Peter, On 12 December 2011 22:11, Peter Noerr <pno...@museglobal.com> wrote:
> Trying to synthesize what Karen, Richard and Simon have bombarded us with > here, leads me to conclude that linking to existing (or to be created) > external data (ontologies and representations) is a matter of: being sure > what you’re the system's current user's context is, and being able to > modify the external data brought into the users virtual EMU(see below *** > before reading further). Sorry for the bombarding ;-) "being sure what you’re the system's current user's context is" - sounds like a nice idea, but when you are publishing data you have little control, and even less knowledge, of the consuming 'user' and their context. Taking things to the next level, by building services and applications for users, you hopefully will have some understanding of the virtual and actual users' contexts and can take [what I like to call editorial] decisions about how much data in what format to deliver to them, and which links to follow to enrich your service. So, back down at the data level, model your domain to include all the information you are aware of for the entities you are describing, plus link them to other domains that can enrich those descriptions. Leave it to the consumers of your data to decide what is best for them in their context. > I think Simon is right that "records" will increasingly become virtual in > that they are composed as needed by this user for this purpose at this > time. Yes - you could envisage, for some domains, a minimalistic description of their resource could be sufficient in the form of a single triple: <http://mylib.org/resource/12345> owl:sameAs < http://bnb.data.bl.uk/id/resource/008740700> . > I think Simon (maybe Richard, maybe all of you) was working towards a > single unique EMU for the entity which holds all unique information about > it for a number of different uses/scenarios/facets/formats. Of course > deciding on what is unique and what is obtained from some more granular > breakdown is another issue. (Some experience with this "onion skin" > modeling lies deep in my past, and may need dredging up.) > I am suggesting that you in your domain/catalog/library would probably assign a unique identifier, in your domain, for each of the things you describe: http://mylib.org/resource/12345 http://mylib.org/person/CarpenterEdward1910-1998 Describe those things: <http://mylib.org/resource/008740700> rdf:type bibo:Book . <http://mylib.org/person/CarpenterEdward1910-1998> foaf:name "Edward Carpenter" . Describe the relationships between those things: <http://mylib.org/resource/008740700> dct:creator < http://mylib.org/person/CarpenterEdward1910-1998> . Then link them to external descriptions of the same concepts: <http://mylib.org/resource/12345> owl:sameAs < http://bnb.data.bl.uk/id/resource/008740700> . <http://mylib.org/person/CarpenterEdward1910-1998> owl:sameAs < http://viaf.org/viaf/53127337> . That way you end up with internal identifiers that you can link to, from things like comments, circulation records, physical location information, etc. These are then linked out to distributed descriptions which you, or consumers of your data, can then merge with your data to provide richer information. I know the above examples are a bit simplistic, but nevertheless it could be near good-enough for some use cases. *** I suggest (and use above) the Entity Metadata Unit = EMU. This contains > the totality of unique information stored about this entity in this single > logical location. > In my current location, and the current economic climate, I am wary of an acronym the same as European Monetary Union. ;-) However, I think you are thinking in the right direction - I am resigning myself to just using the word 'description'. ~Richard. -- Richard Wallis Technology Evangelist, Talis http://consulting.talis.com Tel: +44 (0)7767 886 005 Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardwallis Skype: richard.wallis1 Twitter: @rjw IM: rjw3...@hotmail.com
