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RE: is FRBR relevant?

From: Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net>
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:48:00 -0700
Message-ID: <20100812084800.660ea4k6z28gc4sw@kcoyle.net>
To: "Young,Jeff (OR)" <jyoung@oclc.org>
Cc: William Waites <ww-keyword-okfn.193365@styx.org>, public-xg-lld@w3.org
Quoting "Young,Jeff (OR)" <jyoung@oclc.org>:

>> - everything on the Web is a web thing
>
> Divide and conquer. From a Linked Data perspective, everything
> imaginable is identifiable and decipherable as either a "Web document"
> or a "Real World Object".
>
> http://www.w3.org/TR/cooluris/#oldweb
> http://www.w3.org/TR/cooluris/#semweb


This is a philosophical difference, and an area where I have a lot of  
trouble with the Semantic Web as written today. In my world view,  
there are no "real world objects" with URIs. If it's on the web, it's  
on the web, and it's a web document. What I think has been confused  
here is the document and the content -- content v. carrier. On the  
web, the carrier is always bits. The content is (usually) about  
something of interest to people. What the SEmWeb folks call a real  
world object I think is what I could call "content." Libraries have  
dealt with this since.... forever. No one confuses a library book  
about cows with a real live ruminant. People looking for a real live  
ruminant do not come to the library. We should use metadata methods  
that respond to actual behaviors.

So basically, for me there are no real world objects in my metadata  
universe. It's all metadata.

Meanwhile, I must say that I'm more concerned with what my metadata  
conveys than the details of how the URI is constructed, since the URI  
is only for a machine. I will happily use any URI construction that  
best gets my users to the information they seek. What I will *not* do  
is limit my user base to folks who understand these semantic web  
concepts. In fact, I don't want to limit the set of potential metadata  
creators to folks who understand these concepts. That would be rather  
like not allowing anyone to speak a language unless they have fully  
understood Wittgenstein, Chomsky, and Saussure.

kc


>
>> - it is not the web thing-ness that is of interest to people using the
> web, but the meaning behind the web thing
>> - therefore, it is best to skip the web-thing layer, and instead code
> for the more meaningful layer
>
> Don't skip the web layer, use it. Return 200s for "web things" ("Web
> documents") and use hash URIs or return 303s for non-web things.
>
>> For example, you code an ebook as a book in electronic form, not as a
> series of bits. You code an mp3 as a song, not as a file.
>>
>> This follows library practice where the physical format (bound paper,
> electronic file, CD) is considered secondary.
>
> Yes: "books" and "songs" are "real world objects" that need to be
> modeled. "ebooks" and "mp3s" are Web document "representations" of "real
> world objects". This is a good start, but it shouldn't end there.
>
>> That said, it's not entirely unambiguous, there are definitely gray
>> areas.
>
> Karen! Poke them harder about the gray areas. The missing concept
> linking "real world object" and "Web document" is "representation". LLD
> XG needs to spend more time thinking and talking about and using the
> concept of "representation".
>
>> But I would say that http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273
>> represents an intellectual construct, an entry in the LC subject
>> authority file which has as its meaning a particular concept. Then you
>> can use some other designation, if you wish, to represent the LCSH
>> record/web document. This latter is usually considered administrative
>> information; it is highly useful, but not the purpose of the data.
>
> Shame on us for thinking we can guess our way out of this mess! We
> should be grateful to LC for giving us meaningful skos:Concepts (think
> frbr:hasAsSubject) while begging them for skosxl:Labels. ;-)
>
> Jeff
>
>>
>> kc
>>
>>
>> >
>> > Currently, there is no HTTP URI to identify the LC subject heading
>> > "World War, 1939-1945".
>> >
>> > If LC used SKOS XL they could "fix" that.
>> >
>> > This is a subtle but important point related to Linked Data. I
>> encourage
>> > members of LLD XG to puzzle this out. Asking questions will help.
>> >
>> > Jeff
>> >
>> >> -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: William Waites [mailto:william.waites@okfn.org]
>> >> Sent: Tuesday, August 10, 2010 2:24 PM
>> >> To: Young,Jeff (OR)
>> >> Cc: public-xg-lld@w3.org
>> >> Subject: Re: is FRBR relevant?
>> >>
>> >> On 10-08-10 03:19, Young,Jeff (OR) wrote:
>> >> > LCSH doesn't need "fixed" exactly. The only problem is that too
>> many
>> >> > people believe the following URI identifies "the name of the
>> thing"
>> >> > (i.e. the literal "World War, 1939-1945") rather than "the thing"
>> >> (i.e.
>> >> > the concept of WWII):
>> >> >
>> >> > http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273#concept
>> >> >
>> >> > Switching from skos:prefLabel to skosxl:prefLabel and coining a
>> new
>> >> URI
>> >> > for the skosxl:Label would help clarify the difference (IMO):
>> >> >
>> >> > http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273#heading
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> Maybe I'm being dense but I don't understand why this is better
>> >> than what http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273 gives us now.
>> >> There are a bunch of labels, a main one and some alternates. You
>> >> can search on them in whatever way you like without any
>> >> ambiguity.
>> >>
>> >> #heading seems to represent "the concept of the name of the
>> >> concept". Do we really need this extra indirection?
>> >>
>> >> The main problem I see is that neither what the LOC is doing
>> >> now, nor any extensions with skosxl isn't compatible with Dublin
>> >> Core.
>> >>
>> >>     [ dc:subject [
>> >>         dcam:member dc:LCSH;
>> >>         rdf:value "World War, 1939-1945"]]
>> >>
>> >> which appears in the wild. If i put,
>> >>
>> >>     [ dc:subject <http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh85148273> ]
>> >>
>> >> I need to make an ugly query,
>> >>
>> >>     SELECT ?x WHERE {
>> >>         {
>> >>            ?x a Work .
>> >>            ?x dc:subject ?s.
>> >>            ?s rdf:value "World War, 1939-1945"
>> >>         } UNION {
>> >>            ?x a Work.
>> >>            ?x dc:subject ?s.
>> >>            ?s skos:label "World War, 1939-1945"
>> >>         }
>> >>     }
>> >>
>> >> As I've said before, this can be converted in an automated way
>> >> easily enough, but I think we (or one of the follow-on WGs)
>> >> makes a concrete recommendation that may supercede DC's
>> >> usage with respect to subjects from LCSH (and possibly
>> >> other authorities). At the very least if DC encouraged using
>> >> rdfs:label instead of rdf:value we would get (with description
>> >> logic) compatibility for free. Compatibility is obviously
>> >> not as straightforward with skosxl
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> -w
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> William Waites           <william.waites@okfn.org>
>> >> Mob: +44 789 798 9965    Open Knowledge Foundation
>> >> Fax: +44 131 464 4948                Edinburgh, UK
>> >>
>> >> RDF Indexing, Clustering and Inferencing in Python
>> >> 		http://ordf.org/
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Karen Coyle
>> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
>> ph: 1-510-540-7596
>> m: 1-510-435-8234
>> skype: kcoylenet
>>
>
>
>



-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Thursday, 12 August 2010 15:48:36 UTC

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