Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
Hi Karen, Thanks. Would it be odd to use foaf:primaryTopic when FOAF isn't used to describe other attributes of a concept? Ethan On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 5:59 PM, Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net wrote: On 2/13/12 1:43 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Patrick, Thanks. That does make sense. Hopefully others will weigh in with agreement (or disagreement). Sometimes these semantic languages are so flexible that it's unsettling. There are a million ways to do something with only de facto standards rather than restricted schemas. For what it's worth, the metadata files describe coin-types, an intellectual concept in numismatics succinctly described at http://coins.about.com/od/**coinsglossary/g/coin_type.htmhttp://coins.about.com/od/coinsglossary/g/coin_type.htm, not physical objects in a collection. I believe this is similar to what FOAF does with primary topic: http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#**term_primaryTopichttp://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_primaryTopic In FOAF that usually points to a web page ABOUT the subject of the FOAF data, so a wikipedia web page about Stephen King would get this primary topic property. Presuming that your XML is http:// accessible, it might fit into this model. kc Ethan On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Patrick Murray-John patrickmjc...@gmail.com wrote: Ethan, The semantics do seem odd there. It doesn't seem like a skos:Concept would typically link to a metadata record about -- if I'm following you right -- a specific coin. Is this sort of a FRBRish approach, where your skos:Concept is similar to the abstraction of a frbr:Work (that is, the idea of a particular coin), where your metadata records are really describing the common features of a particular coin? If that's close, it seems like the richer metadata is really a sort of definition of the skos:Concept, so maybe skos:definition would do the trick? Something like this: ex:wheatPenny a skos:Concept ; skos:prefLabel Wheat Penny ; skos:definition Your richer, non RDF metadata document describing the front and back, years minted, etc. In XML that might be like: skos:Concept about=http://example.org/wheatPennyhttp://example.org/**wheatPenny http://example.org/**wheatPenny http://example.org/wheatPenny skos:prefLabelWheat Penny/skos:prefLabel skos:definition Your richer, non RDF metadata document describing the front and back, years minted, etc. /skos:definition /skos:Concept It might raise an eyebrow to have, instead of a literal value for skos:definition, another set of structured, non RDF metadata. Better in that case to go with a document reference, and make your richer metadata a standalone document with its own URI: ex:wheatPenny skos:definition ex:wheatPennyDefinition**.xml skos:Concept about=http://example.org/wheatPennyhttp://example.org/**wheatPenny http://example.org/**wheatPenny http://example.org/wheatPenny skos:definition resource=http://example.org/wheatPenny.xmlhttp://example.org/**wheatPenny.xml http://**example.org/wheatPenny.xml http://example.org/wheatPenny.xml / /skos:Concept I'm looking at the Documentation as a Document Reference section in SKOS Primer : http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/**NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/ htt**p://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-**skos-primer-20090818/http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/ Again, if I'm following, that might be the closest approach. Hope that helps, Patrick On 02/11/2012 09:53 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Patrick, The richer metadata model is an ontology for describing coins. It is more complex than, say, VRA Core or MODS, but not as hierarchically complicated as an EAD finding aid. I'd like to link a skos:Concept to one of these related metadata records. It doesn't matter if I use skos, owl, etc. to describe this relationship, so long as it is a semantically appropriate choice. Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Patrick Murray-John patrickmjc...@gmail.com wrote: Ethan, Maybe I'm being daft in missing it, but could I ask about more details in the richer metadata model? My hunch is that, depending on the details of the information you want to bring in, there might be more precise alternatives to what's in SKOS. Are you aiming to have a link between a skos:Concept and texts/documents related to that concept? Patrick On 02/11/2012 03:14 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Ross, Thanks for the input. My main objective is to make the richer metadata available one way or another to people using our web services. Do you think it makes more sense to link to a URI of the richer metadata document as skos:related (or similar)? I've seen two uses for skos:related--one to point to related skos:concepts, the other to point to web resources associated with that concept, e.g., a wikipedia article. I have a feeling the latter is incorrect, at least
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
It should actually be foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf (the inverse of foaf:primaryTopic). It's fine to use it with your skos:Concept because the domain is an owl:Thing (that is, any RDF resource) and the range is a foaf:Document (which can be any document of any kind), again that's the advantage of RDF. That said, it's a little hard to figure out if that's an ideal property for your use case. It might make more sense to mint your own property and embed your nuds document in there (as an XMLLiteral type), since this seems like it's only going to be specialized usage, anyway. -Ross. On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 11:04 AM, Ethan Gruber ewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Karen, Thanks. Would it be odd to use foaf:primaryTopic when FOAF isn't used to describe other attributes of a concept? Ethan On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 5:59 PM, Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net wrote: On 2/13/12 1:43 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Patrick, Thanks. That does make sense. Hopefully others will weigh in with agreement (or disagreement). Sometimes these semantic languages are so flexible that it's unsettling. There are a million ways to do something with only de facto standards rather than restricted schemas. For what it's worth, the metadata files describe coin-types, an intellectual concept in numismatics succinctly described at http://coins.about.com/od/**coinsglossary/g/coin_type.htmhttp://coins.about.com/od/coinsglossary/g/coin_type.htm, not physical objects in a collection. I believe this is similar to what FOAF does with primary topic: http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#**term_primaryTopichttp://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_primaryTopic In FOAF that usually points to a web page ABOUT the subject of the FOAF data, so a wikipedia web page about Stephen King would get this primary topic property. Presuming that your XML is http:// accessible, it might fit into this model. kc Ethan On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Patrick Murray-John patrickmjc...@gmail.com wrote: Ethan, The semantics do seem odd there. It doesn't seem like a skos:Concept would typically link to a metadata record about -- if I'm following you right -- a specific coin. Is this sort of a FRBRish approach, where your skos:Concept is similar to the abstraction of a frbr:Work (that is, the idea of a particular coin), where your metadata records are really describing the common features of a particular coin? If that's close, it seems like the richer metadata is really a sort of definition of the skos:Concept, so maybe skos:definition would do the trick? Something like this: ex:wheatPenny a skos:Concept ; skos:prefLabel Wheat Penny ; skos:definition Your richer, non RDF metadata document describing the front and back, years minted, etc. In XML that might be like: skos:Concept about=http://example.org/wheatPennyhttp://example.org/**wheatPenny http://example.org/**wheatPenny http://example.org/wheatPenny skos:prefLabelWheat Penny/skos:prefLabel skos:definition Your richer, non RDF metadata document describing the front and back, years minted, etc. /skos:definition /skos:Concept It might raise an eyebrow to have, instead of a literal value for skos:definition, another set of structured, non RDF metadata. Better in that case to go with a document reference, and make your richer metadata a standalone document with its own URI: ex:wheatPenny skos:definition ex:wheatPennyDefinition**.xml skos:Concept about=http://example.org/wheatPennyhttp://example.org/**wheatPenny http://example.org/**wheatPenny http://example.org/wheatPenny skos:definition resource=http://example.org/wheatPenny.xmlhttp://example.org/**wheatPenny.xml http://**example.org/wheatPenny.xml http://example.org/wheatPenny.xml / /skos:Concept I'm looking at the Documentation as a Document Reference section in SKOS Primer : http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/**NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/ htt**p://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-**skos-primer-20090818/http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/ Again, if I'm following, that might be the closest approach. Hope that helps, Patrick On 02/11/2012 09:53 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Patrick, The richer metadata model is an ontology for describing coins. It is more complex than, say, VRA Core or MODS, but not as hierarchically complicated as an EAD finding aid. I'd like to link a skos:Concept to one of these related metadata records. It doesn't matter if I use skos, owl, etc. to describe this relationship, so long as it is a semantically appropriate choice. Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Patrick Murray-John patrickmjc...@gmail.com wrote: Ethan, Maybe I'm being daft in missing it, but could I ask about more details in the richer metadata model? My hunch is that, depending on the details of the information you want to bring in, there might be more precise alternatives to what's
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
Ethan, The semantics do seem odd there. It doesn't seem like a skos:Concept would typically link to a metadata record about -- if I'm following you right -- a specific coin. Is this sort of a FRBRish approach, where your skos:Concept is similar to the abstraction of a frbr:Work (that is, the idea of a particular coin), where your metadata records are really describing the common features of a particular coin? If that's close, it seems like the richer metadata is really a sort of definition of the skos:Concept, so maybe skos:definition would do the trick? Something like this: ex:wheatPenny a skos:Concept ; skos:prefLabel Wheat Penny ; skos:definition Your richer, non RDF metadata document describing the front and back, years minted, etc. In XML that might be like: skos:Concept about=http://example.org/wheatPenny; skos:prefLabelWheat Penny/skos:prefLabel skos:definition Your richer, non RDF metadata document describing the front and back, years minted, etc. /skos:definition /skos:Concept It might raise an eyebrow to have, instead of a literal value for skos:definition, another set of structured, non RDF metadata. Better in that case to go with a document reference, and make your richer metadata a standalone document with its own URI: ex:wheatPenny skos:definition ex:wheatPennyDefinition**.xml skos:Concept about=http://example.org/wheatPenny; skos:definition resource=http://example.org/wheatPenny.xml; / /skos:Concept I'm looking at the Documentation as a Document Reference section in SKOS Primer : http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/ Again, if I'm following, that might be the closest approach. Hope that helps, Patrick On 02/11/2012 09:53 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Patrick, The richer metadata model is an ontology for describing coins. It is more complex than, say, VRA Core or MODS, but not as hierarchically complicated as an EAD finding aid. I'd like to link a skos:Concept to one of these related metadata records. It doesn't matter if I use skos, owl, etc. to describe this relationship, so long as it is a semantically appropriate choice. Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Patrick Murray-John patrickmjc...@gmail.com wrote: Ethan, Maybe I'm being daft in missing it, but could I ask about more details in the richer metadata model? My hunch is that, depending on the details of the information you want to bring in, there might be more precise alternatives to what's in SKOS. Are you aiming to have a link between a skos:Concept and texts/documents related to that concept? Patrick On 02/11/2012 03:14 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Ross, Thanks for the input. My main objective is to make the richer metadata available one way or another to people using our web services. Do you think it makes more sense to link to a URI of the richer metadata document as skos:related (or similar)? I've seen two uses for skos:related--one to point to related skos:concepts, the other to point to web resources associated with that concept, e.g., a wikipedia article. I have a feeling the latter is incorrect, at least according to the documentation I've read on the w3c. For what it's worth, VIAF uses owl:sameAs/@rdf:resource to point to dbpedia and other web resources. Thanks, Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 12:21 PM, Ross Singerrossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Ethan Gruberewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Ross, No, the richer ontology is not an RDF vocabulary, but it adheres to linked data concepts. Hmm, ok. That doesn't necessarily mean it will work in RDF. I'm looking to do something like this example of embedding mods in rdf: http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_**Meta_Data_-_MODS_** Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_Meta_Data_-_MODS_Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2 Yeah, I'll be honest, that looks terrible to me. This looks, to me, like kind of a misunderstanding of RDF and RDF/XML. Regardless, this would make useless RDF (see below). One of the hard things to understand about RDF, especially when you're coming at it from XML (and, by association, RDF/XML) is that RDF isn't hierarchical, it's a graph. This is one of the reasons that the XML serialization is so awkward: it looks something familiar XML people, but it doesn't work well with their tools (XPath, for example) despite the fact that it, you know, should. It's equally frustrating for RDF people because it's really verbose and its syntax can come in a million variations (more on that later in the email) making it excruciatingly hard to parse. These semantic ontologies are so flexible, it seems like I *can* do anything, so I'm left wondering what I *should* do--what makes the most sense, semantically. Is it possible to nest rdf:Description into the skos:Concept of my previous example, and then placenuds:nuds.more sophistated model../nuds:nuds into rdf:Description (or alternatively, set rdf:Description/@rdf:resource
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
Hi Patrick, Thanks. That does make sense. Hopefully others will weigh in with agreement (or disagreement). Sometimes these semantic languages are so flexible that it's unsettling. There are a million ways to do something with only de facto standards rather than restricted schemas. For what it's worth, the metadata files describe coin-types, an intellectual concept in numismatics succinctly described at http://coins.about.com/od/coinsglossary/g/coin_type.htm, not physical objects in a collection. Ethan On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Patrick Murray-John patrickmjc...@gmail.com wrote: Ethan, The semantics do seem odd there. It doesn't seem like a skos:Concept would typically link to a metadata record about -- if I'm following you right -- a specific coin. Is this sort of a FRBRish approach, where your skos:Concept is similar to the abstraction of a frbr:Work (that is, the idea of a particular coin), where your metadata records are really describing the common features of a particular coin? If that's close, it seems like the richer metadata is really a sort of definition of the skos:Concept, so maybe skos:definition would do the trick? Something like this: ex:wheatPenny a skos:Concept ; skos:prefLabel Wheat Penny ; skos:definition Your richer, non RDF metadata document describing the front and back, years minted, etc. In XML that might be like: skos:Concept about=http://example.org/**wheatPennyhttp://example.org/wheatPenny skos:prefLabelWheat Penny/skos:prefLabel skos:definition Your richer, non RDF metadata document describing the front and back, years minted, etc. /skos:definition /skos:Concept It might raise an eyebrow to have, instead of a literal value for skos:definition, another set of structured, non RDF metadata. Better in that case to go with a document reference, and make your richer metadata a standalone document with its own URI: ex:wheatPenny skos:definition ex:wheatPennyDefinition**.xml skos:Concept about=http://example.org/**wheatPennyhttp://example.org/wheatPenny skos:definition resource=http://example.org/**wheatPenny.xmlhttp://example.org/wheatPenny.xml / /skos:Concept I'm looking at the Documentation as a Document Reference section in SKOS Primer : http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/**NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/ Again, if I'm following, that might be the closest approach. Hope that helps, Patrick On 02/11/2012 09:53 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Patrick, The richer metadata model is an ontology for describing coins. It is more complex than, say, VRA Core or MODS, but not as hierarchically complicated as an EAD finding aid. I'd like to link a skos:Concept to one of these related metadata records. It doesn't matter if I use skos, owl, etc. to describe this relationship, so long as it is a semantically appropriate choice. Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Patrick Murray-John patrickmjc...@gmail.com wrote: Ethan, Maybe I'm being daft in missing it, but could I ask about more details in the richer metadata model? My hunch is that, depending on the details of the information you want to bring in, there might be more precise alternatives to what's in SKOS. Are you aiming to have a link between a skos:Concept and texts/documents related to that concept? Patrick On 02/11/2012 03:14 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Ross, Thanks for the input. My main objective is to make the richer metadata available one way or another to people using our web services. Do you think it makes more sense to link to a URI of the richer metadata document as skos:related (or similar)? I've seen two uses for skos:related--one to point to related skos:concepts, the other to point to web resources associated with that concept, e.g., a wikipedia article. I have a feeling the latter is incorrect, at least according to the documentation I've read on the w3c. For what it's worth, VIAF uses owl:sameAs/@rdf:resource to point to dbpedia and other web resources. Thanks, Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 12:21 PM, Ross Singerrossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Ethan Gruberewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Ross, No, the richer ontology is not an RDF vocabulary, but it adheres to linked data concepts. Hmm, ok. That doesn't necessarily mean it will work in RDF. I'm looking to do something like this example of embedding mods in rdf: http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_Meta_Data_-_MODS_**http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_**Meta_Data_-_MODS_** Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2htt**p://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_** Meta_Data_-_MODS_**Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_Meta_Data_-_MODS_Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2 Yeah, I'll be honest, that looks terrible to me. This looks, to me, like kind of a misunderstanding of RDF and RDF/XML. Regardless, this would make useless RDF (see below). One of the
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
Hi Ethan, I will defer to those with greater insight, into what has been discussed earlier in this thread, than myself as to some of the semantics you are trying to crystallise here. What I can offer instead is a bit of advice as to lubricating the process. Firstly, stay as far away from XML as possible whilst trying to shape your model/ontologies - it a) introduces hierarchical thinking/visualisation in to what may well not be a problem of hierarchy, b) is difficult to read, c) in the world of RDF, best reserved for machine to machine communication. Secondly, put away the computer and get out the white/blackboard and pen. Start drawing some ellipses, rectangles, and arrows. When you have a model that looks something like the real world you are trying to represent (not the traditional metadata records you previously held), transform that in to a form of RDF that a computer will understand. This is an approximation of the process the British Library used to work their way towards their data modelhttp://dataliberate.com//wp-content/uploads/2012/01/British-Library-Data-Model-v1.01.pdf for the British National Bibliography. Oh, and the XML? - Let a tool like Raptor produce it for you from the more human friendly turtle you come up with. ~Richard. On 13 February 2012 21:43, Ethan Gruber ewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Patrick, Thanks. That does make sense. Hopefully others will weigh in with agreement (or disagreement). Sometimes these semantic languages are so flexible that it's unsettling. There are a million ways to do something with only de facto standards rather than restricted schemas. For what it's worth, the metadata files describe coin-types, an intellectual concept in numismatics succinctly described at http://coins.about.com/od/coinsglossary/g/coin_type.htm, not physical objects in a collection. Ethan -- Richard Wallis Founder, Data Liberate http://dataliberate.com Tel: +44 (0)7767 886 005 Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis Skype: richard.wallis1 Twitter: @rjw IM: rjw3...@hotmail.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
On 2/13/12 1:43 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Patrick, Thanks. That does make sense. Hopefully others will weigh in with agreement (or disagreement). Sometimes these semantic languages are so flexible that it's unsettling. There are a million ways to do something with only de facto standards rather than restricted schemas. For what it's worth, the metadata files describe coin-types, an intellectual concept in numismatics succinctly described at http://coins.about.com/od/coinsglossary/g/coin_type.htm, not physical objects in a collection. I believe this is similar to what FOAF does with primary topic: http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_primaryTopic In FOAF that usually points to a web page ABOUT the subject of the FOAF data, so a wikipedia web page about Stephen King would get this primary topic property. Presuming that your XML is http:// accessible, it might fit into this model. kc Ethan On Mon, Feb 13, 2012 at 4:28 PM, Patrick Murray-John patrickmjc...@gmail.com wrote: Ethan, The semantics do seem odd there. It doesn't seem like a skos:Concept would typically link to a metadata record about -- if I'm following you right -- a specific coin. Is this sort of a FRBRish approach, where your skos:Concept is similar to the abstraction of a frbr:Work (that is, the idea of a particular coin), where your metadata records are really describing the common features of a particular coin? If that's close, it seems like the richer metadata is really a sort of definition of the skos:Concept, so maybe skos:definition would do the trick? Something like this: ex:wheatPenny a skos:Concept ; skos:prefLabel Wheat Penny ; skos:definition Your richer, non RDF metadata document describing the front and back, years minted, etc. In XML that might be like: skos:Concept about=http://example.org/**wheatPennyhttp://example.org/wheatPenny skos:prefLabelWheat Penny/skos:prefLabel skos:definition Your richer, non RDF metadata document describing the front and back, years minted, etc. /skos:definition /skos:Concept It might raise an eyebrow to have, instead of a literal value for skos:definition, another set of structured, non RDF metadata. Better in that case to go with a document reference, and make your richer metadata a standalone document with its own URI: ex:wheatPenny skos:definition ex:wheatPennyDefinition**.xml skos:Concept about=http://example.org/**wheatPennyhttp://example.org/wheatPenny skos:definition resource=http://example.org/**wheatPenny.xmlhttp://example.org/wheatPenny.xml / /skos:Concept I'm looking at the Documentation as a Document Reference section in SKOS Primer : http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/**NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/ Again, if I'm following, that might be the closest approach. Hope that helps, Patrick On 02/11/2012 09:53 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Patrick, The richer metadata model is an ontology for describing coins. It is more complex than, say, VRA Core or MODS, but not as hierarchically complicated as an EAD finding aid. I'd like to link a skos:Concept to one of these related metadata records. It doesn't matter if I use skos, owl, etc. to describe this relationship, so long as it is a semantically appropriate choice. Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Patrick Murray-John patrickmjc...@gmail.com wrote: Ethan, Maybe I'm being daft in missing it, but could I ask about more details in the richer metadata model? My hunch is that, depending on the details of the information you want to bring in, there might be more precise alternatives to what's in SKOS. Are you aiming to have a link between a skos:Concept and texts/documents related to that concept? Patrick On 02/11/2012 03:14 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Ross, Thanks for the input. My main objective is to make the richer metadata available one way or another to people using our web services. Do you think it makes more sense to link to a URI of the richer metadata document as skos:related (or similar)? I've seen two uses for skos:related--one to point to related skos:concepts, the other to point to web resources associated with that concept, e.g., a wikipedia article. I have a feeling the latter is incorrect, at least according to the documentation I've read on the w3c. For what it's worth, VIAF uses owl:sameAs/@rdf:resource to point to dbpedia and other web resources. Thanks, Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 12:21 PM, Ross Singerrossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Ethan Gruberewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Ross, No, the richer ontology is not an RDF vocabulary, but it adheres to linked data concepts. Hmm, ok. That doesn't necessarily mean it will work in RDF. I'm looking to do something like this example of embedding mods in rdf: http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_Meta_Data_-_MODS_**http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_**Meta_Data_-_MODS_**
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Ethan Gruber ewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Ross, No, the richer ontology is not an RDF vocabulary, but it adheres to linked data concepts. Hmm, ok. That doesn't necessarily mean it will work in RDF. I'm looking to do something like this example of embedding mods in rdf: http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_Meta_Data_-_MODS_Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2 Yeah, I'll be honest, that looks terrible to me. This looks, to me, like kind of a misunderstanding of RDF and RDF/XML. Regardless, this would make useless RDF (see below). One of the hard things to understand about RDF, especially when you're coming at it from XML (and, by association, RDF/XML) is that RDF isn't hierarchical, it's a graph. This is one of the reasons that the XML serialization is so awkward: it looks something familiar XML people, but it doesn't work well with their tools (XPath, for example) despite the fact that it, you know, should. It's equally frustrating for RDF people because it's really verbose and its syntax can come in a million variations (more on that later in the email) making it excruciatingly hard to parse. These semantic ontologies are so flexible, it seems like I *can* do anything, so I'm left wondering what I *should* do--what makes the most sense, semantically. Is it possible to nest rdf:Description into the skos:Concept of my previous example, and then place nuds:nuds.more sophistated model../nuds:nuds into rdf:Description (or alternatively, set rdf:Description/@rdf:resource to the URI of the web-accessible XML file? Most RDF examples I've looked at online either have skos:Concept or rdf:Description, not both, either at the same context in rdf:RDF or one nested inside the other. So, this is a little tough to explain via email, I think. This is what I was referring to earlier about the myriad ways to render RDF in XML. In short, using: skos:Concept about=http://example.org/foo; skos:prefLabelSomething/skos:prefLabel ... /skos:Concept is shorthand for: rdf:Description about=http://example.org/foo; rdf:type resource=http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#Concept; / skos:prefLabelSomething/skos:prefLabel /rdf:Description So, yeah, you use one or the other. That said, I'm not sure your ontology is really going to work well, you'll just have to try it. One thing that would probably be useful would be to serialize out a document with your nuds vocabulary as rdf/xml and then use something like rapper (comes with the redland libraries) to convert it to something more RDF-friendly, like turtle, and see if it makes any sense. For example, your daisy example above: rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#; xml:mods=http://www.daisy.org/RDF/MODS; rdf:Description rdf:ID=daisy-dtbook2005-exemplar-01 mods:titleInfo mods:titleWorld Cultures and Geography/mods:title /mods:titleInfo mods:name mods:namePartSarah Witham Bednarz/mods:namePart mods:role mods:roleTerm mods:type=textauthor/mods:roleTerm /mods:role /mods:name mods:name mods:namePartInés M. Miyares/mods:namePart mods:role mods:roleTerm mods:type=textauthor/mods:roleTerm /mods:role /mods:name mods:name mods:namePartMark C. Schug/mods:namePart mods:role mods:roleTerm mods:type=textauthor/mods:roleTerm /mods:role /mods:name mods:name mods:namePartCharles S. White/mods:namePart mods:role mods:roleTerm mods:type=textauthor/mods:roleTerm /mods:role /mods:name mods:originInfo mods:publisherDAISY Consortium/mods:publisher mods:dateCreated2005-01-14/mods:dateCreated mods:version3/mods:version mods:dateModified2005-07-27/mods:dateModified /mods:originInfo mods:relatedItem mods:type=original mods:originInfo
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
Hi Ross, Thanks for the input. My main objective is to make the richer metadata available one way or another to people using our web services. Do you think it makes more sense to link to a URI of the richer metadata document as skos:related (or similar)? I've seen two uses for skos:related--one to point to related skos:concepts, the other to point to web resources associated with that concept, e.g., a wikipedia article. I have a feeling the latter is incorrect, at least according to the documentation I've read on the w3c. For what it's worth, VIAF uses owl:sameAs/@rdf:resource to point to dbpedia and other web resources. Thanks, Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 12:21 PM, Ross Singer rossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Ethan Gruber ewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Ross, No, the richer ontology is not an RDF vocabulary, but it adheres to linked data concepts. Hmm, ok. That doesn't necessarily mean it will work in RDF. I'm looking to do something like this example of embedding mods in rdf: http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_Meta_Data_-_MODS_Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2 Yeah, I'll be honest, that looks terrible to me. This looks, to me, like kind of a misunderstanding of RDF and RDF/XML. Regardless, this would make useless RDF (see below). One of the hard things to understand about RDF, especially when you're coming at it from XML (and, by association, RDF/XML) is that RDF isn't hierarchical, it's a graph. This is one of the reasons that the XML serialization is so awkward: it looks something familiar XML people, but it doesn't work well with their tools (XPath, for example) despite the fact that it, you know, should. It's equally frustrating for RDF people because it's really verbose and its syntax can come in a million variations (more on that later in the email) making it excruciatingly hard to parse. These semantic ontologies are so flexible, it seems like I *can* do anything, so I'm left wondering what I *should* do--what makes the most sense, semantically. Is it possible to nest rdf:Description into the skos:Concept of my previous example, and then place nuds:nuds.more sophistated model../nuds:nuds into rdf:Description (or alternatively, set rdf:Description/@rdf:resource to the URI of the web-accessible XML file? Most RDF examples I've looked at online either have skos:Concept or rdf:Description, not both, either at the same context in rdf:RDF or one nested inside the other. So, this is a little tough to explain via email, I think. This is what I was referring to earlier about the myriad ways to render RDF in XML. In short, using: skos:Concept about=http://example.org/foo; skos:prefLabelSomething/skos:prefLabel ... /skos:Concept is shorthand for: rdf:Description about=http://example.org/foo; rdf:type resource=http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#Concept; / skos:prefLabelSomething/skos:prefLabel /rdf:Description So, yeah, you use one or the other. That said, I'm not sure your ontology is really going to work well, you'll just have to try it. One thing that would probably be useful would be to serialize out a document with your nuds vocabulary as rdf/xml and then use something like rapper (comes with the redland libraries) to convert it to something more RDF-friendly, like turtle, and see if it makes any sense. For example, your daisy example above: rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#; xml:mods=http://www.daisy.org/RDF/MODS; rdf:Description rdf:ID=daisy-dtbook2005-exemplar-01 mods:titleInfo mods:titleWorld Cultures and Geography/mods:title /mods:titleInfo mods:name mods:namePartSarah Witham Bednarz/mods:namePart mods:role mods:roleTerm mods:type=textauthor/mods:roleTerm /mods:role /mods:name mods:name mods:namePartInés M. Miyares/mods:namePart mods:role mods:roleTerm mods:type=textauthor/mods:roleTerm /mods:role /mods:name mods:name mods:namePartMark C. Schug/mods:namePart mods:role mods:roleTerm mods:type=textauthor/mods:roleTerm /mods:role /mods:name mods:name mods:namePartCharles S. White/mods:namePart mods:role mods:roleTerm
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
Ethan, Maybe I'm being daft in missing it, but could I ask about more details in the richer metadata model? My hunch is that, depending on the details of the information you want to bring in, there might be more precise alternatives to what's in SKOS. Are you aiming to have a link between a skos:Concept and texts/documents related to that concept? Patrick On 02/11/2012 03:14 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Ross, Thanks for the input. My main objective is to make the richer metadata available one way or another to people using our web services. Do you think it makes more sense to link to a URI of the richer metadata document as skos:related (or similar)? I've seen two uses for skos:related--one to point to related skos:concepts, the other to point to web resources associated with that concept, e.g., a wikipedia article. I have a feeling the latter is incorrect, at least according to the documentation I've read on the w3c. For what it's worth, VIAF uses owl:sameAs/@rdf:resource to point to dbpedia and other web resources. Thanks, Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 12:21 PM, Ross Singerrossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Ethan Gruberewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Ross, No, the richer ontology is not an RDF vocabulary, but it adheres to linked data concepts. Hmm, ok. That doesn't necessarily mean it will work in RDF. I'm looking to do something like this example of embedding mods in rdf: http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_Meta_Data_-_MODS_Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2 Yeah, I'll be honest, that looks terrible to me. This looks, to me, like kind of a misunderstanding of RDF and RDF/XML. Regardless, this would make useless RDF (see below). One of the hard things to understand about RDF, especially when you're coming at it from XML (and, by association, RDF/XML) is that RDF isn't hierarchical, it's a graph. This is one of the reasons that the XML serialization is so awkward: it looks something familiar XML people, but it doesn't work well with their tools (XPath, for example) despite the fact that it, you know, should. It's equally frustrating for RDF people because it's really verbose and its syntax can come in a million variations (more on that later in the email) making it excruciatingly hard to parse. These semantic ontologies are so flexible, it seems like I *can* do anything, so I'm left wondering what I *should* do--what makes the most sense, semantically. Is it possible to nest rdf:Description into the skos:Concept of my previous example, and then placenuds:nuds.more sophistated model../nuds:nuds into rdf:Description (or alternatively, set rdf:Description/@rdf:resource to the URI of the web-accessible XML file? Most RDF examples I've looked at online either have skos:Concept or rdf:Description, not both, either at the same context in rdf:RDF or one nested inside the other. So, this is a little tough to explain via email, I think. This is what I was referring to earlier about the myriad ways to render RDF in XML. In short, using: skos:Concept about=http://example.org/foo; skos:prefLabelSomething/skos:prefLabel ... /skos:Concept is shorthand for: rdf:Description about=http://example.org/foo; rdf:type resource=http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#Concept; / skos:prefLabelSomething/skos:prefLabel /rdf:Description So, yeah, you use one or the other. That said, I'm not sure your ontology is really going to work well, you'll just have to try it. One thing that would probably be useful would be to serialize out a document with your nuds vocabulary as rdf/xml and then use something like rapper (comes with the redland libraries) to convert it to something more RDF-friendly, like turtle, and see if it makes any sense. For example, your daisy example above: rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#; xml:mods=http://www.daisy.org/RDF/MODS; rdf:Description rdf:ID=daisy-dtbook2005-exemplar-01 mods:titleInfo mods:titleWorld Cultures and Geography/mods:title /mods:titleInfo mods:name mods:namePartSarah Witham Bednarz/mods:namePart mods:role mods:roleTerm mods:type=textauthor/mods:roleTerm /mods:role /mods:name mods:name mods:namePartInés M. Miyares/mods:namePart mods:role mods:roleTerm mods:type=textauthor/mods:roleTerm /mods:role /mods:name mods:name mods:namePartMark C. Schug/mods:namePart mods:role
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
Hi Patrick, The richer metadata model is an ontology for describing coins. It is more complex than, say, VRA Core or MODS, but not as hierarchically complicated as an EAD finding aid. I'd like to link a skos:Concept to one of these related metadata records. It doesn't matter if I use skos, owl, etc. to describe this relationship, so long as it is a semantically appropriate choice. Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Patrick Murray-John patrickmjc...@gmail.com wrote: Ethan, Maybe I'm being daft in missing it, but could I ask about more details in the richer metadata model? My hunch is that, depending on the details of the information you want to bring in, there might be more precise alternatives to what's in SKOS. Are you aiming to have a link between a skos:Concept and texts/documents related to that concept? Patrick On 02/11/2012 03:14 PM, Ethan Gruber wrote: Hi Ross, Thanks for the input. My main objective is to make the richer metadata available one way or another to people using our web services. Do you think it makes more sense to link to a URI of the richer metadata document as skos:related (or similar)? I've seen two uses for skos:related--one to point to related skos:concepts, the other to point to web resources associated with that concept, e.g., a wikipedia article. I have a feeling the latter is incorrect, at least according to the documentation I've read on the w3c. For what it's worth, VIAF uses owl:sameAs/@rdf:resource to point to dbpedia and other web resources. Thanks, Ethan On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 12:21 PM, Ross Singerrossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:51 PM, Ethan Gruberewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Ross, No, the richer ontology is not an RDF vocabulary, but it adheres to linked data concepts. Hmm, ok. That doesn't necessarily mean it will work in RDF. I'm looking to do something like this example of embedding mods in rdf: http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_**Meta_Data_-_MODS_** Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_Meta_Data_-_MODS_Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2 Yeah, I'll be honest, that looks terrible to me. This looks, to me, like kind of a misunderstanding of RDF and RDF/XML. Regardless, this would make useless RDF (see below). One of the hard things to understand about RDF, especially when you're coming at it from XML (and, by association, RDF/XML) is that RDF isn't hierarchical, it's a graph. This is one of the reasons that the XML serialization is so awkward: it looks something familiar XML people, but it doesn't work well with their tools (XPath, for example) despite the fact that it, you know, should. It's equally frustrating for RDF people because it's really verbose and its syntax can come in a million variations (more on that later in the email) making it excruciatingly hard to parse. These semantic ontologies are so flexible, it seems like I *can* do anything, so I'm left wondering what I *should* do--what makes the most sense, semantically. Is it possible to nest rdf:Description into the skos:Concept of my previous example, and then placenuds:nuds.more sophistated model../nuds:nuds into rdf:Description (or alternatively, set rdf:Description/@rdf:resource to the URI of the web-accessible XML file? Most RDF examples I've looked at online either have skos:Concept or rdf:Description, not both, either at the same context in rdf:RDF or one nested inside the other. So, this is a little tough to explain via email, I think. This is what I was referring to earlier about the myriad ways to render RDF in XML. In short, using: skos:Concept about=http://example.org/foo** skos:prefLabelSomething/**skos:prefLabel ... /skos:Concept is shorthand for: rdf:Description about=http://example.org/foo** rdf:type resource=http://www.w3.org/**2004/02/skos/core#Concepthttp://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#Concept / skos:prefLabelSomething/**skos:prefLabel /rdf:Description So, yeah, you use one or the other. That said, I'm not sure your ontology is really going to work well, you'll just have to try it. One thing that would probably be useful would be to serialize out a document with your nuds vocabulary as rdf/xml and then use something like rapper (comes with the redland libraries) to convert it to something more RDF-friendly, like turtle, and see if it makes any sense. For example, your daisy example above: rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=http://www.w3.org/**1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# xml:mods=http://www.daisy.**org/RDF/MODShttp://www.daisy.org/RDF/MODS rdf:Description rdf:ID=daisy-dtbook2005-**exemplar-01 mods:titleInfo mods:titleWorld Cultures and Geography/mods:title /mods:titleInfo mods:name
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
The whole advantage of RDF is that you can pull properties from different vocabularies (as long as they're not logically disjoint). So, assuming your richer ontology is some kind of RDF vocabulary, this exactly *what* you should be doing. -Ross. On Feb 10, 2012, at 4:31 PM, Ethan Gruber ewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, I'm working on an RDF model for describing concepts. I have skos:Concept nested inside rdf:RDF. Most documents will have little more than labels and related links inside of skos:Concept. However, for a certain type of concept, we have XML documents with a more sophisticated ontology and structure for describing the concept. I could embed this metadata into the RDF or reference it as an rdf:resource. It doesn't matter much to me either way, but I'm unsure of the semantically correct way to create this model. Suppose I have: rdf:RDF skos:Concept rdf:about=URI skos:prefLabel xml:lang=enLabel/skos:prefLabel nuds:nuds.more sophistated model../nuds:nuds /skos:Concept /rdf:RDF Is it okay to have the more sophistated metadata model embedded in skos:Concept alongside labels and related links? Suppose I want to store the more sophisticated metadata separately and reference it? I'm not sure what property adequately addresses this relation, semantically. Recommendations? Thanks, Ethan
Re: [CODE4LIB] RDF advice
Hi Ross, No, the richer ontology is not an RDF vocabulary, but it adheres to linked data concepts. I'm looking to do something like this example of embedding mods in rdf: http://www.daisy.org/zw/ZedAI_Meta_Data_-_MODS_Recommendation#RDF.2FXML_2 These semantic ontologies are so flexible, it seems like I *can* do anything, so I'm left wondering what I *should* do--what makes the most sense, semantically. Is it possible to nest rdf:Description into the skos:Concept of my previous example, and then place nuds:nuds.more sophistated model../nuds:nuds into rdf:Description (or alternatively, set rdf:Description/@rdf:resource to the URI of the web-accessible XML file? Most RDF examples I've looked at online either have skos:Concept or rdf:Description, not both, either at the same context in rdf:RDF or one nested inside the other. Thanks, Ethan On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 9:44 PM, Ross Singer rossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: The whole advantage of RDF is that you can pull properties from different vocabularies (as long as they're not logically disjoint). So, assuming your richer ontology is some kind of RDF vocabulary, this exactly *what* you should be doing. -Ross. On Feb 10, 2012, at 4:31 PM, Ethan Gruber ewg4x...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, I'm working on an RDF model for describing concepts. I have skos:Concept nested inside rdf:RDF. Most documents will have little more than labels and related links inside of skos:Concept. However, for a certain type of concept, we have XML documents with a more sophisticated ontology and structure for describing the concept. I could embed this metadata into the RDF or reference it as an rdf:resource. It doesn't matter much to me either way, but I'm unsure of the semantically correct way to create this model. Suppose I have: rdf:RDF skos:Concept rdf:about=URI skos:prefLabel xml:lang=enLabel/skos:prefLabel nuds:nuds.more sophistated model../nuds:nuds /skos:Concept /rdf:RDF Is it okay to have the more sophistated metadata model embedded in skos:Concept alongside labels and related links? Suppose I want to store the more sophisticated metadata separately and reference it? I'm not sure what property adequately addresses this relation, semantically. Recommendations? Thanks, Ethan
