Re: The meaning of Subject (and Coverage)
Sorry if I've missed something in this thread, but I believe dc:coverage is at least in part a contribution from the archives and records management fields to DCMES. That is, a treaty or contract of sale or any other record could cover something (e.g., Vancouver, BC from now 'til 2020) and not be about the same thing (e.g., exchange of land rights from the crown to an indigenous nation). If this holds, and if RDA intends on being useful to both librarianship and archivy then it has to contend with different domain models such as this. I know it's my old axe at this point, but purpose guides design and implementation, and the purposes discussed below are very library-y ;-) -- not very archivy-y. I remember being in Singapore saying that we should to a UB AP to make the semantics of these two clearer without changing their DCTERMS domains and ranges, but that work item was never completed in the UB. Happy Monday, all! joe Joseph T. Tennis Assistant Professor The Information School University of Washington Reviews Editor, Knowledge Organization jten...@u.washington.edu faculty.washington.edu/jtennis On Feb 27, 2012, at 5:11 AM, Tillett, Barbara wrote: Couldn't the topic, i.e., Subject, be what the thing is about? We have other attributes to use for the form or genre or medium of performance or other aspects. - Barbara -Original Message- From: List for discussion on application profiles and mappings [mailto:DC-RDA@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 5:57 PM To: DC-RDA@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [DC-RDA] The meaning of Subject (and Coverage) This is a great example of how hard it is to define topic of. In MARC21 data, there are subject headings that are geographical in nature (and they are coded as geographical subject headings not just subject headings: tag 651, as opposed to tag 650 for topical topics). Geographical subject headings are used when the primary topic of the resource is the geographical area (California -- History). You can also have geographical facets in subject headings (at least in LCSH). That is when there is a main topic (Dog breeding) with a geographical aspect (in Canada). There are also places in the record to put geographical info when the resource is itself geographical in nature (e.g. a map, which can get scale and coordinates).[1] So if your map is coded with geographical coordinates for Berkeley, California, can you consider Berkeley, California the subject of the map? I think many people would. There is also a field that gives hierarchical geographical access to publications like newspapers [2] based on where they are published (which is often their main topical coverage as well, such as The San Francisco Chronicle). Note that changing the definition of dc:subject also means re-thinking dc:coverage, which has this definition: The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant. Is dc:coverage still to be used for space or temporal topic? If it is decided that space and temporal topics would be covered by dc:subject and dc:coverage is only suitable for ...the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant then we have to consider whether people will reasonably be able to make the distinction between spatial applicability and space... topic. Note that such a change also removes the temporal aspect of dc:coverage, at least as it is now defined. I think something would be lost by putting geographical names in subject. A bit less is lost if the geographical name is a URI within, say, GeoNames, that clearly indicates the geographicalness of the value. But DC doesn't require URIs. This is also true for temporal topics -- which probably actually need their own property apart from geographical aspects, but that's water under the bridge. I think changing the definition of dc:subject would, in fact, have to also change the definition of dc:coverage. In addition, it would require people to make the difficult distinction between topically about and geographically applicable, something that I think is extremely hard and therefore not something we should require of people using DC. The current situation is not ideal, by any means, but I believe that the suggested change would make it worse. kc [1]http://loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd034.html [2] http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd752.html On 2/24/12 1:20 PM, Thomas Baker wrote: Dear all, Since 2006, the usage comment for the definition of dc:subject (and since 2008, dcterms:subject) has included the following sentence [1,2,3]: To describe the spatial or temporal topic of the resource, use the Coverage element. The intent was to provide guidance on when to use Coverage: The spatial or
Re: The meaning of Subject (and Coverage)
Between Barbara's reply and Joe's it sounds like dc:coverage should be expressly NOT topical. Now I'm REALLY confused about what it's supposed to be. kc On 2/27/12 5:52 AM, Joseph Tennis wrote: Sorry if I've missed something in this thread, but I believe dc:coverage is at least in part a contribution from the archives and records management fields to DCMES. That is, a treaty or contract of sale or any other record could cover something (e.g., Vancouver, BC from now 'til 2020) and not be about the same thing (e.g., exchange of land rights from the crown to an indigenous nation). If this holds, and if RDA intends on being useful to both librarianship and archivy then it has to contend with different domain models such as this. I know it's my old axe at this point, but purpose guides design and implementation, and the purposes discussed below are very library-y ;-) -- not very archivy-y. I remember being in Singapore saying that we should to a UB AP to make the semantics of these two clearer without changing their DCTERMS domains and ranges, but that work item was never completed in the UB. Happy Monday, all! joe Joseph T. Tennis Assistant Professor The Information School University of Washington Reviews Editor, Knowledge Organization jten...@u.washington.edu faculty.washington.edu/jtennis On Feb 27, 2012, at 5:11 AM, Tillett, Barbara wrote: Couldn't the topic, i.e., Subject, be what the thing is about? We have other attributes to use for the form or genre or medium of performance or other aspects. - Barbara -Original Message- From: List for discussion on application profiles and mappings [mailto:DC-RDA@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 5:57 PM To: DC-RDA@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [DC-RDA] The meaning of Subject (and Coverage) This is a great example of how hard it is to define topic of. In MARC21 data, there are subject headings that are geographical in nature (and they are coded as geographical subject headings not just subject headings: tag 651, as opposed to tag 650 for topical topics). Geographical subject headings are used when the primary topic of the resource is the geographical area (California -- History). You can also have geographical facets in subject headings (at least in LCSH). That is when there is a main topic (Dog breeding) with a geographical aspect (in Canada). There are also places in the record to put geographical info when the resource is itself geographical in nature (e.g. a map, which can get scale and coordinates).[1] So if your map is coded with geographical coordinates for Berkeley, California, can you consider Berkeley, California the subject of the map? I think many people would. There is also a field that gives hierarchical geographical access to publications like newspapers [2] based on where they are published (which is often their main topical coverage as well, such as The San Francisco Chronicle). Note that changing the definition of dc:subject also means re-thinking dc:coverage, which has this definition: The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant. Is dc:coverage still to be used for space or temporal topic? If it is decided that space and temporal topics would be covered by dc:subject and dc:coverage is only suitable for ...the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant then we have to consider whether people will reasonably be able to make the distinction between spatial applicability and space... topic. Note that such a change also removes the temporal aspect of dc:coverage, at least as it is now defined. I think something would be lost by putting geographical names in subject. A bit less is lost if the geographical name is a URI within, say, GeoNames, that clearly indicates the geographicalness of the value. But DC doesn't require URIs. This is also true for temporal topics -- which probably actually need their own property apart from geographical aspects, but that's water under the bridge. I think changing the definition of dc:subject would, in fact, have to also change the definition of dc:coverage. In addition, it would require people to make the difficult distinction between topically about and geographically applicable, something that I think is extremely hard and therefore not something we should require of people using DC. The current situation is not ideal, by any means, but I believe that the suggested change would make it worse. kc [1]http://loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd034.html [2] http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/bd752.html On 2/24/12 1:20 PM, Thomas Baker wrote: Dear all, Since 2006, the usage comment for the definition of dc:subject (and since 2008, dcterms:subject) has included the following sentence [1,2,3]: To describe the spatial or temporal topic of the resource, use the Coverage element. The intent was to
Re: The meaning of Subject (and Coverage)
I'm not sure who is channeling who here, but this is now the 2nd time that Simon and I have given approximately the same replies, and if it happens again it'll be creepy. :-) kc On 2/27/12 12:12 PM, Simon Spero wrote: On Feb 27, 2012, at 1:53 PM, gor...@gordondunsire.com mailto:gor...@gordondunsire.com wrote: It seems that the cover attribute/relationship has been conflated with the about attribute/relationship Is it because the Space and Time facets in many library KOSs (reflected in Ranganathan's PMEST facet citation pattern) occupy a special place; i.e. can refine/qualify most other primary topics? There are two distinct notions that are in play here: 1) A Geospatial/Temporal region can be considered as the main subject of a conceptual work. E.g. http://lccn.loc.gov/96002026 Main title:Lake Huron Subjects:Huron, Lake (Mich. and Ont.). 2) A Geospatial/Temporal region can be considered as narrowing the main subject of the work. E.g. http://lccn.loc.gov/74153794 Main titleLake Huron: the ecology of the fish community and man's effects on it SubjectsFisheries--Huron, Lake (Mich. and Ont.). The subject of (1) indicates a general work about the specified region. The second subject is necessarily also about some aspect of the specified region (subsumption holds), but it is primarily about Fisheries, narrowed to that region; coverage of other aspects of the region may be incidental at best. The use of a subdivided heading, rather than two separate headings, allows one to believe with justification that a topic related to the region, but not related to fisheries is less likely to be significantly covered in the second work. There are problems that occur when the only available predicate for 4d coverage is at the resource level; when a work is about multiple subjects with disjoint 4-space coverage, coverage statements detached from their subjects leads to incorrect entailments or information loss. A work level coverage scope may be determinable as a (possibly) non-contiguous 4d regions; alternatively the coverage may be broadened to a region containing all subregions, or alternatively it may be narrowed to the region which covers the bulk of the materials (a common archival practice). Simon -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet
Re: The meaning of Subject (and Coverage)
I'm not sure who I'm replying to here, but I'd like to add a few use cases here (informally, of course). As a former law librarian, the notion of geographic 'coverage' that isn't explicitly of a subject nature is pretty common. Jurisdiction is one such thing, and the kinds of laws that get passed by one jurisdiction applying only to a subset of the geographic area that is the jurisdiction is another. So for instance, the illinois legislature passes a law that applies only to a specific state resource, say the waterfront along Lake Michigan. You have two geographic instances here that are not necessarily subjects. The law is not 'about' Illinois, nor is it really 'about' the Lake Michigan waterfront. I know that many will protest this as similar to Karen's 'map of San Francisco', and it is in some respects. However, I happen to think that no bytes are harmed if we do both, and for the legal beagles, the 'applies' to idea exemplified by 'coverage' is pretty important. Diane
