In the light of this discussion I would like to point you to the work we have been doing with the British Library's BNB dataset as Linked Data [1].
The different roles of dates that have been discussed so far, all come down to the fact that a date has no real relationship directly to a bibliographic resource. The date is actually related to an _event_ in the lifetime of the resource (the thing we are holding in our hands as we talk about it).
If you have a look at a sample resource [2] (and follow through some links) you can see that the British Library has started to look at how they can link out to other resources such as viaf and lcsh.
[1] http://consulting.talis.com/2011/07/british-library-data-model-overview/
[2] http://bnb.data.bl.uk/doc/resource/013300954
Tim
Tim Hodson
Technical consultant at Talis Consulting.
http://consulting.talis.com
On 26 Jul 2011, at 18:00, "Kevil, L H." <KevilL_at_MISSOURI.EDU> wrote:
> This discussion has become rather interesting, and not just to textual fanatics like Laval & me.
>
> It appears that we are staring semantic web issues in the face and only seeing an enhanced catalogue record. I see freezing a date for Plato's Republic in a catalogue record as a perhaps desirable but rather questionable exercise, particularly when scholars are divided and they perhaps haven't even got the century right?
>
> Let's back off the question of which date and ask what purpose a date in a catalogue record serves? And then what purpose does mentioning the translator and editor? Does it all not boil down to this: it all depends on the context of the researcher and the nature of the material, none of which are knowable in advance and all subject to variability change.
>
> So isn't the issue really how the library community can implement in our catalogues Berners-Lee's fourth rule of linked data: "Include links to other URIs" to enable new discovery? I don't know how this could be done, but would really like to find out.
>
> E.g. When it comes to Dostoevsky I prefer Constance Garnett to David Magarshack. But what I really want to know is whether there is some other fantastic translation out there or how much justification there is for the belief that Dostoevsky's Russian translates better into French than English, or for that matter that ancient Greek translates better into German than English or French. Issues like these whiz go through my head when I am considering selecting a book for check out or purchase, particularly when the scholarly issues are outside my discipline. Opening library catalogue records to the semantic web seems indispensable.
>
> Hunter
>
> L. Hunter Kevil, Ph.D.
> Collection Development Librarian
> University of Missouri Libraries
>
> kevill_at_missouri.edu
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of James Weinheimer
> Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 11:10 AM
> To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] dates
>
> On 26/07/2011 17:37, Laval Hunsucker wrote:
> <snip>
>> Yes, _dates_ !
>>
>> Interesting issue. The kind of thing you mention can indeed be
>> annoying. Perhaps even more so in the case of something like, say, the
>> Epic of Gilgamesh, 2001 :-).
>>
>> But *which*, and how many, dates would or should a catalog record give
>> ? And how ?
> </snip>
>
> FRBR provides date attributes for the work, expression and manifestation, but strangely, not for the item--something I am sure that makes sense somehow but the reasoning has always escaped me. It seems that if there is anything you really could provide a date for, it should be for the physical item you can hold in your hand. But... ?
>
> I've always thought that traditional cataloging and MARC were relatively poor on dates, since there are lots of possible dates for metadata, including effective date of research (although something is published in 2011, the actual work on the resource finished in 2008 or 2009).
>
> A lot depends on what you want the catalog to do. Currently, it is designed along Cutter's guidelines (from 1876!) http://library.music.indiana.edu/tech_s/manuals/training/catalog/cutter.html.
> Objective 3H was always sort of lost in the discussion, but the catalog certainly is designed to do everything else there.
>
> When we add more "objectives" onto this list, the whole edifice begins to groan. For instance, a question such as "What do you have by 19th-century women authors from Holland?" (a more realistic question from a patron instead of others I have read) cannot be answered by the traditional catalog since it is not designed to do so. Best would be to suggest for people to browse the shelves for 19th century Dutch literature, looking for female names, but browsing has its own problems and this would not be using the catalog, but the arrangement of books.
> The absolute best would be *IF* you could find a reference work that lists women authors from the 19th century in Holland and to search each one from the list. In other words, suggest that the users do lots of work.
>
> That is the traditional answer, but today it is possible for different databases to interoperate, so that a database of authors, limited to Holland, 19th century, female, could work in conjunction with our catalogs, or another database that may have the dates of specific works, such as Gilgamesh or Homer.
>
> Catalogers no longer have to do everything from scratch--their systems can work with all kinds of other projects out there. This is what a next-generation library catalog should do, and, I think that if a database does not already exist, there would be many people from the scholarly community and/or the general citizenry who would be very happy to help create these kinds of databases.
>
> --
> James Weinheimer weinheimer.jim.l@gmail.com First Thus: http://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/
> Cooperative Cataloging Rules: http://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/
Received on Tue Jul 26 2011 - 14:09:54 EDT