Comments in line.

Yours,
Kevin


On 07/10/2014 02:29 PM, Robert Sanderson wrote:
>
> And the other issues below:
>
>     Relationships
>     The role of a BIBFRAME Agent with respect to a Work/Instance is
>     expressed either by (a) a URI; or (b) a string, when there is no
>     known URI for that role.  The paper finds fault: In method (a), with
>     the perceived restriction of role URIs to LC relators. With method
>     (b), in general.
>     The first is simply a misperception. There is no such restriction;
>     the URI can come from any appropriate role vocabulary.
>
> That's great, of course :) Thank you for clarifying.
>
> The issue I have with it isn't the use of LC relators, it's that
> existing relationships can't be used, as the object has to be a
> bf:Authority, rather than a real person. However, given the discussion
> in the authority thread, that seems like it's understood -- no need to
> belabor the point further.
>
>
>     As for “method (b)” it is simply impractical to insist that every
>     role have a URI, particularly since during early BIBFRAME
>     implementation much of the BIBFRAME data will be converted from MARC
>     records.
>
> And, I think for the first time, I'm not sure that I agree here.  If we
> can mint URIs for resources that are generated from MARC records, as per
> the examples on the site, then individual libraries should be equally
> able to mint their own relationship URIs.  They might not be
> semantically useful, but neither are the strings in Relators.

-- I personally agree with this.  I would add to it the Relators 
resource would add a painful, and unnecessary, hop in the data.

Do others have an opinion?

>
> See also the global vs locally defined discussion -- if the relationship
> is defined, described and maintained ... that seems great!


Important note: As easy as it is to write that individual libraries can 
and should mint their own properties when they believe they need to and 
as easy as it is to understand that idea conceptually (and I do believe 
this is the way to go), there is nevertheless a very real education 
initiative needed to diffuse this knowledge.  Education about this would 
not only help individual librarians understand /how/ custom "relators" 
can be achieved but would also be able to educate those librarians about 
how best to publish information about those custom properties in such a 
way that others can decipher the data.  Also, if this is understood by 
individual library organizations, then when those libraries interface 
with their vendors, those libraries are well-informed to inquire about 
whether the software the vendor is offering is capable of such a thing. 
  And, if not, then minimally submit a feature request and maximally 
insist on it be added.

>
>
>     If a MARC record represents a person’s role as “ed.”, whoever does
>     the conversion might not be able to find an appropriate URI for that
>     role. The string should not simply be discarded; it should be
>     retained if for no other reason than that a human end-user might be
>     able to make sense of it.
>
> This is somewhat more convincing, but the same solution applies --
> automatically create a relationship and include in rdfs:comment or
> similar a note that the original relator was "ed."
>
> As a compromise it would be good to treat Relator in the same way as the
> other similar classes: give them a node that starts off blank and
> records the string, but can be swapped out in the future for a real
> URI.  It should also have properties like those of Identifier, such as
> Assigner, Qualifier, Status, and Scheme.  This would allow future
> reconciliation efforts to distinguish "Ed." from Stanford with "Ed."
> from Harvard, if the two institutions were to use them in internally
> consistent but different ways.

I've actually wondered whether the utility and overhead of even this 
solution is worth it.  That's not to say I am in favor of dropping the 
information, but that perhaps it just goes into a note field.

I say this because my hope is that we are able to resolve most of the 
relator strings in existing records such that we can match it with an 
existing property.  I'm confident "Ed." can be parsed and matched with 
"relators:edt".  If there is something truly unintelligible, then 
perhaps a note is sufficient (and the resource could be flagged for 
human evaluation, at which time it is corrected).

That said, we've not really worked to write The Most Exquisite "Relator 
Term" Parser and run it against a substantial dataset to see exactly how 
well we can do those matches.  We've done a little, but nothing systematic.

My "stick it in a note" idea hasn't been popular in some circles, but I 
lay it out to test what others think.

>
>
>     Predicate Proliferation
>     This section points out that there are perhaps many more properties
>     in BIBFRAME than necessary, and many could be eliminated.  This is a
>     legitimate concern, and BIBFRAME is and will be undergoing
>     vocabulary refinement, informed by the current BIBFRAME testbed
>     activity.
>
> I'm happy to provide a better initial list of these to fuel the
> discussion, if that would be useful.

Fine by me.  Thanks; I think this type of systematic review could be 
very beneficial.

>
>
>     Record vs.  Graph
>     Based on the examples, we believe this section draws almost entirely
>     on a mistake in the Bibframe vocabulary.  All of the properties
>     mentioned in this section are currently associated directly with
>     Work and Instance resources.  They should instead have a domain of
>     bf:DescriptionAdminInfo We regret this mistake.
>
> Ahh, that is much clearer. Thanks!
>
> A related question... what's the range of bf:derivedFrom?  Is it also
> bf:DescriptionAdminInfo, or is there a missing "bf:OriginalRecord" class
> or similar?
>
>
>     Model Inconsistency
>     The issues raised here do deserve closer inspection.  Rob speculates
>     that the reason why bf:Event and bf:Provider are not of class
>     bf:Authority is because there are not library authority lists for
>     events and providers.  That isn’t the reason; one has nothing to do
>     with the other.  Anyway, bf:Event and bf:Provider are currently
>     undergoing re-thinking.
>
> Okay, happy to hear that!  Event and Provider are the most obvious
> cases, if it would be useful I can try and generate a more comprehensive
> list?

As above, this sounds like a fruitful undertaking if you are willing.


Yours,
Kevin

>
>
> Rob
>
> --
> Rob Sanderson
> Technology Collaboration Facilitator
> Digital Library Systems and Services
> Stanford, CA 94305