Dear Sigfrid,
good question -- these attributes were first introduced in 2010 (I think) with MODS 3.4, so it's been a while. Maybe it had something to do with the traditional cataloging usage of the publisher element as more of a transcribed value rather than an access point, and there was no specific controlled vocabulary for publishers. Although many publishers are recorded as part of general name authority files of course and things are overall changing with the view of publishers as agents. So yes, agreed that adding a URI for publisher is definitely something you should be able to do. MODS 3.6 has just been released, but the MODS EC will discuss this issue for the next update.

Regards,
Melanie
on behalf of the MODS EC

Melanie Wacker
Metadata Coordinator
Original and Special Materials Cataloging
Columbia University Libraries
New York, N.Y.
(212) 854 9676

On Mon, May 11, 2015 at 7:56 AM, Sigfrid Lundberg <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear MODS users & developers,

I'm crosswalking BIBFRAME to MODS. In the former all described agents using bf:Relator. The relator vocabulary is LOC relators and we model the properties of agents themselves using SCHEMA.org. We intend to fetch the names of our relators from viaf.org.

My question is: Why I'm not allowed to use the attributes authority, authorityURI, valueURI or even xlink:href on publisher (which is defined as the type stringPlusLanguagePlusSupplied in XSD), whereas all of these are available for originInfo/place including all bells and whistles of a mods:place with coordinates in Mercator's projection...

In the snippet below the first element (place) is valid, the second (publisher) is not

<originInfo xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3" eventType="publication">
<place>
<placeTerm valueURI="http://viaf.org/viaf/131945240">København</placeTerm>
</place>
<publisher valueURI="http://viaf.org/viaf/127954890">Gyldendalske boghandel, Nordisk forlag</publisher>
</originInfo>

Just wondering :^(

It would be tempting to add mods:name to the content model for originInfo (for printers, publishers etc). Or, perhaps we should provide facilities for linked data on all relevant elements?

Yours

Sigfrid