the British National Bibliography data in linked data format does take this 'event driven' approach, with publication as an event rather than a "thing." You can see it in their <a href="http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/pdfs/datamodelv1_2.pdf" rel="nofollow">data model (PDF)</a>.Karen Coylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519757456533839003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-38547551828692022452012-01-13T10:09:52.767-08:002012-01-13T10:09:52.767-08:00I would prefer an approach that focused on the &qu...I would prefer an approach that focused on the "actions" applied to entities, so for a "book" you would have a property "published" and this node could have properties such as place, organisation, date and so on. This does allow the use of properties defined by others if these prove useful and help standardisation across domains..<br /><br />Creating properties that combine action and entity are to me, very restrictive. To a certain extent, in this case, MARC adopted the approach I prefer - the field represents the action, the subfields represent the properties of that action.Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04790912379429843437noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-59786171988776585352012-01-12T14:53:10.615-08:002012-01-12T14:53:10.615-08:00Ryan, I'll definitely post, but as an FYI I ha...Ryan, I'll definitely post, but as an FYI I have been keeping a wiki page on some of the discussion around FRBR:<br /><a href="http://futurelib.pbworks.com/w/page/48221836/FRBR%20Models%20Discussion" rel="nofollow">Futurelib FRBR page</a>. It's not easy to follow without more of an intro, I admit, so I'll get on that.Karen Coylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519757456533839003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-538499353491562862012-01-12T11:48:51.697-08:002012-01-12T11:48:51.697-08:00"the ISBD 'place of publication, producti..."the ISBD 'place of publication, production, distribution"'could be defined as broader to the three RDA elements that treat those separately. Unfortunately that is not possible because of the way that ISBD and RDA have been defined in RDF."<br /><br />I'm one of those who would be interested to read your elaboration of this point.Ryan Shawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08406223395348184663noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-37376056379301072932012-01-12T05:35:13.007-08:002012-01-12T05:35:13.007-08:00Paul,
I have the same "sinking feeling"...Paul,<br /><br />I have the same "sinking feeling" about RDA, but keep hoping that we'll work out some of these issues as systems are built to implement RDA. There is a group meeting at ALA that is working on recommendations to make the elements of physical description, like "pages," into data rather than text. Once again, however, this is being done within the cataloging community with no systems or vendor input. That fact just boggles my mind.<br /><br />I am more and more coming to the conclusion that cataloging as we know it today (including RDA) has to change -- radically. I think that there is no longer a role for most headings, and they actually are detrimental to re-use of library data. RDA has retained way too much of the linear card environment. As you say, it is ill-suited to the Web of data.Karen Coylehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519757456533839003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3338174527262061848.post-59928705195881050982012-01-11T11:56:02.038-08:002012-01-11T11:56:02.038-08:00This touches on a fundamental question I have abou...This touches on a fundamental question I have about RDA: why are there so many provisions for transcription, when so many elements of the "record" could exist as linked data or defined data elements?<br /><br />Place of publication is a particularly painful example. You bring this out in your posting, but really, why are we transcribing geographics name when they’re readily available in Geonames, or even in LCSH? Similarly, why are we transcribing publisher names? A publisher is just another corporate body, this data could come from LC/NAF / VIAF. On a tangent but, why are we manually transcribing "pages", "leaves", "illustrations", "maps", etc., when these could simply be predefined data elements?<br /><br />Karen, I lack your expertise, but I often look at the RDA text and wonder if it's just a hindrance towards moving into a linked data world.Paul Burleynoreply@blogger.com