Alistair Miles
Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:57:57 -0800
On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 10:11:49AM -0800, Karen Coyle wrote: > BTW, I just looked at the ERD that was created out of the RDA > documents (and that forms the basis of the online system) (and is > unfortunately not publicly available... but we hope that it someday > will be)... and it looks like there are many empty nodes beyond the > few that I listed here. So I'll look at that some more. By ERD do you mean entity-relationship diagram? If so, can you send me a copy? You say it was created from the RDA documents, do you know how that was done? Cheers, Alistair > > Meanwhile, as you know the full draft of RDA is out, but is huge and > hard to read. (The ToC is 74 pages long!) For our purposes, it would > be good to look at the element list that I cited earlier today, and > one or two representative chapters. The list of documents is at > http://www.rdaonline.org/constituencyreview/ > > Chapter 0 > (http://www.rdaonline.org/constituencyreview/Phase1Chp0_10_22_08.pdf) > gives an overview, but I don't think it gives you a real flavor for > the rules. > Chapter 1 > (http://www.rdaonline.org/constituencyreview/Phase1Chp1_10_23_08.pdf) > might be more useful as an illustrative chapter for bibliographic > description. > > The other part of RDA is "access", and the creation of access points. > These are primarily relevant to the FRBR Group 2 elements, and for > that Chapter 8 is key > (http://www.rdaonline.org/constituencyreview/Phase1Chp8_10_25_08.pdf) > as is chapter 18 > (http://www.rdaonline.org/constituencyreview/Phase1Chp18_11_2_08.pdf). > > I'm particularly concerned about the chapters on relationships, > chapters 17 - 22. Chapter 17 had me gritting my teeth over its concept > of "identifier." > (http://www.rdaonline.org/constituencyreview/Phase1Chp17_11_2_08.pdf) > > I doubt if many of us will get through all of these documents, much > less the whole of RDA, but I recommend dipping a toe in to get a sense > of the rules and treatment of elements of bibliographic data. > > kc > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:45 AM, Karen Coyle <kcoyle...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Mikael Nilsson <mik...@nilsson.name> wrote: > >> Karen, > >> > >> I really don't see the issue with defining classes for these object. > > > > I don't either, in the RDF sense of "class as structure." Although, as > > Jon points out, some of them may be syntax encoding schemes, so we > > need to think about it more. What I don't want is for the RDF to get > > in the way of presenting this to the library community, so I prefer > > for it to stay in the background, doing the work it needs to do > > without interfering with our users, who are not going to be > > RDF-compliant ;-). > > > > We will be pointing people to the registry to see what we have done. > > I'm afraid that if we start defining classes at this point we might > > change things to the point that it won't look like RDA to our key > > audience (the creators of RDA), since they don't think in those terms. > > This means that for we should stick with their structure and > > definitions (which I encourage everyone to view at > > http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/docs/5rda-elementanalysisrev2.pdf) > > (this is what you, Mikael, saw at the London meeting). Perhaps we can > > discuss where we see classes emerging, and do some background work to > > figure out how they could / if they could / facilitate the creation of > > application profiles based on RDA. > > > > The "empty nodes" in the RDA element analysis are the ones with > > 'element' and 'sub-element': > > > > production statement > > publication statement > > distribution statement > > manufacture statement > > series statement > > dissertation or thesis information > > place and date of capture > > > > These are NOT the only areas that might be relevant for an analysis of > > classes; these are just the ones where we have the 'empty node' > > problem. There are many elements that have a defined element and > > defined element sub-types, which we are treating as properties and > > sub-properties in the registry. Whether there are any classes to be > > defined around these is another large question. (In fact, I think that > > many of them are just properties and sub-properties.) > > > > In terms of classes, as you may know, we will be looking at FRBR and > > FRAD entities as classes. I think this works well for agents (group > > 2), but I'm less clear on the Group 1 entities (work, expression... > > etc.) because they have a lot of overlapping properties, and the group > > 3 entities (subjects) because group 3 becomes a kind of super-class, > > where every other class can be a member of that class. Not that that's > > a problem, we just have to figure out if it works for us to define it > > that way. I'd love to have a discussion of the implications of the > > FRBR and FRAD entities on the RDA data -- at the moment the connection > > is tenuous, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to firm it up. > > > > kc > > > > -- > > -- --- > > Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant > > kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net > > ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet > > mo.: 510-435-8234 > > ------------------------------------ > > > > > > -- > -- --- > Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant > kco...@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net > ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet > mo.: 510-435-8234 > ------------------------------------ -- Alistair Miles Senior Computing Officer Image Bioinformatics Research Group Department of Zoology The Tinbergen Building University of Oxford South Parks Road Oxford OX1 3PS United Kingdom Web: http://purl.org/net/aliman Email: alistair.mi...@zoo.ox.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)1865 281993