UNIMARC and linked data Gordon Dunsire and Mirna

UNIMARC and linked data Gordon Dunsire and Mirna Willer Presented at Session 187 (Advancing UNIMARC: alignment and innovation) of the World Library and Information Congress : 77 th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, 13 -18 August 2011, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Overview • Background • Linked data and the Semantic Web • Methods and issues in representing UNIMARC for the Semantic Web • Recommendations

Background • Representation of IFLA standards for use in the Semantic Web – Work of the FRBR Namespaces project and IFLA Namespaces Task Group – Work of the ISBD/XML Study Group • Included a feasibility study of representation of UNIMARC • Representations allow legacy catalogue records to be published as linked data using RDF • Branding IFLA standards for authority & trust – Semantic Web lets “Anyone say Anything about Any resource”

Linked data and RDF • Resource Description Framework (RDF) • Designed for machine-processing of metadata at global scale (Semantic Web) – 24/7/365 – Trillions of operations per second • Everything must be dis-ambiguated – Machines are dumb • A simple approach helps! – Machine-readable identifiers

RDF triple • Metadata expressed as “atomic” statements – A simple, single, irreducible statement • The title of this book is “Cataloguing is fun!” • Constructed in 3 parts – “Triple” • The title of this book is “Cataloguing is fun!” – Subject of the statement = Subject: This book – Nature of the statement = Predicate: has title – Value of the statement = Object: “Cataloguing is fun!” • This book – has title – “Cataloguing is fun!” – subject – predicate - object

Machine-readable identifiers • Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) – Can be any unique combination of numbers and letters • No intrinsic meaning; it’s just an identifier • RDF requires the subject and predicate of triple to be URIs – Object can be a URI, or a literal string (“Cataloguing is fun!”) • URIs can be matched by machine to link triples together

UNIMARC element identifiers Element: Number (ISBN) Tag: 010 1 st ind. : b 2 nd (Unique ind. : bin element Subfield: set) a Coded Information Block: Target audience code 100 bba (Unique in element set) Character position: 17 -19 Target audience vocabulary: children, ages 9 -14 Code: d (Unique in vocabulary)

Vocabularies and Element sets • Controlled terminologies represented as vocabularies • UNIMARC entities, attributes, and relationships form an element set – Attributes and relationships represented as properties/predicates – Entities represented in RDF as classes • But only 1 entity in UNIMARC-B (Resource) • ISBD already has an equivalent class for Resource

UNIMARC and ISBD properties • Element identifier/URI: unimarcb: P 205 bbb – Label (English): (has) issue statement • Equivalent ISBD URI: isbd: P 1011 – Label (English): has additional edition statement • The meaning is the same, but the identifiers and labels are different • unimarcb: P 205 bbb same as isbd: P 1011 (in RDF) – Or use isbd: P 1011 instead of unimarcb: P 205 bbb

Translations • The same identifier is used for translated elements (captions, definitions, etc. ) and vocabularies (preferred terms, definitions, etc. ) • E. g. Vocabulary of 116 bba 0 = Coded data for graphics: Specific material designation

Graphics SMD translation example • • • Term identifier/URI: namespace/b Notation: b Preferred label (English): drawing Preferred label (Italian): disegno Preferred label (Portuguese): desenho Definition (English): An original visual representation (other than a print or painting). . .

Triples from UNIMARC records • Create or obtain URI for the Resource described • Obtain URI for UNIMARC tag/subfield – Direct from tag/indicators/subfield encoding • Obtain URI of value of subfield, or use a literal value – URI from vocabulary or UNIMARC Authority • Publish triple

Recommendations: Foundation • Approve the method of identifying UNIMARC elements and vocabularies. • Approve the pattern for namespaces for UNIMARC/B and /A elements and vocabularies. • Decide on initial creation and maintenance of UNIMARC elements and vocabularies in the Open Metadata Registry (OMR). • Decide between re-use of existing ISBD namespaces for UNIMARC/B or representing all UNIMARC/B elements and link to existing ISBD classes and properties as appropriate. 25/05/2021 Dunsire & Willer. UNIMARC and Linked Data, IFLA 2011 San Jose, Puerto Rico 13

Recommendations: Foundation • Investigate further the re-use of existing FRAD/FRBR and FRSAD namespaces or representing all UNIMARC/A elements and link to existing FRAD/FRBR/FRSAD classes/subclasses and properties as appropriate. • Investigate further the appropriate classes for UNIMARC/A in relation to UNIMARC/B, FRAD/FRBR and FRSAD. • Support and promote the translation of UNIMARC classes and properties in national languages. 25/05/2021 Dunsire & Willer. UNIMARC and Linked Data, IFLA 2011 San Jose, Puerto Rico 14

Recommendations: Application • Discuss and consider the requirements for Application Profiles for UNIMARC. • Check and verify the availability of SKOS representations of other external vocabularies used in UNIMARC. • Investigate and verify internal UNIMARC vocabularies for suitable SKOS representations; consider approaching the owners of external vocabularies to liaise on developing SKOS representations. 25/05/2021 Dunsire & Willer. UNIMARC and Linked Data, IFLA 2011 San Jose, Puerto Rico 15

Recommendations: Application • Investigate further the “combinatorial explosion” of UNIMARC properties; determine if some combinations are invalid and do not require a separate property. • Consider and approve the re-use of aggregated ISBD elements which are represented in RDF using Syntax encoding schemes (SES), which will avoid the need for developing UNIMARC equivalents. • Monitor relevant MARC 21 developments, especially the Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative recently announcement by the Library of Congress. 25/05/2021 Dunsire & Willer. UNIMARC and Linked Data, IFLA 2011 San Jose, Puerto Rico 16

Thank you • gordon@gordondunsire. com • mwiller@unizd. hr