Diane Hillmann: RDA Vocabularies in the Semantic Web

What They Are, How They Work
The RDA Vocabularies

Sorting out some important definitions
A brief history lesson on the RDA Vocabularies
A structural tour of the vocabularies, including:
Rationale and decision making
General and FRBR-constrained elements
Potential for extension
Putting it all together
Language versions of RDA Vocabularies
Important related work
Our focus is on ‘Why’ not ‘How’ (we’re not at ‘How’ yet)
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ALA TechSource Webinar
What We’ll be Doing Today

How RDA will be working in the real world
WHY?: There aren’t tools yet, and we don’t really know what they’ll look like …
But maybe we can make some educated guesses?
Most likely the tools will be form-based (like the MARC tools are)
There are likely to be fewer places where text is typed in and more where pull-down lists are available
The FRBR structure, if used intelligently by vendors, should save time and money, as re-use of data will be possible (choices will still need to be made to identify the appropriate work and expression when these exist)
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What We Can’t Show You Yet

XML assumes a 'closed' world (domain), usually defined by a schema:
"We know all of the data describing this resource. The single description must be a valid document according to our schema. The data must be valid.”
XML's document model provides a neat equivalence to a metadata 'record’
RDF assumes an 'open' world:
"There's an infinite amount of unknown data describing this resource yet to be discovered. It will come from an infinite number of providers. There will be an infinite number of descriptions. Those descriptions must be consistent."
RDF's statement-oriented data model has no notion of 'record’ (rather, statements can be aggregated for a fuller description of a resource)
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Two Models of ‘the World’

In XML these are ‘attribute/value pairs’
Ex.: Author = Twain, Mark
Where, in the context of a bounded record structure we know what we’re describing
In the Resource Description Framework (RDF, the language of the Semantic Web), these are independent statements:
Ex.: The author of Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain, or
subject = Huckeberry Finn
predicate = hasAuthor
Object = Mark Twain
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In Both, We Talk About Statements

We need to expand our ideas of what machines can and should do for us
We need to articulate better what we, as humans, bring to the table (and stop thinking we need to control it ALL)
We need to educate ourselves about this new world we live in (what it is and isn’t)
We need to understand enough to work with our vendors to make it happen in our libraries
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What Does This Imply for Us?

A Brief History
It all started in London, the last day of April 2007
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The participants agreed that DCMI and the Joint Steering Committee for the Development of RDA should work together to:
Develop an RDA Element Vocabulary
Expose RDA Value Vocabularies
Develop an RDA Application Profile, based on FRBR and FRAD
The first two are largely complete; the third is started
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What Was Accomplished
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It represented a recognition on the part of library leaders that it was essential to break out of the data silo of the past
The collaboration started at that meeting is resonating throughout the world of library data standards (more on this later)
It started the process of exposing library experience and knowledge to a larger audience
It set the stage for libraries to broaden their view of what they do and what they offer the information world
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Why Was This Meeting Important?

We used the Semantic Web as our “mental model”
Wanted to create a “bridge” between XML and RDF to support innovation in the library community as a whole, not just those at the cutting edge or the trailing edge
We registered the FRBR entities as classes in a ‘FRBR in RDA’ vocabulary, to enable specific relationships between RDA properties and FRBR
IFLA has followed suit using the Open Metadata Registry to add the ‘official’ FRBR entities, FRAD, FRSAR and ISBD
This provides exciting opportunities to relate all the vocabularies together
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The General Strategy

Property and value vocabularies are registered in the Open Metadata Registry (formerly the NSDL Registry): http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm
Used RDF Schema (RDFS), Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS) and Web Ontology Language (OWL)
Decisions oriented to favor approaches that can be generalized to make other vocabulary based standards web-friendly, available for use in applications, and easily updated by communities
Structure: Rationale & Decisions
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FRBR in RDA Vocabulary declared as classes
RDA Properties declared as a ‘generalized’ vocabulary, with no explicit relationship to FRBR entities
Subproperties for the generalized elements may be explicitly related to FRBR entities (using ‘domain’)
Label/Name includes (Work) or other class to provide unique name (unless the entity name already appears in the name of the property)
Other generalized subproperties usable by others not tied to FRBR
All this is done according to available best practices for declaring vocabularies on the Web
The Structure, Simplified
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We think of the ‘generalized’ RDA properties as the real RDA vocabulary
The ‘bounded’ properties should be seen as the first pass at an Application Profile
Extensions can be built more usefully from the generalized properties
Mapping will be cleaner using the generalized properties (since most properties mapped to or mapped from will not be based on FRBR)
Generalized properties much more acceptable to non-library implementers (not often using FRBR)
Why Generalized Properties?
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Property (Generalized, no FRBR relationship)
Semantic
Web
Subproperty (with relationship to one FRBR entity)
FRBR Entity
The Simple Case:
One Property--
One FRBR Entity
Library Applications
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Book format
Semantic
Web
Book format (Manifestation)
Manifestation
The Simple Case:
One Property--
One FRBR Entity
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http://RDVocab.info/Elements/bookFormatManifestation

There are multiple techniques used in RDA to make the connection between FRBR entities and RDA properties
We tried to reconcile those in the RDA Vocabularies
Some properties related to more than one FRBR entity
Relationships in Appendix J actually include the name of the FRBR entity in the name and have separate definitions (we re-used this strategy for the FRBR-bounded properties)
Other properties and sub-properties appear multiple times in the text and ERDs, with the same definitions and no indication that they might be repeated elsewhere (we consolidated these)
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More Complex Relationships

Property (Generalized, no FRBR relationship)
Semantic
Web
FRBR Entity
FRBR Entity
The Not-So-Simple Case:
One Property—more than
One FRBR Entity
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Extent
Semantic
Web
Extent (Manifestation)
FRBR Manifestation
Extent (Item)
FRBR Item
The Not-So-Simple Case:
One Property—more than
One FRBR Entity
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In 2005, the DC Usage Board worked with LC to build a formal representation of the MARC Relators so that these terms could be used with DC
This work provided a template for the registration of the role terms in RDA (in Appendix I) and, by extension, the other RDA relationships
Role and relationship properties are registered at the same level as elements, rather than as attributes (as MARC does with relators, and RDA does in its XML schemas)
Applications can choose either approach
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Roles: Attributes or Properties?

Mapping,
Etc.
“Super” Property
Semantic
Web
Subproperty (Generalized, no FRBR relationship)
FRBR Entity
The Roles Case:
Properties, Subproperties
and FRBR Entities
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Mapping,
Etc.
RDA:Creator
Semantic
Web
RDArole:Composer
RDArole:Composer (Work)
Work
The Roles Case:
Properties, Subproperties
and FRBR Entities
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RDA sets up Publication, Distribution, Manufacture and Production statements very much the way they have been done since catalog card days:
Assumed aggregation of Place, Name and Date are obvious leftovers from catalog cards, and are not necessary to enable indexing or display of those elements together if libraries want to do that
We viewed those aggregations as ‘Syntax Encoding Schemes’ (as defined in the DCAM) and built in ways to accommodate them within the bounded properties
Those using the generalized properties (outside libraries, usually) need not be constrained by these traditional aggregations of properties
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Aggregated Statements

Pre-coordinated Statements: Structure
Aggregated Statement (no domain or range)
Aggregated Statement Subproperty
Domain: FRBR Entity
Range: RDA Syntax Encoding Scheme (Subclass of RDF Datatype)
Range: [Specific] Encoding Scheme (Subclass)
General Property (no domain or range)
Subproperty
Option 1
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Pre-coordinated Statements: Example
Publication Statement (no domain or range)
Publication Statement (Manifestation)
Domain: Manifestation
Range: RDA Syntax Encoding Scheme (Subclass of RDF Datatype)
Range: Publication Statement Encoding Scheme (Subclass)
Place of publication (no domain or range)
Place of publication (Manifestation)
Option 1
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Release from the tyranny of records
Potential for use with a variety of encodings
Ability to maintain statements at a more granular level
Opportunity to re-think how we build, maintain and share data
Potential for sharing data beyond the library silo
Both directions!
A challenge to our old notions of what library data can do and should be doing
As our users migrate to the web and away from library catalogs, we need to follow them (and lead them appropriately!)
What Does This Structure Buy Us?
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Time for Questions?

How do we take advantage of the RDA Vocabulary infrastructure?
Relationships between properties is built-in, allowing ‘bottom up’ aggregation of data
Tools to enable easier data creation (with machine assistance) are critical
Our thinking about how we build and share data needs to reflect modern ideas about data use, not MARC
Ex.: records as aggregations of information, not templates to be filled in (although some tools may continue to look like that’s what they’re doing)
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Putting it All Together

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Statements on the Floor?
ID=23456 hasStatementOfEdition “1st trade edition”
ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987”
ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press”
ID=23456 hasOriginalLanguage “English”
ID=23456 hasLanguageOfExpression “English”
ID=23456 hasAuthor “Kurt Vonnegut”
ID=23456 isFormOfWork “Novel”
ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York”
ID=23456 hasPreferredTitle “Bluebeard, a novel”

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Is This Really Chaos?

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Or Just an Aggregation
In the Making?

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Work

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Expression

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Manifestation

The inclusion of generalized properties provides a path for extension of RDA into specialized library communities and non-library communities
They may have a different notion of how FRBR ‘aggregates’
For example, a colorized version of a film may be viewed as a separate work
They may not wish to use FRBR at all
They may have additional properties to include, that have a relationship to the RDA properties
This allows other communities to use this data without problems
Extension
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RDA:adaptedAs
hasSubproperty
RDA:adaptedAsARadioScript
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RDA:adaptedAs
hasSubproperty
hasSubproperty
KidLit:adaptedAsAPictureBook
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RDA:adaptedAs
hasSubproperty
hasSubproperty
hasSubproperty
KidLit:adaptedAsAPictureBook
KidLit:adaptedAsAChapterBook
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We wrote about the decisions we made for RDA in DLib: http://dlib.org/dlib/january10/hillmann/01hillmann.html
Need to continue to disclose what we’ve learned and work on building best practices documentation in this environment
We need research and innovation to help us move forward
What We’ve Learned
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More Questions?

Registered elements and vocabularies can include multiple languages
The Open Metadata Registry has been working with the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek to demonstrate this with German translations in the OMR for specific vocabularies
Other language versions being discussed with national libraries and language groups by ALA Publishing in conjunction with translations of RDA guidance text
OMR enhancements planned to make building of language versions easier
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Multi-Lingual RDA

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Important Related Work:IFLA
“Functional Requirements” family or “FRBR family of models”:
FRBR, 1998: Bibliographic Records [data]
FRAD, 2009: Authority Data
FRSAD, [2010]: Subject Authority Data
Consolidated model in development
RDF/XML representation of the consolidated edition of ISBD.
Relating FR, ISBD and RDA, SKOS, FOAF, etc.
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FR in RDF
Representation of FRBRer model element set is mainly complete
Classes and properties have “approved” status
FRAD and FRSAD close behind
Representation in Resource Description Framework Schema (RDFS) is informing work on combining and consolidating the model family
Also supplies “learning curve” for Semantic Web environment
FRBR is a conceptual model built on the E-R methodology which is intrinsically applicable to representation in RDF, while ISBD is a data standard
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RDA properties
Extent
Extent of text
Extent of still image
Extent (M/)
Extent (I/)
Extent of text (I/)
Extent of still image (I/)
Extent of text (M/)
Extent of still image (M/)
Subproperty
Label (Domain/Range)
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RDA/IFLA properties (minimal linkage)
Extent
has extent
has extent (R/)
has extent of the carrier
Extent of text
Extent (M/)
has extent of the carrier (M/)
Note: Manifestation sub-class-of Resource
Extent of text (M/)
SameAs
RDA
FRBR
ISBD
Subproperty
FRBR lite
ISBD lite
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RDA/IFLA properties (maximum linkage)
Extent
has extent
has extent (R/)
Extent of text
Extent (M/)
Extent of text (M/)
SameAs
RDA
FRBR
ISBD
Subproperty
FRBR lite
ISBD lite
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RDA/IFLA/other properties (minimal linkage)
format
Extent (/S)
Extent
has extent
has extent (R/)
Extent of text
Extent (M/)
numPages (D/l)
numVolumes (C/l)
Extent of text (M/)
Note: Document sub-class-of Resource
SameAs
RDA
FRBR
ISBD
DCT
BIBO
Subproperty
FRBR lite
ISBD lite
DC
Classes: Manifestation, Resource, Collection, Document, SizeOrDuration, literal
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DCMI/RDA Task Group Wiki: http://dublincore.org/dcmirdataskgroup/
RDA Vocabularies: http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm
Diane: metadata.maven@gmail.com
Slides on IFLA Vocabularies by Gordon Dunsire
Flickr images thanks to: TroisTÃªtes (TT), Craft*ology
Links and Contact Info
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Diane Hillmann: RDA Vocabularies in the Semantic Web

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