Slides prepared for a guest appearance at Jane Greenberg's metadata class at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Delivered Monday, Dec. 6, 2010.

1. Libraries, Standards, and the Web Where to Aim Our Eyes and Attention

2. What We’ll Talk About Part 1:What’s up with Library Standards? Why is there so much confusion? How will we move forward? Where’s the leadership? The participation? Part 2: The RDA Vocabs, a case study What can we learn from this? Can we replicate this model? How? Stepping up to the plate … UNC Visit, 12/6/10 2

3. Describing Library Standards Library standards can be categorized to help us understand how they fit together In general, functional categories are the most useful Sometimes what the standards-makers assert isn’t the whole story … UNC Visit, 12/6/10 3

4. What kind of standards? Data Structure Standards (element sets; schemes, schemas, or schemata) (examples: Dublin Core, MODS, CDWA, VRA, IEEE-LOM, RDA Vocabularies) Data Content Standards (cataloging rules, input standards, best practice guides) (examples: AACR2, CCO, CDPDCMBP, RDA Text) Data Value Standards (controlled vocabularies, encoding schemes) (examples: LCSH, AAT, TGN, LCTGM, ULAN, W3CDTF, DCMIType) Data Format / Technical Interchange Standards (encoding standards for machine processing and interchange) (examples: XML, SGML, MARC) Data Presentation Standards (examples: ISBD punctuation, CSS and/or XSLT for display, OPAC display settings) UNC Visit, 12/6/10 4

5. Questions to Ponder How can MODS (a derivative of MARC) be a Data Structure Standard if MARC isn’t? Should MARC be categorized along with SGML (largely used for text markup)? MARC’s data model started out as the catalog card What are the most important criteria for this categorization? UNC Visit, 12/6/10 5

6. Tectonic Shifts Ahead … LITA surveyed its membership about their thinking about standards LITA as a TF working on some recommendations aimed at increasing participation by librarians in standards activities NISO/ISO has traditionally been LITA’s focus in the standards world—that is likely to broaden ISO increasingly seen as problematic because of their business model Many web standards coming out of W3C UNC Visit, 12/6/10 6

8. RDA Vocabularies The real story Where is this taking us? Join the party! UNC Visit, 12/6/10 8

9. A Brief History It all started in London, the last day of April 2007 … UNC Visit, 12/6/10 9

10. What Was Accomplished 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 10 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

12. 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

13. We registered the FRBR entities as classes in a ‘FRBR in RDA’ vocabulary, to enable specific relationships between RDA properties and FRBR

14. IFLA has followed suit using the Open Metadata Registry to add the ‘official’ FRBR entities, FRAD, and ISBD

15. This provides exciting opportunities to relate all the vocabularies together11 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

16. Structure: Rationale & Decisions Property and value vocabularies registered on 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) Registry provides human and machine usable interfaces All vocabularies have change history and versioning capabilities 12 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

17. Our Methodology Started with the Entity Relationship Diagrams produced by ALA Publishing The latest iterations are available on the RDA Toolkit Site (http://www.rdatoolkit.org/background) ERDs are organized in three groups: core, enhanced, special These were developed and iterated with no change management strategy, so each new iteration had to be checked carefully to spot changes ERDs built with a very XML view of the world 13 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

18. The Basic ‘WHY’? 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) 14 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

19. Taking a Look … 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) 15 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

20. 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 UNC Visit, 12/6/10 16

21. Book format Semantic Web Book format (Manifestation) Manifestation The Simple Case: One Property-- One FRBR Entity Library Applications UNC Visit, 12/6/10 17

22. http://RDVocab.info/Elements/bookFormatManifestation UNC Visit, 12/6/10 18

23. Property (Generalized, no FRBR relationship) Semantic Web Subproperty (with relationship to one FRBR entity) FRBR Entity Subproperty (with relationship to one FRBR entity) FRBR Entity The Not-So-Simple Case: One Property—more than One FRBR Entity Library Applications UNC Visit, 12/6/10 19

24. Extent Semantic Web Extent (Manifestation) FRBR Manifestation Extent (Item) FRBR Item The Not-So-Simple Case: One Property—more than One FRBR Entity Library Applications UNC Visit, 12/6/10 20

25. UNC Visit, 12/6/10 21

26. Roles: Attributes or Properties? 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) 22 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

27. Mapping, Etc. “Super” Property Semantic Web Subproperty (Generalized, no FRBR relationship) Subproperty (with relationship to one FRBR entity) FRBR Entity The Roles Case: Properties, Subproperties and FRBR Entities Library Applications UNC Visit, 12/6/10 23

28. Mapping, Etc. RDA:Creator Semantic Web RDArole:Composer RDArole:Composer (Work) Work The Roles Case: Properties, Subproperties and FRBR Entities Library Applications UNC Visit, 12/6/10 24

30. 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

31. We viewed those aggregations as ‘Syntax Encoding Schemes’ and built in ways to accommodate them within the bounded properties

32. Those using the generalized properties (outside libraries, usually) need not be constrained by these traditional aggregations of properties25 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

33. What Does This Structure Buy Us? Release from the tyranny of records Potential for use with a variety of encodings Opportunity to re-think how we build and share data Potential for sharing data beyond the library silo A challenge to our old notions of what library data can do and should be doing 26 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

34. 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” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 27

35. Is This Really Chaos? ID=23456 hasStatementOfEdition “1st trade edition” ID=23456 hasAuthor “Kurt Vonnegut” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” ID=23456 isFormOfWork “Novel” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” ID=23456 hasLanguageOfExpression “English” ID=23456 hasOriginalLanguage “English” ID=23456 hasPreferredTitle “Bluebeard, a novel” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 28

36. ID=23456 hasAuthor “Kurt Vonnegut” Or Just an Aggregation In the Making? ID=23456 hasStatementOfEdition “1st trade edition” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” ID=23456 isFormOfWork “Novel” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” ID=23456 hasLanguageOfExpression “English” ID=23456 hasOriginalLanguage “English” ID=23456 hasPreferredTitle “Bluebeard, a novel” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 29

37. ID=23456 hasAuthor “Kurt Vonnegut” ID=23456 hasPreferredTitle “Bluebeard, a novel” ID=23456 hasStatementOfEdition “1st trade edition” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” ID=23456 isFormOfWork “Novel” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” ID=23456 hasLanguageOfExpression “English” ID=23456 hasOriginalLanguage “English” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 30

38. ID=23456 hasAuthor “Kurt Vonnegut” ID=23456 hasPreferredTitle “Bluebeard, a novel” ID=23456 hasOriginalLanguage “English” ID=23456 hasStatementOfEdition “1st trade edition” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” ID=23456 isFormOfWork “Novel” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” ID=23456 hasLanguageOfExpression “English” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 31

39. ID=23456 hasAuthor “Kurt Vonnegut” ID=23456 hasPreferredTitle “Bluebeard, a novel” ID=23456 hasOriginalLanguage “English” ID=23456 isFormOfWork “Novel” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasStatementOfEdition “1st trade edition” ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” ID=23456 hasLanguageOfExpression “English” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 32

40. ID=23456 hasAuthor “Kurt Vonnegut” ID=23456 hasPreferredTitle “Bluebeard, a novel” Work ID=23456 hasOriginalLanguage “English” ID=23456 isFormOfWork “Novel” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasStatementOfEdition “1st trade edition” ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” ID=23456 hasLanguageOfExpression “English” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 33

41. ID=23456 hasLanguageOfExpression “English” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasStatementOfEdition “1st trade edition” ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 34

42. ID=23456 hasLanguageOfExpression “English” ID=23456 hasStatementOfEdition “1st trade edition” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 35

43. ID=23456 hasLanguageOfExpression “English” Expression ID=23456 hasStatementOfEdition “1st trade edition” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 36

44. ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 37

45. ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 38

46. ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 39

47. ID=23456 hasPlaceOfPublication “New York” Manifestation ID=23456 hasPublisher “Delacorte Press” ID=23456 hasPublicationDate “1987” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 40

48. Extension 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 41 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

49. RDA:adaptedAs hasSubproperty RDA:adaptedAsARadioScript UNC Visit, 12/6/10 42

50. RDA:adaptedAs hasSubproperty RDA:adaptedAsARadioScript hasSubproperty KidLit:adaptedAsAPictureBook UNC Visit, 12/6/10 43

51. RDA:adaptedAs hasSubproperty RDA:adaptedAsARadioScript hasSubproperty hasSubproperty KidLit:adaptedAsAPictureBook KidLit:adaptedAsAChapterBook UNC Visit, 12/6/10 44

52. Completing the Vocabularies Completing the hierarchies, both generalized and FRBR-bounded Elements and Relationships need to have bounded hierarchies built (generalized hierarchies complete) Roles need generalized properties created JSC review incomplete, for both properties and vocabularies Status designations need to be updated from ‘New—proposed’ to ‘Published’ 45 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

53. Extent Subproperty Subproperty Extent (I) Extent (M) Subproperty Subproperty Extent of Text Extent of Still Image Subproperty Extent of Still Image (M) Extent of Text (M) Extent of Still Image (I) Extent of Text (I) Current Registered Relationships UNC Visit, 12/6/10 46

54. Extent Subproperty Subproperty Extent (I) Extent (M) Subproperty Subproperty Extent of Text Extent of Still Image Subproperty Subproperty Extent of Text (M) Extent of Still Image (M) Subproperty Extent of Text (I) Extent of Still Image (I) Added Registered Relationships UNC Visit, 12/6/10 47

55. Remaining Issues How do these relate to the RDA guidance text? Who will maintain these? How will they be kept in sync with the text? Will the governance model for these be the same as the text? Who decides? How can we use these vocabularies effectively? What else do we need to identify? How should we continue this work? 48 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

56. What We’ve Learned 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 49 UNC Visit, 12/6/10

57. Issues in Limbo: Identification Traditional identifiers, like ISBN and ISSN, may not be suitable for a different environment An ISBN is a publisher’s identifier for a product, may not be precise enough for a manifestation (publishers sometimes reuse ISBNs for different versions) OCLC numbers and LCCNs, because they’re optimized for a MARC environment, may not be what we need going forward (though useful for a transition?) If we move from a centralized to a decentralized sharing environment, what kind of identifier system will we need? UNC Visit, 12/6/10 50

58. RDA Identification Issues Resource identifiers Record level identifiers What is a record in this context? Is it a description of an entity (work, manifestation, person, event)? Is it an aggregation of all these that is designed to be shared? Is it both? And more? Identifiers between resources What about the ones we already use? UNC Visit, 12/6/10 51

59. IDENTIFICATION UNC Visit, 12/6/10 52

60. The W3C Library Linked Data Effort http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/ “The group will explore how existing building blocks of librarianship, such as metadata models, metadata schemas, standards and protocols for building interoperability and library systems and networked environments, encourage libraries to bring their content, and generally re-orient their approaches to data interoperability towards the Web, also reaching to other communities. It will also envision these communities as a potential major provider of authoritative datasets (persons, topics...) for the Linked Data Web.” UNC Visit, 12/6/10 53

61. Exhortations Engage: be part of the change we need! Participate: find the area you’re most excited about, and find a way to get involved Mailing lists, blog comments, conferences, etc., are all available Learn: take responsibility for your own education Local study groups are a great option when institutions aren’t providing training UNC Visit, 12/6/10 54

62. Thank you! Questions? Contact info: metadata.maven@gmail.com Metadata Matters: http://managemetadata.com/blog UNC Visit, 12/6/10 55