Re: A confession, an apology, and a suggestion

Hi Roy,

Thanks for this synopsis, I think many of us can relate to your story in different ways. In the end everything must die, including MARC, so you shouldn’t feel so bad, eh? You should also feel really good about your contributions to the library community over the years. It’s good to see you posting here again :-)

I think Linked Data has meant many things to different people: a way to model data, a pattern for data publishing, an infrastructure for storing and querying data. As a result, a lot of how it has been talked about has been difficult to understand and put into practice.

But in answer to your humble suggestion, what do you think about this chunk of JSON for describing a book?

```
{
  "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/resources/works/3949714",
  "@type": [
    "Work",
    "Text",
    "Monograph"
  ],
  "title": {
    "@type": "Title",
    "mainTitle": "Crossing the Internet threshold"
  },
  "contribution": [
    {
      "@type": [
        "Contribution",
        "PrimaryContribution"
      ],
      "agent": {
        "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/rwo/agents/no92024789",
        "@type": [
          "Agent",
          "Person"
        ],
        "rdfs:label": "Tennant, Roy"
      },
      "role": {
        "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ctb",
        "@type": "Role",
        "code": "ctb",
        "rdfs:label": "contributor"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Contribution",
      "agent": {
        "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/rwo/agents/no92024790",
        "@type": [
          "Agent",
          "Person"
        ],
        "rdfs:label": "Ober, John"
      },
      "role": {
        "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ctb",
        "@type": "Role",
        "code": "ctb",
        "rdfs:label": "contributor"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "Contribution",
      "agent": {
        "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/rwo/agents/n83126571",
        "@type": [
          "Agent",
          "Person"
        ],
        "rdfs:label": "Lipow, Anne Grodzins, 1935-"
      },
      "role": {
        "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ctb",
        "@type": "Role",
        "code": "ctb",
        "rdfs:label": "contributor"
      }
    }
  ],
  "genreForm": {
    "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/authorities/genreForms/gf2014026109",
    "@type": "GenreForm",
    "rdfs:label": {
      "@language": "en",
      "@value": "Handbooks and manuals"
    }
  },
  "illustrativeContent": {
    "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/millus/ill",
    "@type": "Illustration",
    "code": "ill",
    "rdfs:label": "illustrations"
  },
  "language": {
    "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/languages/eng",
    "@type": "Language",
    "code": {
      "@type": "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string",
      "@value": "eng"
    },
    "rdfs:label": {
      "@language": "en",
      "@value": "English"
    }
  },
  "subject": {
    "@id": "http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008104855",
    "@type": "Topic",
    "rdfs:label": {
      "@language": "en",
      "@value": "Internet--Handbooks, manuals, etc."
    }
  },
  "@context": {
    "@vocab": "http://id.loc.gov/ontologies/bibframe/",
    "rdfs": "http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
  }
}
```

This is some (admittedly abridged for brevity) JSON-LD created from RDF that is published on the web by the Library of Congress using the Bibframe vocabulary.

I think part of the bum rap that Linked Data has gotten is that we haven’t always made it easy to use. I would argue that Bibframe data published as JSON-LD, and using URLs for things like books, people, and subjects are actually pretty useful things to do. Your work, and others’, helping us get to this place are appreciated!

//Ed