Enhancing Interoperability of FRBR-Based Metadata

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Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Core and Metada
ta Applications 2010


Enhancing

Interoperability of FRBR
-
Based Metadata



Jenn Riley

Indiana University
,
USA

jenlrile@indiana.edu




Abstract

The Variations/FRBR project at Indiana University is experimenting with implementing the
Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) conceptual model in order to further
research on next
-
generation library catalogs and promote the re
-
usability

and interoperability of
FRBR
-
based metadata. This paper describes the use of FRBR in some system implementations,
discusses the first steps our project has taken to promote shared FRBRized data, and raises some
issues related to representing FRBRized data

in Dublin Core Application Profiles.

Keywords:

music metadata; library metadata; FRBR

1.
Introduction

The Variations/FRBR project at Indiana University
<http://vfrbr.info>
is

experimenting with
the
Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)

conceptual model

by
testing F
RBR in a
real
-
world environment

and providing data, code, and system design specifications that can be re
-
used by others interested in

the

FRBR

model
.

The project is
funded by a National Leadership Grant
from the U.S. Institut
e of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)
,

from Oct
ober 2008 through
September 2011. During this time, our project team

hopes to accomplish several goals, including:
exploring issues related to production implementation
of FRBR
;

demonstrating features for di
scovery
and metadata creation
systems
that could serve as models for further development of n
ext
-
generation
library catalogs;

and promoting re
-
use of the work performed during the project, including data
models, metadata encoding formats, and a large amoun
t of metadata for musical materials that is
interoperable with metadata from many other systems.
This paper will
focus on
the Variations/FRBR
project’s

work to
define re
-
usable structures for interoperable
FRBR
-
based
metadata.

2. The
Functional Requiremen
ts for Bibliographic Records

(FRBR)

FRBR is an entity
-
relationship model
that

formalize
s

the functions and goals of library
bibliographic records.
As a model, it


promises to have a profound influence on future systems
desig
n” (Tillett
, 2003, p. 7
)
, and
ha
s been touted as “providing abundant opportunities for
libraries to develop catalogs that function more effectively” (Zhang & Salaba, 2009, p. 4).
In
terms

of metadata interoperability, the entities, attributes
,

and relationships that FRBR defines
are the
model’s
most significant aspect
s
. The

FRBR

group

1 entities are “
the products of
intellectual or artistic endeavour”:

work
(a distinct intellectual or artistic creation)

,

expression
(the intellectual or artistic realization of a
wor
k)

,

manifestation
(the physical embodiment

of an
expression
of a
work
)

, and

item
(a single exemplar of a
manifestation
)”

(IFLA, 1998, p. 13).
The
group

2 entities are “
responsible for the intellectual or artistic content, the physical
production and dissemination, or the
custodianship of such products” (p. 13): “
person
(an
individual) and
corporate body
(an organization or group of individuals and/or organizations)”
(p. 14). The
group

3 entities are “the subjects of intellectual or artistic endeavour” (p. 13):

concept
(an

abstract notion or idea),
object
(a material thing),
event
(an action or occurrence),
and
place
(a location)” (p. 17).

The relationships between these entities
, along with additions
2010
Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Cor
e and Metadata Applications



from the FRAD model (discussed later

in this paper
)

are illustrated in Figure 1.
Among the most
visible uses of the FRBR model in the DCMI community

is the Scholarly Works Application Profile
(SWAP)
,
referred to again

later in this paper
.




FIG. 1. Entities in the FRBR
and FRAD
model
s


Most
implementations

of FRBR are limited to the features presented in the
original 199
8

International Federation of Library Associations and I
nstitutions (IFLA) FRBR report
. When
discussing the FRBR model, one
might

mean only
features

described in that

single o
riginal report, or
one
might also

include features presented in two companion reports from IFLA: Functional
Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD
) (
IFLA, 2009a
), and Functional Requirements for Subject
Authority Data (FRSAD)
(IFLA, 200
9
b
)
.

FRAD
was intended as a parallel to FRBR’s bibliographic
record focus, applying similar methodologies to develop an entity
-
relationship model for authority
records.
The final
FRAD

report was

issued in 2009,
and
makes some significant changes to the
Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Core and Metada
ta Applications 2010


model
present
ed

in the FRBR report. First, and most simply, FRAD extends FRBR by adding
addi
tional attributes

(such as Gender for a Person)

to previously
defined entities. Second, it adds
some

new entities. The most straightforward
of these
is a new group 2 entity, Fam
ily
. The other new
entities are intended to support the traditional libra
ry authority control process; i
n FRAD, a FRBR
group 1, 2, or 3 entity is
known by
Names or Identifiers (potentially many of them), and these Names
and Identifiers in turn are the
basi
s for

Controlled Access Points. Controlled Access Points are
created
/modified

by

an Agency
,

which
applies

appropriate Rules

to do so
.
Third, FRAD adds a
number of new relationships. Some of these are necessary to connect the newly
-
added entities to
those t
hat already existed, for example, a Family as a creator of a Group 1 entity or the
known
by

relationship between a Work and a Name. Others more fully flesh out the connections between Group
2 entities, for example, a sibling relationship between two Person
s.
Fourth
, FRAD modifies the
FRBR model by removing the FRBR attribute
title of the <entity>

or

name of the <entity>
from each
group

1, 2, and 3 entity, in favor of a relationship directly to a

Name entity and indirectly through the
Name to a Controlled Access Point entity providing an authorized heading (in the library
cataloging
tradition) for that entity. These changes more easily allow for an entity to be known and accessible by
more than on
e label, which clearly is necessary for real
-
world systems.

They al
so, however, tie the
model
closely
, perhaps too closely,

to existing library cataloging practice (i.e., access points being
constructed according to rules)
.

The FRSAD report is currently on
ly in draft
status, with a
version

issued for comment
in June
2009
. This
draft tak
es a
significantly

different approach to supplementing FRBR

than FRAD did
,
both removing
existing features
and introducing new
ones

that made the model more general rather
th
an more specific.
T
he Working Group on Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Records

(
FRSAR
), which produced FRSAD
,

was charged
with

developing a “
conceptual model of
group

3
entities within the FRBR framework as they relate to the
aboutness
of wor
ks
” (IFLA, 2009b
, p. 7
)
, a
topic

which received only minimal attention in the initial FRBR report. The draft FRSAD report
approaches its task in a much more general way th
an its predecessors, concluding that the distinction
between the group 3 entities Concept, Object, Event, and Place made in the FRBR
report was too
interpretive, and replacing these
entities

with undifferentiated subjects. The subjects
of Works

are
defined

th
rough the Thema entity, and a
Thema
has appellation
(
may be known by
)

more than one
Nomen, or label.
The report also mak
es a clear distinction between w
hat
W
orks
are

and what
W
orks
are
about
,
and considers the
former

to be out of scope.
There has been n
o public response from the
FRSAD group on the comments they received for the initial released draft, so it remains to be seen if
the significant changes to the original FRBR report it suggests will become part of the official
IFLA
-
sponsored
FRBR canon.
Due

to the relative recency of the FRAD report and FRSAD draft, m
ore
mature

best practices for the implementation of

the

FRBR
report alone
exist
than for
concepts from
the two companion reports
.


Despite the work that has been done on implementing FRBR and o
ther high
-
level models
,
it is not
necessarily a straightforward process
to design a

discovery system that can be said to implement a

conceptual model (
Riley, 2008
b
). A conceptual model is explicitly
not

a data model; it is not a data
representation format an
d as such
defers implementation details to other levels

of specification
.
Therefore different implementations of the same conceptual model might look very different.
The
DCMI Singapore Framework
(Nils
son et al., 2008)
is useful in understanding the position of FRBR
as a conceptual model in the matrix of specifications necessary for building a production

resource
description and discovery
system. FRBR itself is in the

Domain Standards


layer of the
Sin
gapore
Framework,

as a

Community Domain Model.


FRBR as a model (or set of mo
dels) is represented
solely as

textual document
s

intended for human consumption

rather than in a
more formal modeling
language.
There does exist a more formal ontology

taking an
object
-
oriented view

of

FRBR, called
FRBRoo (
International Working Group, 2009
)
, but it
significantly
extends FRBR,
has not been
2010
Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Cor
e and Metadata Applications



hea
vily used in the l
ibrary community to this point, and is not formally endorsed by IFLA.

According
to the Singapore Framework
, Community Domain Models are
themselves

used by “Domain Models”
defined in the “Application Profile” layer.
The published Dublin Core Application Profiles

(DCAPs)

that use FRBR to date (which are discussed later in this paper) each define their own Domain

Model,
using general FRBR concepts but tailoring them to the specific type of resource covered in the
Application Profile. Each also expresses
its respective

Domain Model in textual form, rather than
in

a
more form
al modeling language
.

In the music community, several
discovery
and delivery systems

exist that
implement

FRBR to
some degree. The Variations system at Indiana University, described
in the next section
, is one of
these.
The Probado project <
http://www.probado.de/>
at the Bavari
a
n State Library
(Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek)
in Munich
, Germany

has implemented a metadata
model only slightly extending
FRBR (Diet

& Kurth
,
2007
), but has not published formal data modeling documentation or raw
metadata for others to re
-
use.

The Music A
ustralia project <
http://www.musicaustralia.org/
>
has
grappled with issues related
to the modeling of

lyrics to vocal works separately from their musical
content

(Ayres, 2005), but similarly has not published formal documentation or actual data.

The
Music
Ontology

initiative, a cooperative effort of researchers in the music information retrieval
community, is built loosely on FRBR concepts,
and

unlike the previously mentioned projects
expresses its model as a formal ontology in OWL, with the explicit goal o
f facilitating musical
information as Linked Data (Raimond, 2007).
Variazioni

<
http://variazioniproject.org/
>
, a European
eContent
-
Plus initiative (not related to Indiana University’s Variations)

expands
significantly
beyond
traditional library holdings, i
mplementing a FRBR
-
inspired model that includes master classes and
live concerts in addition to scores and recordings of music (Iglesias et al., 2009).
Variazioni, alone
among these musical implementations of FRBR, has provided a full

(though un
-
endorsed b
y the
DCMI)
DCAP
, which may be found at <
http://cep.variazioniproject.org/vmap/VMAP_home.html
>.
Authors such as Vellucci

(2007)
, Riley

(
2008
a
;

Riley, et al., 2007; Riley, et al., 2008
)
,

and Le

Beouf
(2005
; Miller & Le Boeuf, 2005
)
have also written on the
application of the FRBR model to musical
materials.

In the library community more generally, there are a number of initiatives examining
implementation of FRBR in DCMI Abstract Model or more general Semantic Web environments.
One high profile example

is th
e work of the DCMI/RDA Task Group <
http://dublincore.org/

dcmirdataskgroup/
>, which

grew out of a 2007 meeting between representatives
from the Joint
Steering Committee for Development of RDA (Resource Description and Access, a developing
library
catalogin
g
standard) and
from
the DCMI. RDA is being developed based on FRBR principles,
using FRBR entities as the basis of description but creating its own element vocabulary rather than
adopting

and expanding

the list of attributes the FRBR r
eport defines for ea
ch entity. Representatives
from this Task Group have

registered

their own version of

FRBR entities as
RDF classes and
subclasses (to be connected to official ver
sions when these are available),
RDA
-
defined relati
onships
between entities (
not directly the r
elationships defined by FRBR) as
RDF properties and
subproperties, RDA elements that apply to
each of the FRBR
-
inspired entities as RDF properties and
subproperties,
and v
ocabularies for
values to populate
specific RDA elements as SKOS concept
schemes
, all

in a preliminary form,

in the NSDL Metadata Registry
<http://
metadataregistry.org/>. A
process for moving

these definitions to
a fully published status
is
c
urrently under discussion
(Hillmann et al., 2010).
The goal of this and related initiatives from th
e DCMI/RDA

Task Group is to
facilitate interoperability of library metadata in other environments, using interoperability
mechanisms from the Semantic Web and DCMI communities

(Coyle, 2010)
.

Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Core and Metada
ta Applications 2010


3. The Variations/FRBR Project

at Indiana University

In Indiana U
niversity’s Variations/FRBR project (V/FRBR), we set out
t
o test the viability of
FRBR as the underlying conceptual model for a production discovery system. The
other
implementations

discussed earlier in this paper all take FRBR as a very rough guideline r
ather than as
a strict template to follow. The

FRBR report

itself
perhaps
encoura
ges this loose type of approach
through statement such as:

“The model developed in the study is comprehensive in scope but not
exhaustive in terms of the entities, attributes,

and relationships that it defines

it does not carry the
analysis to the level that would be required f
or a fully developed data model

(IFLA, 1998,
p. 3)
.

In
studying FRBR, however, the V/FRBR project team
wondered if

the other implementations we were
aware of were
too

loose.
Most use only the entities
FRBR
define
s

and

not much else.
None, for
example, used attributes that FRBR

defines

for each
entity
; and few use the relationships
the report
describes as existing
betw
een entities
. Th
ough the FRBR report
explicitly states the attributes it does
define are not intended to be exhaustive (
for example:
“The identification and definition of attributes
for various types of material could be extended through further review by
experts and

through user
studies.”
IFLA, 1998,
p. 5),
our project team

concluded that
the
attributes
the reports

do

provide
are in fact

useful
,

and sought to build an implementation that
built upon

them. In general, our
approach with the V/FRBR project is
to stick as closely to what

i
s defined in FRBR as
is
feasible,

and supplement rather than replace when necessary.

In
the
V/FRBR
project
we also originally sought to implement the FRAD and FRSAD models
,
considering a useful FRBR implementation to be one
that encompasses the entire suite of reports
. In
examining what this would mean, however, we quickly ran into difficulty. As discussed earlier in this
paper, both FRAD and FRSAD replace features of FRBR with different constructs, and it is unclear
at this
point, especially since FRSAD is still in draf
t

form, if the official position from IFLA is that
the features in FRBR that the other models replace should truly be considered to be obsolete.
From an
implementation perspective
, our team concluded that
the f
eatures
FRBR
describes walk

a
reasonable
middle ground between theory and current
library cataloging practice. However, we believe that

FRAD ties its modeling too closely to current practice to be effective as a guide for building a next
-
generation system,

and

that

FRSAD has the opposite problem
, being

too theoretical to construct an
implementation that follows it in any substantive way. We therefore decided for the initial phases of
the V/FRBR project to implement all of the entities, attributes, and relat
ionships in the FRBR report,
plus the additional attributes on FRBR
group

1 and 2 entities that FRAD adds

and the
additional
FRAD
group

2 entity F
amily. We chose for

the time being not to implement the additional FRAD
entities Name, Identifier, Controlled
Access Point,

Agency, and Rules,

or anything from the FRSAD
draft report.

This decision was a difficult one as we intend the work of our project to be a model for
other implementations
, and we know that some of these other implementations will need these
f
eatures
. However, these additional entities are primarily intended to support multi
-
lingual catalogs, a
need that the Variations project does not have at this time. We therefore concluded that our
development efforts were best spent elsewhere, and leave a
best practice implement
ation of these

features
to others.

The V/FRBR project team
examined

a numbe
r of options for expressing our FRBR
implementation decisions as a formal data model. The project attempts to strike a delicate balance
between developing pla
nning and procedural documentation that can be re
-
used by other initiatives,
and
actually developing
production discovery and metadata creation systems. For the initial stages of
the
project, we settled on light
weight specification tools such as Excel
for
documentation
, but as the
project progresses and we share our ongoing work
we wi
ll look to the
metadata, cultural heritage, and
FRBR
communit
ies

to

help us determine

if more formal specifications such as UML diagrams
or an
expression as a
DCAP

would
provid
e significant benefits
.


2010
Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Cor
e and Metadata Applications



The internal representation of FRBRized data within the V/FRBR system
is still in the planning
stages, but
it is clear
we need
a flexible
solution

that can produce output data in a variety of formats
and
for a variety of needs,
from simple Dublin Core
,

to traditional library
-
style metadata
,

to RDF
-
based Linked Data
. With this in mind, we focused our early
efforts on defining
one of these output
data formats: a set of XML Schemas
for FRBRized data that our project and others can u
se to
exchange data.
We chose XML as the first outp
ut format because XML
-
based solutions are currently
more common in
production systems in
libraries than RDF technologies
, and the tools for generating
and processing XML are in general more robust and matu
re than those for RDF
.
We hope
our FRBR
XML

format will help the library community answer a call from the L
ibrary

of Congress’ Working
Gro
u
p

on the Future of Bibliographic Con
t
rol
to “develop a test plan for FRBR,” because “
until
carefully tested as a mode
l for bibliographic data formation for all formats, FRBR must be seen
as a theoretical model whose practical implementation and its attendant costs are still unknown”
(Library of Congress Working Group,
2008
, p. 33).

For

our FRBR XML format, we saw a need
for

implementers to share data that represents a “pure”
implementation of FRBR, outside of any implementation
-
specific enhancements. However, we also
saw two additional immediate needs: a mechanism to extend FRBR to make the data more useful in a
productio
n environment but still stay fairly close to the original FRBR report’s definitions, and a
mech
anism to add additional domain
-
specific attributes to the already
-
existing FRBR entities.

We
therefore created sets
(that we call “levels”)
of W3C X
M
L

Schemas fo
r FRBRized dat
a
,

one for each
of these
three
use cases
.
These Schemas, along with sample data and supporting documentation, are
available at <http://vfrbr.info/schemas>.

The first level
of Schemas
is named simply “frbr,” and at this level an XML element
is defined for
each FRBR entity, with XML sub
-
elements for each FRBR attr
ibute defined for that entity.
1

All
XML elements for FRBR attributes at the frbr level are defined as strings, none are required, and all
are repeatable.

At this level, t
he only addit
ion we have made to features defined
by FRBR

is an XML
attribute
identifier

that allows that entity to be explicitly referenced elsewhe
re in the XML instance
document
.

The second level, “efrbr,” adds a number of features that the V/FRBR project team belie
ves
will
help the

XML for
mat
be
useful for production data.

First, we add an XML element representing a
new FRBR
note
attribute w
e’ve added for each entity, and a container for local extensions
. Together,
the
s
e

will allow additional information
to be recor
ded on an

entity beyon
d what is defined in its

original FRBR attributes.
Next
, we added XML attributes to
many

of the XML elements representing
FRBR attributes

to either refine the meaning of the FRBR attribute or provide meta
-
information
about the value i
t contains. These XML attributes are applied selectively to only the FRBR attributes
to which we believe they reasonably apply. Finally, efrbr groups together the three FRBR attributes
of Manifestation that represent publication information into a publicat
ion statement set, to allow more
than one publication statement to apply to a given Manifestation (a situation not uncommon in
bibliographic metadata).
An example of the differences between the frbr and efrbr st
ructures can be
seen in Figure 2
.

The third
level, “vfrbr,” is a domain
-
specific implementation of FRBR for musical materials,
specifically scores and recordings. In vfrbr we make use of all of the features added at the efrbr level;
exclude a number of FRBR attributes that are not relevant for music
al materials, such as the Work



1

Readers may note a terminological confusion that the V/FRBR project team has faced: FRBR defines
attributes (similar to properties) on entities, whereas in XML terms an attribute is a feature that appears on an
XML element, generally to record meta
-
inform
ation about that element or its value. The word attribute in these
contexts has two entirely different meanings. When discussing XML representations, this paper will attempt to
minimize confusion by qualifying the use of the word attribute, as in “FRBR att
ribute” or “XML attribute.”

Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Core and Metada
ta Applications 2010


attribute coordinates; and add some attributes to FRBR that we believe are necessary for the
description of musical materials, such as place of composition for Work. In addition, vfrbr restricts
the cardinality of certain XML

elements representing FRBR attributes, requiring some and limiting
others to only a single occurrence.


frb
r

<frbr
-
work:titleOfTheWork>


Music for the theatre

</frbr
-
work:titleO
fTheWork>

<frbr
-
work:formOfWork>


Orchestral music

</
frbr
-
work:formOfWork>


<frbr
-
work:dateOfTheWork>


1932 to 1936

</frbr
-
work:dateOfTheWork>


efrbr

<efrbr
-
work:titleOfTheWork type="uniform" offset="0" vocabulary="naf">


Music for the theatre

</efrbr
-
work:titleOfTheWork>

<efrbr
-
work:formOfWork v
ocabulary="marcformofcomposition">


Orchestral

music

</efrbr
-
work:formOfWork>


<efrbr
-
work:dateOfTheWork type="range" normal="1932/1936">


1932 to

1936

</efrbr
-
work:dateOfTheWork>

FIG
2
. Comparison of frbr and efrbr
XML representations
.


T
he
implementation of FRBR relationships is the same at all three levels of the V/FRBR XML
Schemas.
All relationships defined the FRBR report are included as
separate
XML elements,
following similar naming conventions as used for the XML elements representing
FRBR attributes.
These relationship elements a
re grouped into four categories based on the way
they are discussed in
the report; i.e.,

structure, responsible, subject, and other relations. Each XML element
for a specific
FRBR relationship
takes XML attributes
for the

entities that serve as the source and target for the
rela
tionship.

Despite our
efforts to provide flexibility

in implementation
with the three
-
level approach to the
V/FRBR XML S
chemas,
we believe
the inherent complexity of reso
urce discovery systems make
s

it

unlikely that
others could adopt any of these formats wholesale
. Instead, we expect that other
implementers will need to re
-
use bits and pieces of these formats
--
for example,
the
XML definitions

for FRBR attributes but not
t
he structure for specification of FRBR
relationships
, or the features
described in FRBR but not those in FRAD
.
We employ two separate but related strategies

to facilitate
this re
-
use, both of which suggest an XML Schema design that uses a large number of i
ndividual
XML Schemas for specific purposes that are then brought together to create the data format
for that
level
as a whole. The first of these strategies is to define all XML elements
at the “schema level”
(that is, as an immediate child
of the xs
d
:sch
ema root element)
, which then allows them to be pulled
into other Schemas using the xs
d
:include, xs
d
:import, and xs
d
:redefine mechanisms.
We define a
Schema for each FRBR entity (and one for the FRAD Family entity),
which pulls in
XML
elements

representing

FRBR attributes (and for efrbr and vfrbr, the

XML attributes

on these XML elements
)
defined in up to
three

additional

Schemas: one each for the
set of
FRBR
-
defined

attributes,
the set of
additional attributes defined by FRAD,
and the set of
locally
-
defined addition
s
.

This allows each of
these sets of XML elements to be re
-
used independent
ly

from

the others. The second strategy
we
employ to promote flexibility and re
-
usability of parts of the V/FRBR XML
data
formats is
the
careful use of multi
ple XML namespaces for individual Schemas. Entit
i
es and attributes defined in
FRBR
are given

different namespaces than the entities and attribut
es defined in FRAD, each FRBR
enti
ty
(along with
its attributes
)

is defined in its own namespace,
and relationsh
ips are all defined in
the same namespace. Each of these namespace patterns appears within each of the three levels used
in
V/FRBR, so that the definition of the same entity
at different levels
has three different namespaces.
All
namespaces are versioned
,
to facilitate revision of

these Schemas over time. The target
namespace for the efrbr level Work
FRBR
attribute formOfWork, therefore, is
http://vfrbr.info/
e
frbr/1.0/work,
the namespace for the vfrbr level Expression
FRBR
attribute
2010
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e and Metadata Applications



dateOfExpression is http
://vfrbr.info/vfrbr/1.0/expression,
and the namespace for the frbr level
relationship embodiedIn is http://vfrbr.info/frbr/1.0.

At
each level, a wrapper Schema begins the
process of bringing together all the various pieces into the full XML package for tha
t level. This
wrapper schema uses a target namespace specific to the level, and has child elements that group
together data related to the FRBR entities separate from that for FRBR relationships. A series of
xs
d
:import (for XML elements in different namesp
aces) and xs
d
:include (for XML elements in the
same namespace)
methods then pull in the other relevant Schemas in turn.
A visual representation of
the namespace divisions and the import/include mechanisms in place for the efrbr level can be seen in
Figure
3
, and in the V/FRBR XML Schemas User Guide at <
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/

projects/vfrbr/schemas/UserGuide.pdf
>.
All together, the frbr level is comprised of 36 separate XML
Schemas, and the efrbr and vfrbr levels are comprised of 48 XML Schemas each.



FIG
3
. Comparison of frbr and efrbr specifications.

4.

Re
-
usability and Interoperability Issues

As a primary goal of the V/FRBR project is to
be
a model for the implementation of FRBR in
other production systems, providing re
-
usable specifications and i
nteroperable data will be a key
factor in the project’s success. The V/FRBR XML Schemas are one step towards this goal,
but

have
perhaps raised more questions related to re
-
usability and interoperability than they have answered.
We expect that the work we
have already done to produce many linked Schemas and develop our
namespace policies will
facilitate

the process of generating data in other
bindings, perhaps including
RDF

in some form, and potentially using classes and properties from the Music Ontology

a
nd/or
Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Core and Metada
ta Applications 2010


RDA
.
The grant
-
funded V/FRBR project is
active for only a limited time period

and has finite
resources, and it is still too early to tell what the future of this initiative will be
over the long term
.
We therefore must choose carefully which
addition
al
development activities to undertake
. We hope
that an ongoing dialog
ue

with the FRBR, library catalog,

DCMI, Linked Data,

and
other

metadata
communities will help us to prioritize
our future

work. Some of the issues that we might address in
the short ter
m are discussed in the remainder of this paper.

4.1. FRBR Issues

While the
IFLA
FRBR report
has undergone

some level of validation through various
implementations in the library community
,

FRAD and FRSAD are still entirely unproven.
FRSAD is
still in draft

form. FRAD has been formally published, but there is no official statement from IFLA
on how the differences between FRBR and FRAD should be managed in practice, and the
potential
utility of the additional entities FRAD defines to support the traditional l
ibrary authority control
process has not been tested.
The V/FRBR proje
ct has been conservative

in only implementing a
portion of FRAD and none of FRSAD;
as a single
-
institution project developing a uni
-
lingual catalog
it is perhaps not a helpful test case
for the extra FRAD entities supporting multi
-
lingual catalogs and
the creation of controlled access points by different agencies according to different cataloging rules.
Similarly, as a project focusing on musical materials, V/FRBR is likely not an effecti
ve test case for
FRSAD
,

which focuses solely on the aboutness of works, as music is only occasionally truly “about”
anything

at all
. We will likely therefore leave it to other projects to more fully test these models.

The FRBR model
will face an additional significant test
following the June 2010 release of

the
FRBR
-
based RDA
.
At its most basic, RDA adoption will help to justify

(or
contradict!
) the utility of
the
group

1, 2, and 3 entities FRBR and FRAD define as
the basis for catalo
ging rules. It will also
provide more concrete information on the effectiveness of the loose approach to FRBR
implementation, adopting FRBR entities closely but FRBR attributes and relationships only
indirectly.
In addition, the DCMI/RDA Task Group’s appro
ach of registering RDA elements in a
formal metadata registry to facilitate re
-
use of these properties in other communities will face
validation.
Will these registered properties have any impact on the wider metadata community? Will
they be used

in actual
implementations
? Can different registries for these types of properties
themselves interoperate? The evolution and degree of success of RDA in this format will help guide
the priorities of the V/FRBR project into the future

as we evaluate whether or not to

embark upon a
similar initiative and/or build upon the RDA registered properties
.

4.2. XML Issues

While we expect the V/FRBR XML formats we have defined will not be the only

bindings
needed
for FRBRized data, we do believe for the foreseeable future they

will be helpful to the library
metadata community.
The version 1.0 Schemas released in March 2010 are only an initial effort.
For
efrbr in particular, we have made many assumptions

about FRBR implementer
s


needs for a data
format

that will need to be test
ed and validated
.
The Schema structure we have developed is designed
for maximum re
-
usability in parts in addition to the whole, but this has led to a great deal of
complexity in the format. Have we struck the right balance between
functionality and comple
xity? Or
does the complexity we’ve introduced create too high a barrier for other implementers to adopt?
We
hope that community feedback and testing will lead to signific
ant revisions to these Schemas.

The V/FRBR XML Schemas intentionally define all elemen
ts at the schema level so that they c
an
be referenced from elsewhere, which

means these elements could be referenced by URI. Yet as an
XML format these elements are not
truly
“properties” in the
RDF sense.
In addition, t
he
inclusion

of
XML attributes at th
e efrbr level
that provide meta
-
information about the value or a refinement of the
element’s meaning
further distances this implementat
ion from an RDF
-
based one. T
he XML format
,
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Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Cor
e and Metadata Applications



however,

is only one representation of
our unde
rlying data model, and we
believe that the
underlying
model will eventually be
usable as the source of

an RDF, graph
-
based
data
binding. T
he V/FRBR
project team has
to this point
only scratched the surface of the analysis needed to develop
(or even
decide whe
t
her to develop

during
our grant period
)
a true RDF

representation

of our FRBRized data.

4.3. RDF

and Dublin Core Abstract Model Issues

Representing library metadata, FRBRized or not, in a form friendly to RDF or the D
ublin Core
Abstract Model

presents some significant challenge
s.
In V/FRBR
, we encountered a si
tuation
common to library

metadata, where three FRBR attributes of the Manifestation
were

grouped
together into

a “publication statement” that would be repeatable as a set
. In
XML’s tree model
this is
simple


create an XML

element wrapping together the three publ
ication elements. This solution,
however, is incompatible with

the graph model RDF employs
. Should we undertake an RDF
representation of V/FRBR data we would need to seek a different solution
. Hillmann (2010) propos
es
some strategies for modeling the publication statement and other
aggregated statements in RDF,
which could potentially be applied to data structures in V/FRBR.

A similar issue arises with the
representation of relationships in our XML Schemas, as each r
elationship is defined as a child of its
overarching relationship type. The connection between a relationship and its type is inherent in the
XML hierarchy, but is not defined formally.

One way to look at interoperability issues is through
the DCMI’s Inter
operability Levels for
Dublin Core Metadata

(Nilsson et al., 2009)
.
According to this framework, the current V/FRBR
XML binding is at interoperability level 1


“Shared term definitions.” By conforming (or at least
making a human
-
readable claim to conform)

to the textual definitions in the FRBR and FRAD
reports, our XML data format can be understood to share definitions with other formats that also
make the same claim to FRBR conformance. Dublin Core interoperability level 2, “formal semantic
interoperabili
ty,” is a significant step beyond level 1
, requiring compliance with the RDF graph
model and “use (or inferrability) of URIs and conformance with formally specified domains, ranges,
and sub
-
property relations” (Nilsson et al., 2009).

Level 3
requires
conformance with the Dublin
Core Abstract Model, and level 4 requires a description set (defined by the Dublin Core Abstract
Model) to conform to specific formal constraints, and provides a specific XML language fo
r
expressing these constraints.

A formaliz
ed representation of the V/FRBR data model and an RDF binding would likely allow
the V/FRBR project to reach Dublin Core interoperability level 2.
T
o reach interoperability level 3,
we
would

seek

guidance
from other initiatives that have formally documente
d a
DCAP

based on
FRBR principles
.
A

specific Application Profile is made up of
a set of documents relevant to a single
project or type of material
. However, the Application Profile layer in the Singapore Framework is
built upon a lower layer, known as Dom
ain Standards. These
are “models and specifications in
broader use by communities”
(Nilsson et al., 2008).
As described earlier, the FRBR report exists at
this Domain Standards

level

as a Community Domain Model
.
A Community Domain Model in the
Singapore Fr
amework is the basis for the Domain Model at the Application Profile layer.
Application
Profile creators must “select or develop” a Domain Model
(Coyle & Baker, 2009)
, which suggest
s
some re
-
use of external effort
is at least possible
and perhaps even

desi
rable

at the
Application Profile

l
evel
.
However, the smallest shades of differences in meaning can have enormous consequences for
a
Domain Model. A FRBR Work, for example, has a relationship to but is not the same as the
Variazioni project’s Composition co
ncept.

At the Domain Standards level it is not necessary to
formally define concepts in RDF terms, but formally declaring Work as an RDF class, and
Composition as a subclass of Work would be a significant step towards better interoperability of data
betwee
n FRBR implementations

and tighter connections between the Domain Model at the
Application Profile Level and the Domain Standards level below
.

This

odd interaction of textual
Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Core and Metada
ta Applications 2010


model descriptions and more formal modeling practices
in current implementations
has not escaped
community notice (Chaudhri, 2009).

Despite the potential for formal interoperability suggested by the Singapore Framework
, it appears
that D
CAPs

created or in development to date that use FRBR each define their own Domain Models
rather than

adopting a shared core beyond what the textual FRBR report as a Domain Standard
provides.
The
European Variazioni project’s Application Profile, entitled VMAP

<
http://variazioniproject.org/vmap/VMAP_home.html
>
,
re
-
uses
properties from the dcterms

namespace and FOAF, but does not conform to best practice for D
CAPs
i
n other ways. For example
,
VMAP

uses an element from the MODS namespace
, a practice

which the
DC

Usage Board
discourage
s
,

as the Board

consider
s

these

not truly “properties” in the

RDF s
ense. In addition,
VMAP

defines its own properties for some common features like geographic places and height/width instead
of seeking pre
-
existing vocabularies.
The VMAP has not been reviewed by the DCMI Usage Board.
The V/FRBR project team plans to watch

Variazioni closely but at this time believes the uncertain
status of VMAP together with its more free interpretation of FRBR then we are taking would make it
challenging for us to attempt to use much of their formal Application Profile.

Th
e Scholarly Work
s Application Profile

(SWAP)
<
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/

digirep/index/Eprints_Application_Profile
>
, similarly uses FRBR concepts
. SWAP uses FRBR in a
loose

way,
in which “some of the entity and relationship labels used in FRBR have been
modified
…in order to make them more intuitive to those dealing with eprints and to align them with
the terminology used in DC” (Allinson et al., 2007).
The close rela
tionship to FRBR implied by the

text

of the Application Profile
, however,

is not defined for
mally.

SWAP
does not
formally
reference
RDF classes for its entities (although it may be these do exist), and IFLA has

to date

not
yet
defined
RDF classes for its entities in a production environment.
As a result, c
urrently there is no machine
-
readable connectio
n between the FRBR implementation in SWAP and that in other
DCAPs
.

The Dublin Core Library Application Profile <
http://dublincore.org/librarieswiki/RevisionDraft
>
has been in development for some time, predating both the Dublin Core Abstract Model and the
Singapore Framework. The curre
nt draft is still in progress
, and
is attempting to

mov
e

to the new
,

more formal
,

Application Profile
specifications and incorporate

FRBR principles.

In its current form,
the Library Application Profile experiments with re
-
using existing DCMI
-
defined properties in place
of the relationships defined in the FRBR report, and uses a mixture of properties for the FRBR
entities taken from the FRBR report and existing DCMI specifications. As this Application Profile is
still in the

early stages of formal development
, at least in the context of the current AP specifications
,
it is unclear at this time whether it will provide features that will be re
-
usable by the V/FRBR project.

Each of these Application Profiles shares some commona
lity in
human
-
readable
definitions of
FRBR entities, attributes, a
nd relationships,
but
none makes any formal connections to the others or
to a common core
set of definitions. Such a common core might be built upon

previous experimental
work to model FRBR
in RDF (Gradmann, 2005; Davis

et al.
, 2005).
Official, IFLA
-
defined
properties for FRBR concepts
would likely

help to amelior
ate this situation

as well
.
More work will
be necessary to determine to what degree FRBR concepts can and should be formalized for
use in
Domain Models rather than the more general Domain Standards
, in order to maximize the
interoperability of data across these

and other FRBR
-
based

Application Profiles
.

Should the V/FRBR
project team elect to undertake an RDF binding of our data model
, this work could serve to further
formal interoperability among all FRBR
-
based Dublin Core Application Profiles.

5. Evaluation

As discussed in the previous section,
designing
the XML binding for the V/FRBR data model has
already raised for our project tea
m a whole host of questions related to how our work could more
2010
Proc. Int’l Conf. on Dublin Cor
e and Metadata Applications



effectively promote interoperability of FRBR
-
based metadata. Yet the true test will only come with
actual use of this data model, both in its expression as a persistence layer driving a discove
ry system,
and in its XML binding for exchange of data between systems and tools. We released an initial
version of the V/FRBR search system in summer 2010

<http://vfrbr.info/search>
, w
ith a subset of the
records for 80,000 sound recordings from the Indian
a University William and Gayle Cook Music
Library that we plan to incorporate before the end of the project. The process of batch loading data
mapped from the MARC Bibliographic format used in traditional library catalogs (Library of
Congress, 2010) into t
he V/FRBR search system
has already revealed to our project team some
weaknesses in our underlying data model. We have already made some adjustments to the human
-
readable representation of the model in Excel and in the database persistence layer to accommo
date
these issues, and will release a new version of the XML binding
with these same changes later
in the
summer or early fall.
As we continue to load more data into the system we expect to find more cases
in which our model does not accommodate data from
the legacy records that is still of use in a
FRBRized structure.

In late summer 2010 we also plan to release raw FRBRized data for community use. Initially the
data will be available as a series of large bulk downloads for ingest into other systems. We hav
e
heard a great deal of interest in exposing it as Linked Data, and will later in the project be exploring
this option along with more full
-
featured methods such as a light
-
weight API and the SRU protocol.
As we prepare the data for bulk download in XML, w
e have found cases in which the attributes
introduced at the efrbr level are insufficient or
otherwise less than ideal to represent actual data in our
system. We expect loading more data locally along with feedback we receive from those who make
use of the

data we expose for re
-
use will provide concrete evidence of the usefulness of the XML
representation we have designed. We are committed to continuing to update the underlying data
model and its XML representation to accommodate lessons learned from their
use.

Acknowledgements

The Variations/FRBR project is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and
Library Services. The author
profusely
thanks the Variations/FRBR pr
oject team, especially the data
modeling group
including

Paul McElwain,
Ilias Kyriazis, Alex Berry, Mark Notess,
Jon Dunn, and
Pam Pagels
for their significant contributions to the work described in this paper.

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