Schema.org doesn't claim to be a single vocabulary for everything. Hence the long tail.

http://philarcher.org/diary/2012/danbri/long_tail.png


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Karen Coyle [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2013 2:41 PM
> To: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum
> Cc: Young,Jeff (OR)
> Subject: Re: [BIBFRAME] re-using existing properties (was
> http://bibframe.org/documentation/bibframe-authority/ and the
> "lightweight abstraction layer")
>
> No, it is the vocabulary. As we've run into in the BibEx group (a
> schema.org group for bibliographic data that Jeff and I are on)[1], the
> vocabulary has some serious problems. In fact, I happen to think that a
> single vocabulary for "everything" is nonsense. I prefer, as others
> have suggested here, re-usable vocabularies -- especially if those are
> carefully designed. Presumably we need only a small number of
> vocabularies for information about people. Ditto for places. I see
> vocabs like dc, foaf and geonames to be "anchor vocabularies" -- strong
> but simple vocabularies around which extensions can be developed.
>
> It makes sense to me for libraries to be collaborators in the
> development of a finite number of anchor vocabularies that will help
> them interact with other communities. It's what the Semantic Web is all
> about - find those hooks that link your data and someone else's data.
>
> That said, I don't think that everything in library data is going to be
> a link to something else. It may not make sense to try to convert
> things like 245 $c (rest of title) into linked data. I'm beginning to
> think that it would not be amiss to consider descriptive cataloging as
> mainly a document, with some internal coding, and include linkable data
> ("access points" in RDA terms) that completes the bibliographic
> metadata.
>
> What I don't think we've considered yet is: who and what do we want to
> link to? and why? The W3C LLD group did come up with some use cases for
> library linked data, but I think we need more.
>
> kc
> [1] http://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/
> [2] http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/XGR-lld-usecase-20111025/
>
> On 5/23/13 11:11 AM, Young,Jeff (OR) wrote:
> > Is it the vocabulary that is inconsistent or reality itself? The
> world is a messy place that evolves over time, as will our vocabulary.
> Schema.org is designed for common sense. A person is a person, a book
> is a book, an event is an event, etc. It's true that common sense
> breaks down beyond a certain level, but it's absurd to think we can
> skip over common sense as a 1st step.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Karen Coyle [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> >> Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2013 1:34 PM
> >> To: Young,Jeff (OR)
> >> Cc: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: [BIBFRAME] re-using existing properties (was
> >> http://bibframe.org/documentation/bibframe-authority/ and the
> >> "lightweight abstraction layer")
> >>
> >> Jeff, unfortunately schema.org is one of the worst ontologies I've
> >> ever seen for inconsistency, a single, narrow views. I hope it does
> >> NOT become the main ontology, at least not without some huge
> revision.
> >>
> >> kc
> >> (note: the blog post proposes schema.org as our future "OoE" -
> >> Ontology of Everything.)
> >>
> >> On 5/23/13 9:49 AM, Young,Jeff (OR) wrote:
> >>> Regarding FOAF and "Testing status", I thought this blog from
> awhile
> >> back rang true:
> >>> http://philarcher.org/diary/2012/danbri/
> >>>
> >>> Jeff
> >>>
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum
> >>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle
> >>>> Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2013 12:41 PM
> >>>> To: [log in to unmask]
> >>>> Subject: Re: [BIBFRAME] re-using existing properties (was
> >>>> http://bibframe.org/documentation/bibframe-authority/ and the
> >>>> "lightweight abstraction layer")
> >>>>
> >>>> Nate, what this says to me is that we need to work more
> >>>> collaboratively with others. This is what I hoped would come out
> of
> >>>> the NISO Bib Framework meeting (but unfortunately did not). I've
> >> been
> >>>> very frustrated with foaf - so much potential, and yet so
> >>>> un-realized. And it isn't being very actively developed anymore.
> So
> >>>> we can either roll our own, OR try to find a way to collaborate on
> >>>> standards for the Web, not standards for the library community
> only.
> >>>>
> >>>> If we were, for example, a community of flat worm neuron
> >> researchers,
> >>>> it might make sense to develop our own ontology with little direct
> >>>> interaction with that of others. But the data that libraries will
> >>>> create is by definition not exclusive to the library use case --
> >>>> our metadata describes people, intellectual resources, places,
> >>>> events, time periods.
> >>>> These are about as close to universal concepts as you'll get.
> >> There's
> >>>> probably nothing in our data that shouldn't be linking to someone
> >>>> else's information somewhere.
> >>>>
> >>>> It makes me cringe a bit when I hear it, but it has been suggested
> >>>> that libraries are the logical organizations to take on the
> >> archiving
> >>>> and perhaps even maintenance of key ontologies. I know we don't
> >>>> have the funding for that and I am reminded of the poster that
> read:
> >> "What
> >>>> if schools were fully funded and the military had to hold a bake
> >> sale
> >>>> to buy an airplane?"
> >>>>
> >>>> So I agree, Nate, with your assessment -- that we can't risk using
> >>>> ontologies that can change arbitrarily. But we could potentially
> >>>> become partners in those ontologies, just as libraries from
> >> different
> >>>> countries have become partners in MARC21 and BIBFRAME. Dividing
> the
> >>>> world at libraries/not-libraries is the problem. Well, the crux of
> >>>> the problem is that we'd have to hold a bake sale to get the $$
> and
> >>>> staffing to be participants, and even that wouldn't cover it.
> >>>>
> >>>> *aaaarrrrggghhh!*
> >>>>
> >>>> kc
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On 5/23/13 8:39 AM, Trail, Nate wrote:
> >>>>> If you adopt someone else's terms, you are stuck with their
> >>>> definitions, and if they decide to change them, you have to
> revisit
> >>>> your decision: a constant maintenance headache.
> >>>>> The foaf vocab is in Testing status, version 0.98. Are they going
> >> to
> >>>> change it before it comes out? Who knows? Will they add something
> >>>> better like foaf:sortName that is more like a traditional library
> >>>> listing?
> >>>>> Just coming up with a list of all the possible terms out there
> and
> >>>> fighting over whether they are close enough to use for each term
> we
> >>>> have will be a major use of time.
> >>>>> On DC, people you might not be for it, but if we opened the BF
> >> vocab
> >>>> up, there might be a lot of clamor for it; it's so simple and it's
> >>>> all over the place!
> >>>>> Nate
> >>>>> PS I had a good laugh about the Unicode and ISO 639 "roll our own
> >>>> comment". I'm working right now on developing a computer that uses
> >> 2s
> >>>> and 3s instead of 1s and 0s.
> >>>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>>> From: stuart yeates [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> >>>>> Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 5:31 PM
> >>>>> To: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum
> >>>>> Cc: Trail, Nate
> >>>>> Subject: Re: [BIBFRAME] re-using existing properties (was
> >>>>> http://bibframe.org/documentation/bibframe-authority/ and the
> >>>>> "lightweight abstraction layer")
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 23/05/13 05:25, Trail, Nate wrote:
> >>>>>> I think when you start reusing existing properties, you're
> >>>>>> relying
> >>>> on
> >>>>>> them being around for the long haul, and requiring systems that
> >>>>>> consume them to be aware of all the multiple namespaces.
> >>>>> The "syntactic sugar" option used by
> >>>> madsrdf:hasCloseExternalAuthority does not introduce a new
> >>>> namespace from the users' point of view. The syntactic sugar can
> >>>> even be kept in a separate RDF file from the definition of the
> >>>> bibframe properties, making it second class and invisible to
> >>>> everyone who
> >> doesn't want it.
> >>>>> > In all cases, I can't
> >>>>> > see us (the library community) agreeing that the way foaf
> or
> >> dc
> >>>> (or > whatever) uses a term really matches what we're talking
> >> about.
> >>>>> Following that arguement we should also walk away from ISO 639,
> >>>>> ISO
> >>>> 3166, RFC 3986, Unicode and so forth. None of them are perfect
> from
> >> a
> >>>> library point of view but all of the are better than rolling our
> >> own.
> >>>>> [For the record I'm not suggestion using dc / Dublincore.]
> >>>>>
> >>>>> cheers
> >>>>> stuart
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Stuart Yeates
> >>>>> Library Technology Services http://www.victoria.ac.nz/library/
> >>>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Karen Coyle
> >>>> [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
> >>>> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> >>>> m: 1-510-435-8234
> >>>> skype: kcoylenet
> >> --
> >> Karen Coyle
> >> [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
> >> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> >> m: 1-510-435-8234
> >> skype: kcoylenet
>
> --
> Karen Coyle
> [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
>