Last week in FRBR #12
Hillmann et al, RDA Vocabularies: Process, Outcome, Use
Diane Hillmann, Karen Coyle, Jon Phipps, and Gordon Dunsire have a paper in the new D-Lib: RDA Vocabularies: Process, Outcome, Use. Definitely look at this.
ABSTRACT: The Resource Description and Access (RDA) standard, due to be released this coming summer, has included since May 2007 a parallel effort to build Semantic Web enabled vocabularies. This article describes that effort and the decisions made to express the vocabularies for use within the library community and in addition as a bridge to the future of library data outside the current MARC-based systems. The authors also touch on the registration activities that have made the vocabularies usable independently of the RDA textual guidance. Designed for both human and machine users, the registered vocabularies describe the relationships between FRBR, the RDA classes and properties and the extensive value vocabularies developed for use within RDA.
Karen Coyle, RDA Vocabularies for a Twenty-First-Century Data Environment
Karen Coyle’s been busy. She had an excerpt from her upcoming issue of Library Technology Reports posted at the ALA Tech Source blog: RDA Vocabularies for a Twenty-First-Century Data Environment. They explain: “Karen Coyle is in the putting the finishing touches on the February issue of Library Technology Reports, titled “RDA Vocabularies for a Twenty-First-Century Data Environment”. In the following excerpt, she addresses the difficulty that many librarians have in understanding the basic concepts of FRBR, and offers some diagrams to clarify them. Though understanding FRBR may be tricky, she argues, it is essential to a transformation to a modern, workable data environment.”
RDA pricing
Speaking of Resource Description and Access, the cost of this new cataloguing standard was announced. It starts at $325 for the first user and then it’s about $50 for each extra user. Jennifer Eustis posted some details about what that gets you. I think RDA should be free.
The FRBR Family
Functional Requirements: the FRBR Family of Models is (I think?) a new page on the IFLA web site.
FRAD available in Chinese but not English
A Chinese translation of Functional Requirements for Authority Data has been posted on the IFLA web site. The original English expression of FRAD is available in a print manifestation, and will be available for download from IFLA, but it’s not up yet. Strange, but such, I think, are the workings of an international federation of library associations and institutions.
Murray, Re-Imagining the Bibliographic Universe
Updated link/file for Ronald Murray’s Re-Imagining the Bibliographic Universe: FRBR, Physics & the World Wide Web talk from November 2009. (That’s the 472-slider, but don’t be alarmed.)
Boer, MetaLex Naming Conventions and the Semantic Web
Rinke Hoekstra points out a paper by Alexander Boer in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, MetaLex Naming Conventions and the Semantic Web (DOI: 10.3233/978-1-60750-082-7-31). An excerpt from his explanation:
As an XML standard for legal sources (laws, court proceedings etc.) MetaLex has been around for some time now (developed by the University of Amsterdam in 2001), but the relatively new CEN MetaLex brings a significant overhaul of the original design. The new mechanism for specifying naming conventions is but one aspect of this. MetaLex names are used in self-identification of documents, citation of other documents, and inclusion of document components according to the FRBR levels of item, manifestation, expression and work….
This paper introduces the naming mechanism (which is quite intricate), and describes how the uniqueness of IRIs can be guaranteed by using a GRDDL transform for translating the property-value pairs encoded in the IRI to OWL class axioms (using nominals, and proper relations between the different FRBR levels). A DL classifier can then infer owl:sameAs relations between entities (individuals) described using the appropriate property value pairs.
Melgar, Topic Maps and Catalogues of Museums, Libraries and Archives
Topic Maps and Catalogues of Museums, Libraries and Archives, by Liliana Melgar.
The following case study is going to show examples of Topic Maps based projects especially for catalogues of museums, libraries or archives. The first part describes two projects using Topic Maps by implementing data with the FRBR-model. The second part of the study concentrates on another two projects that uses the Topic Map paradigm to integrate several catalogues.
Aalberg, Formats and FRBR Catalogues – Where’s Our Focus?
Speaking of topic maps, I came across Formats and FRBR Catalogues – Where’s Our Focus? It’s an undated presentation by Trond Aalberg. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here before.
JJR on the notion of a Work
JJR, in Newly Unemployed, in part mentions disagreements with RDA and FRBR:
I also have deep philosophical issues with FRBR, especially its notion of a “work” in the abtract, which drives me up the wall, as there is no such animal. There is always an Ur-Text somewhere. I’m just too much of a hard nosed materialist to buy the Platonic notions that FRBR seems grounded in.
Attitudes like that do not get you counted among library movers and shakers, regardless how true they might be.
Maybe not a Mover and Shaker, but definitely a Shover and Maker.