RDA Vocabularies Briefing

The Case for RDA Vocabularies
Diane Hillmann, Jon Phipps
Metadata Management Associates
1/15/2010 Big Heads briefing

RDA in Two Parts
You’ve heard about the guidance text
The vocabularies have been developed in parallel
Agreement made in Apr./May 2007 for a Task Group to work on this
Vocabularies are up-to-date as of latest JSC changes

They’re Here
Please explore!
http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm

Why are the Vocabularies Important?
They provide a way for libraries to move from a limited, bespoke “format” and elderly encoding to a more modern approach to data creation, management, and sharing
They are open and usable by others, making re-use of non-library data easier for libraries to accomplish

Why Not Just “Improve” MARC?
MARC is optimized for records, and although some improvement is possible (and is happening), a complete overhaul is not feasible
Too much change (i.e., “improvement”) is likely to make a transition more difficult
We need to re-think our approach to creating, managing, sharing metadata, not apply bandaids to 45-year-old standards

What’s Going On Outside Libraries?
Many more sources of good data becoming available
Much of it is freely available, with links to even more sources
NY Times is one of the newer entrants in this field, building links to enrich their own data in an similar environment of retrenchment

We’re Not In This Picture
With MARC, we’re currently “delivering:”
Primarily textual information, with few or no links to follow
Information almost exclusively created and maintained by [expensive] human agents
Currently, as we look at financial retrenchment, we are focusing on how to make our data less expensive by doing less of it
Isn’t this a strategy designed to put us at the margins?

Moving Beyond Records
Linked open data--enables conversations with the rest of the data world
This data is independent of format, syntax and "records" (although can be aggregated for various uses)
May include “crowd-sourced” data (DBPedia or FreeBase) or data re-used from other sources

... To Statements
The one book=one record world of MARC is a serious limitation
Making use of FRBR also requires a new view of data management
An RDF approach, based on statements rather than records, gives us a means to incorporate other sources of data and to do so using cheaper machine-based strategies

Why Invest in Change?
We know our current way of creating and managing data is:
Unsustainable in an environment of limited resources
Based on a notion of standard data that does not meet the needs of our users
Relies on expensive human effort

The Vocabularies ...
Built according to RDF Vocabulary standards, can be used in a variety of data environments
Based on library data experience
Intended to be attractive to the data world outside libraries, in hopes that they will use our vocabularies for their bibliographic description
This would make re-use easier for us

Richer, Cheaper Data?
Data that is more easily manipulated and maintained by machine
Data that is created and maintained by someone else, but “good enough” to provide important functionality
Ex.: Geographic data, to support mapping applications
Ex.: Data to better support faceted searching and browsing

Real Example
LC Chronicling American Project
Building georeferencing into library data

About this Newspaper: The Daytona Daily News
HTML http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93063916/
RDF http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93063916.rdf
MARC (HTML) http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93063916/marc/
MARC (XML) http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn93063916/marc.xml
WorldCat (HTML only?) http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1631353

Un-Linked Data
MARC21 has a naming convention for place names … 752 $a United States $b Florida $c Volusia $d Daytona Beach
Wikipedia also has a naming convention for place names … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytona_Beach,_Florida
LC staffer created a little script to use the 752 hierarchy to build a Wikipedia URL and see if it would resolve as a URI from DBpedia…

Linked Data
Dbpedia: <dcterms:coverage rdf:resource= http://dbpedia.org/resource/Daytona_Beach%2C_Florida />
Geonames: <dcterms:coverage rdf:resource= http://sws.geonames.org/4152872/ />

DBpedia
Dbpedia is “a community effort to extract structured information from Wikipedia and to make this information available on the Web.”

DBpedia
“The DBpedia knowledge base currently describes more than 2.6 million things, including at least…
213,000 persons
328,000 places
57,000 music albums
36,000 films
20,000 companies.”

Dbpedia (even more data)
owl:sameAs
Rdfabout: The 2000 U.S. Census http://www.rdfabout.com/rdf/usgov/geo/us/fl/counties/volusia_county/daytona_beach
GeoNames http://sws.geonames.org/4152872/
Freebase fbase:Daytona Beach, Florida

Interesting Questions
There are hundreds, if not thousands of people tracking down place names in Wikipedia and making sure they are normalized and geo-referenced.
Is this crowd-sourced, Wikipedia data ‘authoritative’?
Is it ‘good enough’?
How different is this from the strategy that’s used for NACO?

More Questions
Chronicling America’s data for the Daytona Beach Daily News references Dbpedia but there’s no corresponding reference to Chronicling America data in Dbpedia, even though there’s a ‘place’ where it could be referenced.
How do we make sure that happens?
Where’s the library data anyway?

Even More Questions
DBpedia uses it’s own vocabulary for many statements, chooses to use skos:subject instead of dc:subject, foaf:name instead of dc:title.
Was there a specific reason for this choice?
Would there be value for us if they used more RDA properties instead?

How Do We Get From Here to There?
Work with vendors to shift from MARC to RDA; from records to statements
Focus community effort on solid innovation rather than incremental shifts
Worry less about the costs of moving forward, and more about the costs of stasis
Support open sharing of library data!

The Elephants in the Room
Record “ownership” as OCLC is attempting to enforce will not help libraries as they attempt to move forward
OCLC’s membership must reinforce an open model of record use and re-use, lest necessary innovation be stifled
LC’s R2 report recommends a backward facing strategy
Given LC’s well-known (and well-respected) record for innovation, why is cataloging data exempt from consideration?

What RDA Vocabularies Bring to the Table
Readiness for participation in the open data world
Potential for automating more data capture to enrich library data without using expensive human resources, and sharing without artificial boundaries
Improved "marketing" of our collections (particularly digital and special collections) beyond the library world

Thank You!
Questions? Comments?
Contact:
[email_address]
[email_address]

RDA Vocabularies Briefing

by Diane I. Hillmann on Jan 18, 2010

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RDA Vocabularies Briefing — Presentation Transcript