[open-bibliography] Library of Congress subject headings & RDF

Fri Jan 7 16:40:16 UTC 2011

Thanks All

My immediate reaction to MADS is that it is just far too complicated - I
can't imagine querying data in this format myself, nevermind for people less
familiar with library data. (Chris Gutteridge's post on 'The Modeller'
springs to mind http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/webteam/2010/09/02/the-modeler/
)

The question of querying the data also is something that concerns me about
treating the coordinated heading as a single heading. While I can see the
point John makes about the book not being 'about' the 20th Century, it feels
reasonable that I could write a SPARQL query on any of the individual parts
of the heading and still get the item back.

Ross's approach is the closest to the vague ideas in my mind, and feels like
it is about right in terms of the balance between pragmaticism and
precision, and seems that it would easily support the immediate types of
query that spring to my mind. So - if there is anything I can do to support
this I'm definitely interested...

However, given my current timescales I suspect that the only immediate way
forward for me is to pull out each individual subject heading to link to
id.loc.gov, and then include the coordinated string as a dc:subject literal
(I guess linking again to id.loc.gov if it has already been authorised).

Ross - I'm not on the SKOS list - do you want to copy your post over there?

Owen

On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 4:12 PM, Ross Singer <ross.singer at talis.com> wrote:

> Hi Owen,
>
> I agree that the status quo at id.loc.gov is pretty unsatisfying (on
> several levels, including this one) and this is one the things that I
> changed for lcsubjects.org in the last redesign (although it's
> certainly not "fixed" or even remotely standard - but it was intended
> to get the conversation started in this direction).
>
> Thankfully, though, your specific example works :)
>
> http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh2008109787#concept
>
> For subdivided subject headings like this, I've added a few
> properties: lcsh:coordinates, lcsh:generalSubdivision,
> lcsh:chronologicalSubdivision, lcsh:primaryConcept, etc.
>
> The RDF out of lcsubjects.org is pretty brutally verbose, but directly
> out of the Platform it looks like:
>
> http://api.talis.com/stores/lcsh-info/meta?about=http%3A%2F%2Flcsubjects.org%2Fsubjects%2Fsh2008109787%23concept&output=xml
>
> and the coordinates resource is an rdf:Seq (to preserve order):
>
>
> http://api.talis.com/stores/lcsh-info/meta?about=http%3A%2F%2Flcsubjects.org%2Fsubjects%2Fsh2008109787%23coordinates&output=xml
>
> This is still totally a work in progress (and incredibly incomplete),
> but is intended to begin to provide the sort of semantics that you're
> looking for (I think).  It also (I hope) begins to lay out a
> foundation for how LCSH is actually intended to be used (which is a
> set of building blocks).  So to take your original example,
> "650$$aPopular Music$$xHistory$$y20th Century"
>
> This could be created like:
>
> <http://example.org/book/1>
>    dcterms:subject
> <http://example.org/subjects/popular-music--history--20th-century#concept
> >.
>
> <http://example.org/subjects/popular-music--history--20th-century#concept>
>    lcsh:generalSubdivision
> <http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh99005024#concept> ;
>    lcsh:chronologicalSubdivision
> <http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh2002012476#concept>;
>    lcsh:primaryConcept <http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh85088865#concept>
> ;
>    a skos:Concept ;
>    skos:prefLabel "Popular Music--History--20th Century" ;
>    lcsh:coordinates
> <
> http://example.org/subjects/popular-music--history--20th-century#coordinates
> >
> .
>
> <
> http://example.org/subjects/popular-music--history--20th-century#coordinates
> >
>   a rdf:Seq ;
>   rdf:_1 <http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh85088865#concept> ;
>   rdf:_2 <http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh99005024#concept> ;
>   rdf:_3 <http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh2002012476#concept> .
>
> (the lcsubjects.org URIs could just as easily be id.loc.gov URIs -- it
> was just easier to cut and paste from existing data).
>
> With this, it's much easier to make our uncontrolled subject headings
> that are composites of a bunch of controlled headings.
>
> Like I said, this is pretty incomplete on lcsubjects.org, currently,
> mainly because there's a lot missing (namely the corporate names and
> random chronological subdivisions, but there are also subdivision
> terms that don't appear to be derived from an authorized heading).
> See: http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh2010007497 or
> http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh85045754 as somewhat different
> examples.
>
> The first one has a URI for Austria, but that URI returns a 404 (I
> built this from the Fred 2.0 data, so I have the NAF, I just haven't
> figured out how to incorporate it into lcsubjects.org, yet).  The
> second one shows an unauthorized chronological subdivision -- so,
> currently, it just drops it.
>
> Here's another example:  http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh85134593#concept
>
> this should use: http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh99005746#concept as
> the general subdivision -- but that's an altLabel, so it's currently
> failing (as you can see, this is wrought with frustations!).
>
> Another mind bender: http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh2010106574#concept
>
> This one chokes, because "Polyglot" isn't an authorized term (instead
> it should be using http://lcsubjects.org/subjects/sh85037700#concept
> -- "Dictionaries, Polyglot") and was created after Fred 2.0 (3.5 years
> after!), so I don't have access to the MARC authority record to
> properly look things up (not that it would help me in this case,
> anyway [1]).
>
> So, to try to bring this on home..., I think there are solutions (and
> linked data solutions) to this, but LC is doing very little to enable
> it.  If they'd provide the original MARC as a format for the concepts,
> that would be a start -- but, honestly, without all of the data
> available (including the NAF), this is going to be half-baked.
>
> So, anyway, thanks for prompting me to write a bit about this :)
> Probably worth forwarding to the SKOS list, as well.
>
> -Ross.
>
> [1] Here's the MARC record for Plastics--Dictionaries--Polyglot:
> 000     00476cz a2200169n 450
> 001     8244985
> 005     20100420002715.0
> 008     100413|| anannbabn |n ana
> 035     __ |a (DLC)464428
> 035     __ |a (DLC)sh2010106574
> 906     __ |t 8888 |u tc00 |v 0
> 010     __ |a sh2010106574
> 040     __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC
> 150     __ |a Plastics |v Dictionaries |x Polyglot
> 667     __ |a Record generated for validation purposes.
> 670     __ |a Work cat.: Fachwörterbuch Kunststofftechnik, c1992
> 953     __ |a tc00
>
> so there's still not an obvious way to know that one should be looking
> for Dictionaries, Polyglot.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 7:18 AM, Owen Stephens <owen at ostephens.com> wrote:
> > Can anyone point me at (or advise me on) examples of representing subject
> > heading fields from a library catalogue record as RDF. Specifically I'm
> > interested in how chained sets of subject headings are represented.
> > E.g. a library catalogue record might have a heading:
> > 650$$aPopular Music$$xHistory$$y20th Century
> > Each one of these headings:
> > Popular Music
> > History
> > 20th Century
> > will have a SKOS representation on id.loc.gov, but to represent each
> heading
> > separately as a dc:subject (or similar) would lose the context of
> chaining
> > them together.
> > There are some entries on id.loc.gov that represent some 'chains' (those
> > that have been 'authorised') -
> > e.g. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/sh2008109787#concept is 'Popular
> > Music--History and Criticism' - but for me this doesn't feel quite right
> -
> > doesn't this lose some of the flexibility of the faceted scheme?
> > I'm wondering about something similar to the way BIBO handles author
> lists
> > (you can both represent each author, and the list of authors, including
> > order)
> > Thanks,
> > Owen
> > --
> > Owen Stephens
> > Owen Stephens Consulting
> > Web: http://www.ostephens.com
> > Email: owen at ostephens.com
> >
>
> > _______________________________________________
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> > open-bibliography at lists.okfn.org
> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-bibliography
> >
> >
>
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-- 
Owen Stephens
Owen Stephens Consulting
Web: http://www.ostephens.com
Email: owen at ostephens.com
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