Comments inline.

Yours,
Kevin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Robert Sanderson
> Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 4:47 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [BIBFRAME] bf:Language and Parts
> 
> 
> It seems that bf:Language has been living two lives.  In one life, it is a hard
> working predicate that relates a resource with the global identity of a
> language, such as http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/languages/eng.
> 
> The other life is lived outside of the RDF model, where it is specific to a
> particular resource and not in any way reusable.  The definition of the part of
> the resource is a string, not a URI, but clearly is meant as one as it is re-used.
> It also has another URI and a scheme [sorry, source] and a name [sorry,
> languageOfPart].
> 
> One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.  I'm going to be as
> forthcoming as I can: in order to make this coherent, along with
> bf:(absorbed/continued/superseded)InPart[By], a Part of a Resource should
> have its own identity in the same way that an Edition does. It could be just a
> blank node, like so many others, but at least be a node with the potential for
> identity.

-- I agree 116.3%.

> 
> My colleagues believe that I am wasting my time with this, 

-- I don’t think they should.

The long and short is this:  How this has been handled in MARC is less than ideal and I agree the current model does not improve on this.

If /part/ of a (larger) resource is in a different language, then it stands to reason that that /part/ should be represented as its own Resource, with its own language and which then has a defined relationship to the (larger) resource.  

Yes, it may be a pretty meagre Resource initially, but that doesn't make it any less a resource /and/ we have at least established something (a Resource) about which more can be said, without precluding the possibility of re-use.

There may be exceptions discovered along the way that require some kind of special accommodation, but libretti or inserts or other accompanying materials can be Resources unto themselves.

Yours,
Kevin


> but I believe that
> you want to do the right thing.  We're willing to wipe this part of the ontology
> clean ... all we're asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known
> issue to resolution.
> 
> Agent Sanderson
> --
> Rob Sanderson
> Technology Collaboration Facilitator
> Digital Library Systems and Services
> Stanford, CA 94305