Ross,
I'm not questioning the technical assertion -- obviously you can combine
properties from different vocabularies. My problem is with making sense
of FRBR in relation to the properties, either in RDA or in bibo. Do you
say that a particular grouping of properties is of type
FRBR:Manifestation, or is the property defined in the vocabulary as in
the Manifestation domain? RDA does the latter (although not in a
semantic web way). Each data element in RDA "belongs" to a particular
FRBR entity, so you never actually use the FRBR entities in your
metadata. (Although the examples that Alistair Miles did [1] use the
levels as part of the record organization.) I actually prefer the usage
that I gave in my examples, in which relationships carry the FRBR
"meaning" and bibliographic properties can be used at any level.
The schema in the registry is completely flat partly because of the
choice made by RDA to include the FRBR levels in the data elements
themselves. The other 'partly' is because the creators of RDA are still
pretty much thinking in terms of traditional bibliographic data, ISBD
and MARC.
kc
[1] Linked from each scenario at
http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/Scenarios
Ross Singer wrote:
> Right, ok, so an RDF graph can say the same resource is multiple
> things at the same time, so that's how you deal with this:
>
> <http://lccn.loc.gov/95100870> rdf:type <bibo:Book> .
> <http://lccn.loc.gov/95100870> dc:title "Doctor Zhivago"@en .
> <http://lccn.loc.gov/95100870> dc:creator
> <http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-18438> .
> <http://lccn.loc.gov/95100870> rda:uniformTitle "Doktor Zhivago. English" .
> <http://lccn.loc.gov/95100870> rdf:type <rda:EditionStatement> .
> <http://lccn.loc.gov/95100870> rdf:type <frbr:Manifestation> .
> <http://lccn.loc.gov/95100870> frbr:embodimentOf
> <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Doctor_Zhivago> .
>
> I'm guessing on the RDA assertions, because the schema in the
> metadataregistry doesn't make much sense to me.
>
> Anyway, this shows how you can say multiple things from different
> vocabularies for one resource.
>
> -Ross.
> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
>>
>>> I'm curious why you think that doesn't work? Isn't "place of publication"
>>> a characteristic of a particular manifestation? While, "title", according to
>>> traditional library practices where you take it from the title page, is also
>>> a characteristic of a particular manifestation, is it not? ("uniform title"
>>> is _usually_ a characteristic of a work, unless we get into music cataloging
>>> and some other 'edge' cases. Our traditional practices -- which aren't
>>> actually changed that much by RDA, are rather confusing.)
>>>
>> Well, I was responding to Ross' statement that bibo and FRBR could be used
>> in combination, depending on whether one was at that moment describing
>> 'bibliographic things' or 'work things'. bibo doesn't have a uniform title,
>> so the question is: can you use a bibo title and say that it is a work
>> title? I thought that Ross was indicating something of that nature -- that
>> you could have a FRBR 'work thing' with bibo properties. I'm trying to
>> understand how that works since Work is a class. Don't you have to indicate
>> the domain and range of a property in its definition?
>>
>> RDA tries to solve this by creating different properties for every
>> concept+FRBR entity: title of the work (Work), title proper (Manifestation).
>> [I don't understand why expressions don't have titles.... a translation is
>> an expression, after all.]
>>
>>> I am confused about what one would do about the fact that RDA defines
>>> attributes a bit different than FRBR itself does. It's not too surprising --
>>> FRBR is really just a draft, hardly tested in the world. When RDA tried to
>>> make it a bit more concrete, it's not surprising that they found they had to
>>> make changes to make it workable. Not sure what to do about that in the
>>> grand scheme of things, if RDA and FRBR both end up registering different
>>> vocabularies. I guess we'll just have two different vocabularies though,
>>> which isn't too shocking I guess.
>>>
>>>
>> I'm not sure there's anything to do, but I do know that the developers of
>> RDA feel very strongly that in RDA they have 'implemented' FRBR, so we have
>> to find a way to integrate FRBR and RDA in the registered RDA vocabulary. I
>> agree that there's no problem with having RDA and FRBR as two different
>> vocabularies, it's the effort of bringing them together that boggles me. I
>> feel like it leaves a lot of loose ends. I'd be happy to see FRBR revised,
>> or to have it re-defined without the attributes, thus allowing metadata
>> developers to use the bibliographic relationship properties with any set of
>> descriptive elements.
>>
>> I'm having trouble with the FRBR Group 1 entities as classes. I see them
>> instead as relationships, and vocab.org does seem to treat them as
>> relationships, not as 'things.' I see a distinct difference between a person
>> entity and a work entity, because there is no thing that is a work. I see
>> work as a relationship between two bibliographic statements. (This is vague
>> in my mind, so I won't be surprised if it doesn't make sense....) As an
>> example, if I have a group of bibliographic properties, say an author and a
>> title, and I say:
>>
>> Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann --> expresses --> Der Zauberberg, by Thomas
>> Mann
>>
>> then I have created an 'expression to work' relationship, and so Der
>> Zauberberg is a Work. If I do this, I don't need an explicit Work title. If
>> I have a badly created Manifestation that has on its title page: Magic
>> Mountian, I can do:
>>
>> Magic Mountian, published by x in y --> manifests --> Magic Mountain, by
>> Thomas Mann --> expresses --> Der Zauberberg, by Thomas Mann
>>
>> In this way, I don't have to declare different title elements with different
>> domains/ranges (which is essentially what RDA does in an awkward way) to
>> connect them to the FRBR Group 1 classes, and the FRBR properties become
>> more usable because you don't have to declare your bibliographic properties
>> in terms of the FRBR classes. Now, IF you can use any properties, say,
>> dcterms:title, with the FRBR properties, like "manifests" then the whole
>> thing is solved. I think it works that way, but that is definitely NOT what
>> RDA has done; it has incorporated the domain (FRBR class) in the
>> bibliographic properties. I think that what I describe above in my examples
>> works; and if it does, then the problem is with RDA.
>>
>> In the end, it's the relationship between properties and classes in FRBR and
>> RDA that is giving me a headache, and the headache mainly has to do with
>> FRBR group 1. I think this is my bete noir, and so I will now go read
>> something soothing and let my blood pressure drop a bit.
>>
>> kc
>>
>> --
>> -----------------------------------
>> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
>> [log in to unmask] http://www.kcoyle.net
>> ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
>> fx.: 510-848-3913
>> mo.: 510-435-8234
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>>
>
>
>
--
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
[log in to unmask] http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
------------------------------------
