Bruce D'Arcus wrote:
> "The focus property relates a conceptualisation of something to the
> thing itself. "
>
> Not immediately intuitive ("focus"), but it sounds like that might
> apply.
In UNIMARC authority format, this is the connection between an authority record and the "Primary Entity". In MARC21 authority format, the connection is implied in phrases like "the entity described in the record". If you buy into the notion of "primary entity", then I would suggest coining a property like this in MADS:
mads:hasAsPrimaryFocus a owl:ObjectProperty ;
rdfs:domain mads:Authority ;
rdfs:range owl:Thing ;
rdfs:subPropertyOf foaf:focus .
> What would be the reverse link: from MADS (agent as concept) to FOAF
> (the thing/agent itself)?
There is no inverse for foaf:focus, but MADS could create its own based on the property above:
mads:isPrimaryFocusOf a owl:ObjectProperty ;
rdfs:domain owl:Thing ;
rdfs:range mads:Authority ;
owl:inverseOf mads:hasAsPrimaryFocus .
> Aside: it occurs to me that foaf:PersonalProfileDocumemt and
> mads:Authority have some conceptual relationship?
I don't think MADS can justify publishing foaf:PersonalProfileDocuments because the "maker" of the PersonalProfileDocument must also be it's primaryTopic. In other words, only I can create a foaf:PersonalProfileDocument for myself.
http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_PersonalProfileDocument
> But the other issue I have is much more fundamental, and that is
> what's on the other end of the property: the MADS description itself.
> I guess I just don't see the value of thinking of myself as a concept.
I don't think of myself as an authority record, but that hasn't stopped librarians from treating it is a controllable surrogate of me. It's the same pattern here, except the abstraction has moved from "record" (an information resource) to "concept" (a non-information resource).
Jeff
> And examples like this are just insane (in particular that
> mads:elementList property):
>
> <madsrdf:componentList rdf:parseType="Collection">
> <madsrdf:PersonalName rdf:nodeID="aHerman-Jerry-1933-">
> <rdf:type
> rdf:resource="http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/mads/2010/11#Authority"/>
> <madsrdf:authoritativeLabel>Herman, Jerry, 1933-
> </madsrdf:authoritativeLabel>
> <madsrdf:elementList rdf:parseType="Collection">
> <madsrdf:FullNameElement>
> <madsrdf:elementValue>Herman, Jerry,</madsrdf:elementValue>
> </madsrdf:FullNameElement>
> <madsrdf:DateNameElement>
> <madsrdf:elementValue>1933-</madsrdf:elementValue>
> </madsrdf:DateNameElement>
> </madsrdf:elementList>
> </madsrdf:PersonalName>
> <madsrdf:Title rdf:nodeID="aHello-Dolly!">
> <rdf:type
> rdf:resource="http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/mads/2010/11#Authority"/>
> <madsrdf:authoritativeLabel>Hello, Dolly!</madsrdf:authoritativeLabel>
> <madsrdf:elementList rdf:parseType="Collection">
> <madsrdf:TitleElement>
> <madsrdf:elementValue>Hello, Dolly!</madsrdf:elementValue>
> </madsrdf:TitleElement>
> </madsrdf:elementList>
> </madsrdf:Title>
> </madsrdf:componentList>
>
> Bruce
>
> > This is what VIAF does (e.g., [2]), and there's nothing in the the
> current
> > design of MADS/RDF that forbids it, since mads:Authority is a sub-
> class of
> > skos:Concept.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Antoine
> >
> > [1] http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_focus
> > [2] http://viaf.org/viaf/24604287/rdf.xml
> >
> >
> >> I've been away from this since my flaming away. Just wanted to chime
> >> in on Rob's points ...
> >>
> >> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 3:56 AM, Rob Styles<[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi all, my 2 pence worth...
> >>>
> >>> Not a regular here, joining you specifically for the MADS/RDF
> discussion.
> >>>
> >>> ** Comments so far
> >>> Some of the comments so far are a tad harsh. It's great to see LoC
> >>> doing this stuff even if it's not exactly as one might have
> approached
> >>> it. They know their data, maybe we should try to be a bit more
> >>> supportive?
> >>
> >> Fair enough. But I do think we need to meet each other half way
> >> ("their data" is also "our data" in my view), and I think your
> >> comments are helpful (definitely more than mine) towards that end.
> >>
> >>> ** Conceptual approach
> >>> I've worked with library data for a long time and it's not simple
> >>> stuff. A common first mistake is often to assume that something
> like
> >>> the name authority talks about people and organisations when in
> fact
> >>> it talks about "bibliographic entities" - the names printed in
> books,
> >>> mostly.
> >>
> >> Yes, I get this sort of indirection. But as an author of some of
> those
> >> bibliographic items, I'm still a person. And there needs to be a way
> >> to bring these two perspectives together. Concretely, if I have a
> >> description of Samuel Clemens in FOAF, I really want to know how to
> >> link that to some description of his pen persona/alter ego Mark
> Twain.
> >>
> >>> These have been modelled and re-modelled over many years and
> authority
> >>> data has evolved to meet specific needs. It is not an ideal
> starting
> >>> point for publishing Linked Data.
> >>>
> >>> However, I think authority data could be approached differently to
> >>> MADS/RDF. Where MADS/RDF uses bibliographic terms, many of which
> come
> >>> from the record structures employed, I would prefer to see real-
> world
> >>> terminology used. So, a class of "Name" would be a good thing to
> have,
> >>> then we can talk about names. Where it is possible to identify a
> real
> >>> person it would be good to use a class of Person (ideally the foaf
> >>> one) and where we know the name is a pseudonym it would be great to
> >>> have a Pseudonym class too. The current MADS/RDF approach remodels
> the
> >>> authority /record/ where it may be preferable to model the
> authority
> >>> /data/.
> >>
> >> To me, this (natural language terms, rather than jargon) would go a
> >> long way towards resolving some of my impulsive reaction against
> what
> >> I was seeing.
> >>
> >>> The downside to that approach is that it can make round-tripping
> >>> between the syntaxes harder. Consider round-tripping MARC and
> MARC/XML
> >>> as compared with MARC and Dublin-Core XML?
> >>
> >> So this really comes down to what the priorities are for this
> effort?
> >> Is it absolutely clean round-tripping with legacy data, or is it to
> >> bring library data into the linked data world? Obviously one can try
> >> to do both, but there's some clear tension here.
> >>
> >>> I would look again at anywhere you have a structure word such as
> >>> /element/, /list/ or value as they are likely to be describing a
> >>> record rather than describing things from the world.
> >>
> >> Right.
> >>
> >> I guess in the end, I'd really like the designers behind this effort
> >> to imagine that people other than library people might also want to
> >> use these data in the end, and to imagine how that might work.
> >>
> >> Imagine a case where some developer somewhere is writing some simple
> >> PHP application and wants to store some bibliographic data, but also
> >> wants to be able to link into some LoC SPARQL endpoint to enhance
> it.
> >> How would they do that? How would they know how to get what kinds of
> >> data, to present it how to their users?
> >>
> >> Right now, MADS RDF seems to me to be only intelligible to someone
> >> with a library degree, or with an awful lot of free time on their
> >> hands.
> >>
> >> And I agree, BTW, with Karen's suggestion that it makes sense to
> treat
> >> MADS (or insert other library representation) name representations
> (I
> >> don't, personas?) as distinct from foaf:Agent or foaf:Person, but to
> >> enable them to be linked.
> >>
> >> [snip]
> >>
> >> Bruce
> >>
> >
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