On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 7:27 AM, Pete Johnston
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Karen, I think the concept you are looking for here is what RDF Schema
> (and the DCMI Abstract Model, which uses RDF Schema as its "vocabulary
> model") calls "subproperty".
Pete, it isn't yet clear to me if RDA will have something like
"contributor" as a property, with subproperties for particular types
of contributors. There are some subtleties about the RDA elements that
we need to think about. My understanding is that library data does not
have these hierarchies, at least not in theory. There is an idea of
specificity that you don't usually find in other communties' metadata.
In this case, however, there is the "glitch" that contributor roles
are not often provided, but that's the data, not the rules.
But you're right that we should look both at classes and at
properties+subproperties as we move forward in our analysis of the RDA
elements.
>
> e.g. there might be a "role" corresponding to a relationship type of
> "is-owner-of", but an owner is not a "contributor" (at least in the
> sense of the dcterms:contributor property).
This is one of the reasons why the hierarchy of contributors is
difficult -- because there are many relationships in the library
records and they haven't been treated hierarchically up to now. It
gets pretty complex - you can have a "binder" - the person who created
the binding for the (usually rare) book. This is a relationship of
creating the physical object, but not related to the content.
"Printer" is similar. It's a contribution of a different type (oops,
pun!). There are owners and previous owners. When it comes to
multi-media works, the contributions can be contributions to a part of
the work, such as the creator of the score that is then performed (is
a performer a creator or contributor?). I know that different
sub-communities view these relationships differently (another argument
for application profiles!).
>
> On a related note, looking at
>
> http://metadataregistry.org/schemaprop/show/id/93.html
>
> on the "Elements" tab, I see something saying (if I interpret it
> correctly)
>
> rda:publishersName rdfs:subPropertyOf rda:publisher .
>
> which doesn't seem quite right to me? i.e. if the rda:publisher property
> represents the "is-published-by" relationship then (I imagine?) it
> represents a relationship between a resource-that-is-published and an
> agent.
Yes, I made that up and it is wrong. The problem is that "publisher"
wasn't in the original list of RDA elements at all. (It is in the
latest list.) As I may have mentioned when we met in Berlin, library
records today do not contain the "is published by" information, just
the name of the publisher that appears on the title page. I will need
to spend more time with RDA to try to understand how it covers this
data. The definition of publisher in the latest RDA list is:
"A person, family, or corporate body responsible for publishing,
releasing, or issuing a resource."
and publisher name is:
"The name of a person, family, or corporate body responsible for
publishing, releasing, or issuing a resource."
By that definition, it does *not* sound like it is limiting the
publisher name to a transcribed string -- it sounds like it even could
be a label that is standardized in some way. The big picture could be
that there is a link from the bibliographic record to a publisher
record that then provides the name for display. That's not the current
implementation.
What I'll do in the registry is bring it up to date with the current
definitions, and that means that at this point there will be no direct
relationship between publisher and publisher name. They will both be
elements relating to the bibliographic resource. that's your (b)
below.
>
> (a) making rda:publisher a property which takes either an agent or an
> agent name as value, and using the same property in both cases (the
> "dc:creator" solution, if you like)
> (b) retain rda:publishersName as a property of the
> resource-that-is-published, but remove the subproperty relationship
> (c) use, say, a rda:name (or rda;agentName or whatever) property as a
> property of the agent
kc
--
-- ---
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
[log in to unmask] http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
mo.: 510-435-8234
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