Here is an example of a VIAF work title I would like to have a solution 
for. It is a common one used for evaluating the effect of cataloging 
rules in german speaking countries: Franz Kafka, "Der Prozess" (see below).

http://d-nb.info/gnd/4099250-0

http://d-nb.info/gnd/4099250-0/about/rdf

<gnd:preferredNameForTheWork>Der @Prozess</gnd:preferredNameForTheWork>

MARC21/XML

     <datafield tag="100" ind1="1" ind2=" ">
       <subfield code="a">Kafka, Franz</subfield>
       <subfield code="d">1883-1924</subfield>
       <subfield code="t">&#152;Der&#156; Prozess</subfield>
     </datafield>


http://viaf.org/viaf/183949498

http://viaf.org/processed/DNB%7C040992500

100 1 _ ‎‡a  Kafka, Franz‏ ‎‡d  1883-1924‏ ‎‡t  Der Prozess‏

http://viaf.org/processed/LC%7Cn%20%2090712221

100 1 0 ‎‡a  Kafka, Franz,‏ ‎‡d  1883-1924.‏ ‎‡t  Prozess‏

http://viaf.org/processed/LC%7Cn%202010049134

100    1         ‎‡a  Kafka, Franz,‏ ‎‡d  1883-1924.‏ ‎‡t Prozess.‏ ‎‡l  
Spanish‏

http://viaf.org/processed/BNE%7CXX2229094

100    1    0     ‎‡a  Kafka, Franz‏ ‎‡d  1883-1924‏ ‎‡t  Der Prozess‏ 
‎‡l  Español‏


Uniform Title Links (15)

AUTHOR
Kafka, Franz,|1883-1924
WORKS:
Der Prozess
EXPRESSIONS (1)
Prozess.
EXPRESSIONS (12)


DNB has established a gnd:preferredNameForTheWork element which carries 
a '@' character for supporting filing positions (I can't find the 
documentation now).

In the Marc21 record, DNB is using also a start/stop symbol pair to 
point out the word "Der" is an exception and should not be considered 
for filing/sorting. The codepoints are \u0098 (&#152) and \u009c 
(&#156). An alternative would have been to mark this title with a 
cataloging code ("RAK-WB" for example), but, as it is obvious to german 
catalogs, the name of the cataloging code was just left out, it is not 
explicitly stated. Also, Kafka's Prozess has been translated and renamed 
into many languages, with different filing/sorting, outside of the scope 
of the DNB catalog.

Now, what happens in VIAF? VIAF has no knowledge about filing/sorting 
rules it seems. It uses SKOS concepts to create a mechanism to organize 
work titles from many national authority libraries from many countries. 
VIAF selected "Prozess" as uniform title, but also "Der Prozess". I 
think it is the work set algorithm of OCLC how the uniform titles are 
created, but I'm not sure. Biblioteca Nacional de España has submitted 
"Der Prozess" to VIAF. This created also a conflict with the spanish LC 
title record.

And, the german filing/sorting information disappeared. So, my 
conclusion is, VIAF does not have a notion of maintaining local 
filing/sorting information. As a programmer, I use DNB and not VIAF for 
creating alphabetic catalogs for german audience.

 From Bibframe, I hope it remedies this situation and allows that local 
filing/sorting rules can be carried (if any rules exist, which can be 
per title form, not per record).

An alternative to the start/stop symbols would be annotating the title 
form with the cataloging code name that is responsible for 
filing/sorting. That is, filing/sorting rules should be made identifiable.

With this semantics, it should be possible to reconstruct alphabetically 
ordered catalogs for all audiences, the audience of the country the work 
is originating from, and also for international audiences, who is not 
interested in applying this information.

Moreover, with the Linked Data architecture, Bibframe is targeted to 
carry much more title data from all kind of sources, not only data from 
library (authority) catalogs. Yes, I dare to say, Bibframe should also 
be able to carry title forms that were not created by library catalog 
rules. For example, title of works from archives or museums, or from 
academic research projects.

I think one good use case for Bibframe based applications would be to 
identify the titles that need to get applied to certain local 
filing/sorting rules. I hope Bibframe will have a method to respect the 
original and the internationalized forms of a title. In the past, lots 
of manual effort has been made to mark title forms according to local 
filing/sorting rules.

For the audience who does not require filing/ordering rules, Bibframe 
could allow implicitly to resolve this, maybe by stating a default rule, 
that Unicode collation algorithm can safely be applied in such cases.

Best regards,

Jörg

Am 16.02.13 07:03, schrieb Karen Coyle:
> Jeff, I've looked at VIAF. Many of us have looked at and used VIAF. 
> And I must say that I am not entirely comfortable with the use of 
> skos:concept for persons. This is why I would like more of an 
> explication of the reasoning for using skos for things that are not 
> concepts. Unless, perhaps, that the use of skos:concept in VIAF is 
> something like the LC authorities designation of a name authority 
> heading being usable ALSO for subjects. A bit more documentation about 
> the decisions made in the development of VIAF would be very useful. 
> The code itself doesn't provide those explanations, at least not to me.