Ed:
Interestingly enough this piece of the WG recommendations is exactly the
stuff I'm working through with my students this week.
On 4/20/10 10:19 AM, Ed Summers wrote:
> I think the primary tension here is not between document oriented
> MARC/MODS and RDF, but between document oriented MARC/MODS and the
> models present in FRBR and RDA. To some extent these tensions are
> eased, as MARC takes on features that will allow it to be a carrier
> for RDA [1]. I haven't personally evaluated these changes, but in
> principle it seems like a decent compromise until other serialization
> formats for RDA are proposed.
>
What the MARC changes lack is the rich set of relationships that RDA
Vocabularies include. Although for sure we'll be dealing with MARC for
some time to come, we shouldn't settle for the few relationships that
have been crammed into MARC. The RDA Vocabularies seem to me to be
poised to be the basis of the serializations you're looking for, but I
may be biased ... :-)
> The other tension is that the Future of Bibliographic Control report
> [2] really highlighted the need for LC and libraries in general to
> integrate their data into the web:
>
> """
> 3.1.2 Integrate Library Standards into Web Environment
> 3.1.2.1 All: Express library standards in machine-readable and
> machine-actionable
> formats, in particular those developed for use on the Web.
> 3.1.2.2 All: Provide access to standards through registries or Web
> sites so that the
> standards can be used by any and all Web applications.
> 3.1.2.3 LC: Begin transitioning LC-managed vocabularies to a platform
> that is both
> Web services-friendly and allows files to be downloaded for
> incorporation
> into other applications. These vocabularies include the many
> lists that are
> used in bibliographic records such as language and geographic
> codes, resource
> format codes, etc.
> """
>
>
Absolutely, and it's a huge disappointment that this work is going so
slow in some of the areas that count, like the NAF, for instance. The
FRAD element set is going into the Registry even as we speak, so I'm
hoping that will be a stepping stone.
> RDF is a data model that is made for (and of) the web [3] -- so I
> personally think it is well suited for making library data more a part
> of the web. That being said, I think an xml serialization format other
> than application/rdf+xml could represent bibliographic data
> sufficiently.
>
> But at this stage, I think we need the flexibility to figure out what
> vocabularies work, and which don't. Kudos to the Royal Library of
> Sweden, the National Library of Hungary, the Deutschen
> Nationalbibliothek for kicking the tires, and giving URLs to the
> things libraries care about. Hopefully we'll see more library software
> companies recognize the business opportunity here.
>
The DNB is doing some fabulous work with RDA, including entering German
language translations of the prefLabels and definitions--really some
good proof that we don't have to settle for English-only anymore. (See:
http://metadataregistry.org/schemapropel/list/schema_property_id/112.html and
the RDF: http://rdvocab.info/roles/cinematographer.rdf -- and yes, we
know the human display is sub-optimal, but we're working on that).
Diane
> //Ed
>
> [1] http://www.loc.gov/marc/RDAinMARC29.html
> [2] http://www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/news/lcwg-ontherecord-jan08-final.pdf
> [3] http://www.w3.org/1999/11/11-WWWProposal/thenandnow
>
>
Received on Tue Apr 20 2010 - 13:39:46 EDT