[open-bibliography] Proposed definition for /book/book

Thu Jul 1 11:24:02 UTC 2010

Thanks Tom,

Hi Owen.  The purpose of the exercise that Anne is driving is to fine
> tune the Freebase type descriptions to match the actual usage, not
> make substantive changes.  What you're seeing is reflective of the
> scheme that's in use today.
>
Thanks for clarifying - that's useful to know.

> On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 4:12 AM, Owen Stephens <owen at ostephens.com> wrote:
>
> > I have to admit that I think the definition of 'book' given here is
> slightly
> > confusing as it takes a commonly used term and defines it as something
> > different.
>
> To some degree this is inevitable, because common usage is to use the
> term "book" to mean at least a couple of different things.  People use
> it to mean both the author's work as well the particular editor or
> copy in our library.  Another possible choice would be to avoid the
> use of the term altogether since it's potentially confusing, but I
> think it provides a useful anchor to help orient people.  They want
> information on "books" not "works" or "manifestations."
>
>
Agreed that book is not an unambiguous term even in daily usage, and also
agreed that most people find it helpful to think about 'books' and dropping
the term would be more confusing.

Probably my main concern is (as noted in my previous mail) that the first
part of the definition 'A book is a written work or a collection of written
works in book form.', is contradicted by other parts of the definition.

>From my perspective this first part of the definition is a good focus, and
clear. I would advocate removing those aspects that contradict this clear
statement - but it may be this has too many consequences at this stage, I
don't know.

> > Some of these issues have been discussed widely in the library community,
> > and although the conclusions there are perhaps far from perfect, it seems
> > that there is some significant overlap but with different terminology. In
> > particular I'm thinking of FRBR
> > (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_Requirements_for_Bibliographic_Records
> )
>
> The target users of the Freebase schema are everyday people, not
> librarians, which may account for some of the differences.  The
> emphasis is also on pragmatic usefulness with available data and
> available user interfaces as opposed to necessarily modeling
> everything perfectly.
>

I'm in favour of this approach - whether for librarians or others.

>
> > What you are defining here as a 'book' seems to have much in common with
> > what FRBR terms a 'work'. For me it would make a lot of sense if there
> could
> > be some work to pull this together in some way.
>
> Yes, they are basically equivalent.  I'm not sure how you'd like to
> see this pulled together.  I don't think adding a mention of FRBR is
> going to help the Freebase user who is trying to decide "What type(s)
> should I use with this data I want to enter/query?"  What actions did
> you have in mind here?
>
>
Fair question - I'm probably not sure what I mean either. I guess I was just
seeing several pieces of work that seem to be heading in the same direction
and asking the question of whether there are synergies that can be
expoited.

Owen
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