Peter,

On 12 December 2011 22:11, Peter Noerr <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Trying to synthesize what Karen, Richard and Simon have bombarded us with
> here, leads me to conclude that linking to existing (or to be created)
> external data (ontologies and representations) is a matter of: being sure
> what you’re the system's current user's context is, and being able to
> modify the external data brought into the users virtual EMU(see below ***
> before reading further).


Sorry for the bombarding ;-)

"being sure what you’re the system's current user's context is" - sounds
like a nice idea, but when you are publishing data you have little control,
and even less knowledge, of the consuming 'user' and their context.

Taking things to the next level, by building services and applications for
users, you hopefully will have some understanding of the virtual and actual
users' contexts and can take [what I like to call editorial] decisions
about how much data in what format to deliver to them, and which links to
follow to enrich your service.

So, back down at the data level, model your domain to include all the
information you are aware of for the entities you are describing, plus link
them to other domains that can enrich those descriptions.   Leave it to the
consumers of your data to decide what is best for them in their context.


> I think Simon is right that "records" will increasingly become virtual in
> that they are composed as needed by this user for this purpose at this
> time.


Yes - you could envisage, for some domains,  a minimalistic description of
their resource could be sufficient in the form of a single triple:
<http://mylib.org/resource/12345> owl:sameAs <
http://bnb.data.bl.uk/id/resource/008740700> .


> I think Simon (maybe Richard, maybe all of you) was working towards a
> single unique EMU for the entity which holds all unique information about
> it for a number of different uses/scenarios/facets/formats. Of course
> deciding on what is unique and what is obtained from some more granular
> breakdown is another issue. (Some experience with this "onion skin"
> modeling lies deep in my past, and may need dredging up.)
>

I am suggesting that you in your domain/catalog/library would probably
assign a unique identifier, in your domain, for each of the things you
describe:
     http://mylib.org/resource/12345
     http://mylib.org/person/CarpenterEdward1910-1998

Describe those things:
    <http://mylib.org/resource/008740700> rdf:type bibo:Book .
     <http://mylib.org/person/CarpenterEdward1910-1998> foaf:name "Edward
Carpenter" .

Describe the relationships between those things:
     <http://mylib.org/resource/008740700> dct:creator <
http://mylib.org/person/CarpenterEdward1910-1998> .

Then link them to external descriptions of the same concepts:
     <http://mylib.org/resource/12345> owl:sameAs <
http://bnb.data.bl.uk/id/resource/008740700> .
     <http://mylib.org/person/CarpenterEdward1910-1998> owl:sameAs <
http://viaf.org/viaf/53127337> .

That way you end up with internal identifiers that you can link to, from
things like comments, circulation records, physical location information,
etc.  These are then linked out to distributed descriptions which you, or
consumers of your data, can then merge with your data to provide richer
information.   I know the above examples are a bit simplistic, but
nevertheless it could be near good-enough for some use cases.


*** I suggest (and use above) the Entity Metadata Unit = EMU. This contains
> the totality of unique information stored about this entity in this single
> logical location.
>

In my current location, and the current economic climate, I am wary of an
acronym the same as European Monetary Union.  ;-)

However, I think you are thinking in the right direction - I am resigning
myself to just using the word 'description'.

~Richard.


-- 
Richard Wallis
Technology Evangelist, Talis
http://consulting.talis.com
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