Ross Singer wrote:
> Now, I disagree about your point about "London", for one reason,
> subjects like these don't exist (at least they don't seem to for
> "London", "New York City", "Philadelphia", "Birmingham", "Boston",
> etc.).
Not alone as 151's, that's true. They end up combined with topical
sub-headings: London (England)--Antiquities. What this means is that
there are subject headings that have place names in them, but no subject
headings for places as places. It would be great to identify the
component parts of that when that makes sense. MARC does that to some
extent with its subfielding, which is more granular than LCSH as text.
You can isolate the geographic part.
> But if they did, there's no reason that they couldn't be a
> skos:Concept and a frbr:Place (for example) at the same time.
I agree that it can be more than one thing. However, note that
FRBR:Place is the same as LCSH 151 -- it is limited to place as subject.
So it, too, cannot be used for place of publication. I still want
somewhere a set of geographic names that I can plug in where I need
them, and not to define different identities to places based on how they
are used.
kc
> After
> all, they /are/ the same thing, one is describing a physical location,
> the other is saying that this physical location was used as the
> subject of something.
>
> The other option, of course, and probably the one that would actually
> go into practice is for a concept like:
> http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh2004006172#concept
>
> to *point to* a dbpedia or geonames URI using owl:sameAs or something.
> So there'd be a linkage between the subject and the "location".
>
> -Ross.
> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 9:37 AM, Karen Coyle <lists_at_kcoyle.net> wrote:
>
>> Bernhard Eversberg wrote:
>>
>>> Upon Jim Weinheimer's suggestion, we now also added the scope notes
>>> to the browser's database.
>>> BTW, LC's tool returns zero hits if you enter "humour", and displays
>>> neither suggestions nor a browse list of terms in the alphabetic vicinity.
>>> There's a link to a long help page, but this doesn't mention
>>> the possibility of variant spellings.
>>>
>>> While taking this in good humor and with all due respect, I'm reluctant
>>> to call it state of the art.
>>>
>>> B.Eversberg
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> You have to remember that the LC subject authority file is essentially a
>> computer-readable, marked-up version of the LCSH "red books", and that both
>> are guidance to catalogers, not a full taxonomy, and NOT a rigorous example
>> of semantic web capabilities. It has a number of different problem areas,
>> IMO. The one that really bugs me is that it defines geographic places as
>> subjects, but no where in the library canon will we find geographic places
>> as geographic places that can be used wherever they are needed. The place
>> name "London" in the subject file cannot be used, for example, in a
>> publication statement. Obviously, there should be a list of geographic
>> names, with URIs, that can then be used where needed so that you can know
>> that the London in the publication statement is the same London as in the
>> subject heading.
>>
>> You don't solve modern problems by re-coding pre-modern data without making
>> any changes. LCSH in SKOS is a start, but if we don't make the needed
>> changes that will actually modernize the data, I don't think we'll see much
>> uptake.
>>
>> kc
>>
>> --
>> -----------------------------------
>> Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
>> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
>> ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
>> fx.: 510-848-3913
>> mo.: 510-435-8234
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>>
>
>
>
--
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
------------------------------------
Received on Fri May 08 2009 - 10:59:19 EDT