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Hello. I have been reading this and Rob’s initial paper while trying to get to grips with what Bibframe authorities are doing, particularly what a Bibframe Authority actually is. I confess, for example, that I find the formulation<http://bibframe.org/vocab/Authority.html> “Resource reflecting key authority concepts that have defined relationships reflected in the Work and Instance” rather confusing. The response below says that ‘Furthermore, nowhere is it ever asserted that "bf:Person != foaf:Person"’. However the definition of a Bibframe Person<http://bibframe.org/vocab/Person.html> as it stands is a “Controlled personal name”, not a person as such; foaf:Person<http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_Person> is defined as “A person” which does implicitly suggest that "bf:Person != foaf:Person". I recall I think that the original specification of FRAD for instance treated a name as a separate entity to a person, although perhaps not quite in this sense. Do I have this wrong?

Thanks,

Tom

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Thomas Meehan
Head of Current Cataloguing
Library Services
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT

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From: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Denenberg, Ray
Sent: 08 July 2014 20:23
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [BIBFRAME] Bibframe and Linked Data

Following are thoughts from Kevin Ford and me on the Sanderson paper cited below, “Differences between BibFrame and other Linked Open Data Approaches.”

We appreciate these issues being raised and the constructive criticism of the BIBFRAME approaches discussed. We offer the following observations.

String Authorities rather than Identifiers
BIBFRAME has explicitly stated that bf:Authority is not designed to compete with existing library authority efforts or replicate traditional library authorities.  Furthermore, nowhere is it ever asserted that "bf:Person != foaf:Person" and nowhere is it said that "bf:Authority == madsrdf:Authority".  Nothing, either way, is actually declared presently.   Rather, bf:Authority  is an abstraction allowing the implementer to reference a traditional authority. It is these traditional authorities that include the strings in question.  The explicit inclusion of the string within a bf:Authority (via property  bf:label or bf:authorizedAccessPoint) is not mandated;  it may be optionally included when a link to a traditional authority cannot be found, or for the benefit of a recipient who may be unable to follow the link.
These carefully constructed strings allow us to create matches to strings in existing MARC records (if we broke them up, we'd have a problem re-creating them should we need to), they represent current cataloging practice (for better or worse), and they provide us with ready-made labels (and ones that the community expects to see in bibliographic data).
Reliance on fabricated strings will diminish in time, some day they may go away and become a relic of 20th century cataloging but it is simply too early for that; for now they are imperative.  It will not happen until our reliance on identifiers outweighs our need for -  and stakeholders' expectations of - those strings.

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.
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.  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.
That said, it is important to note that the primary and expected way to relate Works/Instances to Agents in BIBFRAME is method (a) above.   Rob’s paper identifies method (a) as the "second way" (and presumably method “b” is interpreted to be the primary method).  This may be due to BIBFRAME not effectively communicating that method (a) is primary, and that method (b) should be used only in extraordinary circumstances.


Identifiers
We do believe that identifiers in BIBFRAME could benefit from more thinking. As such, we feel that Rob’s section on identifiers may be trying to grapple with several different issues, all of which are about identifiers but each of which should be treated separately.  These issues are likely legitimate, but we need to sort them out.
We do want to note, bf:identifierValue  expects a string literal, and Rob’s examples appear to treat it as a resource identifier.  This is a fairly fundamental misinterpretation that needs to be cleared up before we can begin to sort out the other issues.

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.

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.

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.


From: Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jody L. DeRidder
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 9:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [BIBFRAME] Bibframe and Linked Data


I just saw this posted on Twitter.

Rob Sanderson is concerned about the ways in which Bibframe does NOT worked in the linked data environment, and is trying to effectively communicate the issues.  He's asking for feedback:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yyVKeYQkBucZqSoQ2qY17vrER46-S6Tw6lY8uqA5xxQ/edit#heading=h.sp1548qks85h



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Jody L. DeRidder

Head, Digital Services

University of Alabama Libraries

Tuscaloosa, AL 35487

Phone: 205.348.0511





"Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality." --Jonas Salk