When it comes to the names of people or places, how would you suggest I apply literary warrant to something like an journal article or book?

Suppose the following things:

  * I have an item (an journal article or book)
  * the name Plato appears often in the item
  * I want to create a metadata element describing the item with the name Plato
  * Plato is not the subject of item; Plato is only alluded to, but often

My questions are:

  1. How often ought the name Plato occur in order
     for me to justify creating a metadata element?

  2. Using some sort of linked data ontology, what
     predicate might I use to assert the importance
     of Plato in the item?

To provide some context, I have bunches and bunches of full text. I describe these full text items bibliographically (author, title, date, subjects, identifier, etc.). If one item mentions Plato significantly often, and if another item mentions Plato significantly often, then some sort of query ought to be able to find both items. Moreover, if I implement my database/index as linked data, and if I know Plato was a Greek philosopher, then I ought to be able to query my index (triple store) for Greek philosophers and find both Item #1 and Item #2.

How often ought something like Plato exist in my documents before I apply Plato as an index term, and what field/predicate might I use?

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Eric Morgan
Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship