Table Of ContentISBD adaptation to SW of
bibliographic data in linked data
ElenaEscolanoRodrìguez
Introduction
Theachievementofanybusinessmodeldependsontheusers’be-
lief,theconceptisknownas”trueeconomy”;1 beliefintruthand
in the quality of data will be the best investment in the future of
ubiquity. Consequently,theemphasiswillbeonthequalityofthis
information. Indeeditisveryimportantitiscontrolledandtruthful.
Inthiscontextthesourceofinformationisarelevantvalue,given
that it is the source that lends authority to data. If expressed as
linkeddata,theinformationwhichhasatlengthbeenselected,con-
trolled,validated,recordedandstructuredinculturalinstitutions
aslibraries’databases,willcertainlytakeonanimportantrole. In
thisway,libraries,museums,andarchivescanretakeaprominent
positionontheweb;theyhavetraditionallyselected,structuredand
organizedinformationandhaveatthesametimecontributedtocon-
vertinformationintoqualitydata. Nowadays,theneedtoprovide
accesstobothintegratedheterogeneousknowledgeanddistributed
homogeneousknowledgeinseveraldomainsisconsiderablygrow-
1http://www.chiefmartec.com/2010/03/business-models-for-linked-data-and-web-30.
html.
JLIS.it.Vol.4,n.1(Gennaio/January2013).
DOI:10.4403/jlis.it-6305
E.EscolanoRodrìguez,ISBDadaptationtoSW...
ing. Theobjectiveistousethewebasasingleglobaldatabase,so
thelinkeddatetoolwillallowforthisglobalweb. Itisnecessaryto
recognizetheeverincreasingimportanceattachedtothediscovery
ofobjectsbothdigitalandnot. Therefore, thedatathatdescribes
the objects should be available there where users are, integrated
inaglobalwebwhichmeanstheyshouldbeopenandasaresult
reusable. Inthelastyearsthesemanticwebcloudhasincreasedin
asignificantway. Thisisconfirmedbythegrowthoccurredfrom
2007to2010anduptoSeptember2011;2 therisebecomesevident
observingthegraphsinthegreenpart,concerningthepublications
domain. Thisphenomenonunderlinestheimportanceforlibrary
communitytohavetheirstructuredandcontrolleddataavailable
onthewebwiththisnewtool. Consequently,forlibrariesthiswill
represent:3
• theextensibilityandtheintegrationoftheirdatawiththose
ofotherinstitutions,withtheconsequentincreaseofinforma-
tionthatuserscanretrieve;inthiswayitwouldbepossible
to complete, aggregate and link the library data with other
structuredinformationindifferentways,inaccordancewith
otherstandards. Theintegrationcanguaranteeagreaterand
betterservicetotheuser,notonlybyvirtueoftheinvolvement
ofmuseumsandarchivesbutthankstothecollaborationwith
newcentresandinstitutions,orwithotherproductsandin-
formationsources;thisprocesswouldallowthewidespread
diffusionofinformationrecordedbylibrariesandtheintegra-
tionwithotherwebsegments,suchasWikipedia,Geonames,
etc.;
2http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/lod-datasets_2011-09-19_colored.
html.
3LinkedDataIncubatorGroupwiki:http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/
wiki/Draft_Benefitsandhttp://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/wiki/Benefits.
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• thecompliancewithrequestsforpublicadministrationtrans-
parency;thelibrariesofpublicinstitutionscouldtakecharge,
upfront,oftheplanningandcoordinationofthispoliticalac-
tion,avoidingduplicationsofprojectswithinthesamesector
which should be linked to each other. In this process the li-
brariescouldtakeonarealcrucialrole;
• thesemanticunderstandingoflibrarylanguage,sofarquite
unclear for the users, can contribute to optimise the results
obtainedduringthesearchandconsequentlythewholelibrary
services;
• the possibility of presenting the search results in the user’s
language. Inthefuture,itwillallow,oratleastmakeiteasier,
todefinelargecooperationareas,thankstotheautomaticcon-
versioninthelinguisticformacceptedbyaspecificcommunity.
Theseapplicationswillalsoconcernandimprovethemulti-
lingualcooperativecataloguing,thatistherecordscouldbe
createdandpresentedinonelanguagewithoutthenecessity
ofcreatinganew”record”.
IFLA contribute
The work carried out by the IFLA ISBD Review Group has also
been carried bearing in mind this scope: making available in the
cloudtheinformationstoredinourdatabase,orasexplainedinthe
consolidateISBDeditionatparagraph”A.1.2Scope”: ”improving
theportabilityofbibliographicdatainthesemanticwebandcon-
sequentlytheinteroperabilityoftheISBDstandardinconnection
withothercontentstandards(InternationalFederationofLibrary
AssociationsandInstitutions.ISBDReviewGroupandInternational
FederationofLibraryAssociationsandInstitutions. Cataloguing
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E.EscolanoRodrìguez,ISBDadaptationtoSW...
Section. Standing Committee p. 1). Linked data is necessary for
participatinginthewebofdata,butfortakingpartinthesemantic
web,puttingdataonthewebandlinkthemisnotenough: there
areothernecessaryrequirementswhich,accordingtoBerners-Lee
(“LinkedData-DesignIssues”),are:
1. using URI for identifying or referring to sources. The URI
(Uniform Resource Identifier) is the characters set used to
indicateunivocallythenamesoftheresourcesontheweband
areexpressedinamachine-readableform;
2. using HTTP URIs, so that the user can look for and locate
resourcesthroughthem(thisiscalleddereferencing)
3. providing useful information about the resource when we
searchitwithURI,usingstandards(forexampleRDF,SPARQL);
4. includinglinkswithotherURIsforfindingoutlinkedinfor-
mation.
Thestudiesonthesemanticwebarespecificallyfocusedonformal
ontologies,thatis,thelogicalstructureinwhichthesemanticofa
particulardomainisorganized. Aimingatintegratingandmanag-
ingtheknowledgeofthisdispersedinformation,theresearchhas
alsocontributedtofacilitaterelationshipsbetweenontologies,speci-
fyingtheircontextclarifyhowwidespreadknowledgeisrelatedto
severalresources. Someinformationcanbeautomaticallycaptured
andinformationrelatedtothesourcecanexplainthecontext. Soit
canbereducedthepresenceofnon-intentionedorunwantedmean-
ing in the ontology, obtaining a greater clearness and facilitating
theanalysisandthesearch. Inorderthelibrariesparticipateinthe
semanticweb,itwasnecessarytocreatetheontologythatreflectthe
logicalstructureofthelibrarydomain,providingusefulinformation
to make it understandable. Particularly, in the library field there
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wasmuchworkdoneondefinitionofacommonwellstructured
and standardized basis, represented by IFLA very much consol-
idated standards, which ensure quality, exchange capability and
sustainability. This regulation encourages the right development
ofthesemanticweb,becausestandardsareimportantcomponents
forlinkeddata. IFLA’scontributionandparticipationtothispro-
cessisjustifiednotonlybecausetheutilityandtheimportanceit
hasforlibrariesbutalsoforadditionalreasons: itwasconsidered
essentialtoprotecttheownterminology,atthesametimespecifying
thecontextandtheoriginofthemetadata(thatisaveryimportant
issueinlinkeddata). Inaddition,forISBDitwasamainobjective
torepositiontheIFLAstandardanditsvalueasimportanttoolfor
thedeliveryandreuseofstructuredauthorizedbibliographicdata
intheInternetenvironment. IFLAhascarriedoutseveralactions.
Firstofall,itdecidedtodeclareitsownmodelsandstandardsin
the Resource Description Framework (RDF). It was followed the
recommendation,bytheadvisorGordonDunsire,totheFRBRRe-
viewGroupin2008,andtotheISBDReviewGroupin2009. Its
applicationwasdecidedandauthorizedduringthatmeetingofthe
ISBDReviewGroup,attheIFLAConferenceheldinMilanin2009.
Work started on the declaration of ISBD set of elements in RDF,
inordertopresentandbesubmittedtoIFLACataloguingSection
forapprovalaspartoftheISBDconsolidatededitionof2011. For
suchpurpose,itwasnecessarytocreateanamespacethatwould
properlyidentifytheURIsofRDFdeclarationsbyIFLAforitsown
modelsandstandards,whatwasrecommendedinthe2008report.
Therecommendationconsistedinprotectingelements,termsand
definitionsrelatedtotheIFLAmodelsandstandards,usingasort
ofbrand,tosavethemfromunlikeinterpretationsfromotherstan-
dards. Thisactionhelpedalsotoachievewhathasbeenmentioned
beforerelatedtothebusinessmodel,inwhichbasistoobtainresults
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orindirectbenefits,itisnecessarythisqualitybrand. Tocarryout
thiswork,studyandelaborationaNamespaceGroup,coordinated
since2009byGordonDunsire,wascreatedwithinIFLAwiththe
objectiveofmanagementoftheIFLAstandardsdeclarations. When
establishingthenamespace,severalissuesweretakenintoaccount.
Thenamespacehadtobeclear,short,expandedandapplicableto
eachmodelandstandard. ItwasdecidedtoadopttheURLform
(which begins with http://...), that in the future may be derefer-
enced,inordertoretrievetheRDFortheHTMLfilewhentheURI
isprocessedasanordinaryURL.Oncethedecisionwasmade,the
focuswasonthenamespacestructure: itwasdecidedtoadoptthis
qualitymark: http://iflastandards.info,consideringthepotentiality
ofURLtobeintelligiblebothforcomputersandhumans. Following,
theabbreviationsofthestandardreferredwouldbeidentified,such
asforinstance: http://iflastandards.info/ns/isbd/elements. Then
itshouldbeconsideredhowtoidentifytheelementintheURI.URIs
can contain letters and numbers. It could be useful to remember
thatURIisspecificallydefinedformachineunderstanding,itisnot
alabelintendedfortheuserevenifitcanguidehim. Infact, the
context of an element could be briefly identified with one word
butatriskofmisleadinghimtobelievethistextualinformationis
similartoalabel: thelabelinitselfisnotsufficient,theprogrammer,
thehumanbeing,hastoreadthefulldeclarationcorrespondingto
theURIwithitsdefinitionforthecorrectapplication. Duetothese
reasonsdebatedatIFLAGeneralConferenceheldinGothenburgin
2010,afterwhichitwasdecidedthatURIswouldbeopaque,with-
outreferencetoaspecificlanguage,becauseIFLAhastorecognize
andencouragethemultilingualism;therefore,inordertoguarantee
linguisticneutrality,anumericalsolutionshouldbeadopted. An
opaque URI would also extend its use to linguistic communities
differentfromtheEnglishonesensuring,atthesametime,accessto
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theseontologiesinotherlanguageswithoutthenecessityofcreating
independentURIs. Thedeclarationscontainimportantinformation
such as metadata name, label, definition, notes used for extend-
ing the information or its application, the filiation (whether it is
propertyorsub-property),thestateofacceptance,etc. Theutility
of translationaffects definitions, notesand alsothe labels. Using
an opaque URI and specifying the language in which you desire
to obtain the information, it is possible to collect all declarations
in different languages with the same URI. If an opaque URI had
notbeenused,itwouldhavebeennecessarytocreateoneforeach
languagetobeafterwardslinkedtotheothersas”sameas”. The
problems related to translation will be further developed bellow.
Thelabelsrefermoretothecomprehensionoftheprogrammerthan
tothemachine;itwasnecessarytodisambiguateandadaptthem
because the relations present in FRBR are coincident for several
entities(inRDFclasses)soitwasnecessarytospecifythedomain
oftherelationship;andalsoinsomecasesitwasnotcleartherela-
tionshiporientation(therangeinRDF).ForexampleinItalian: ”ha
comeformavariante”isarelationship(propertyorsubpropertyfor
RDF)whichcanbeappliedbothtotheentity/class”Person”and
”CorporateBody”. Thereforeitwasnecessarytoaddinformationin
brackets,toidentifymorespecificallytheclasseswhichtheproper-
tiesbelongandthedirectionoftherelationship. BothFRBRmodels
andISBDstandardincludecontrolledvocabularies. Intheformer
caseitconsistoftheuser’staskswhileintheISBDcorrespondtothe
termsusedforArea0: : Contentformandmediatype. Vocabularies
wereidentifiedbycompletingtheURIwiththeexpression”terms”
http://iflastandards.info/ns/isbd/terms/andthenotationwhich
indicatestheconcretetermofthenormalizedvocabulary. Itstands
evidentthatthevocabulary,whichisrecordedinthelanguageof
the cataloguing agency, would be simply converted into another
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languagewhentherecordortheinformationiscapturedbyother
agency, especially in a cooperative environment, in a controlled,
normalizedandautomaticmanner. Inthisway,itisalsopossible
tomaporcreatecorrespondenceswithsimilarvocabulariesbutnot
structuredinthesameway;asforexamplewiththeResourceDe-
scription&Access(RDA)vocabularyusedtodescribecontentand
support: ContentTypeandMediaType. Howeverthisisnotpossi-
blewithoutproblemsforestablishinganequivalencerelationshipof
”sameas”type,because,insomecases,thereisnotatotalcorrespon-
dence1=1. UntilnowthesedeclarationshavebeenmadeinOpen
MetadataRegistry,whichaspacecreatedbytheW3Ciscontaining
severalontologiesaboutdifferentdomains,butinthefutureitwill
bepossibletotransferthesedeclarationtoaspecificsectioninthe
IFLAwebsitewheretheycanbehostedandmanaged. Regarding
thesustainabilityandmaintenanceoftheIFLANamespaceissill
andissueoncourse.
Multilingualism development
The basis for the semantic web is basically in English, which has
worryingconsequencesaboutculturalandlinguisticdiversity. Even
if English is recognized a IFLA working language, there are also
othersixofficiallanguagesthatrequirethedevelopmentofmulti-
lingualism. ThefirstissueoftheISBD/XMLWorkingGroupplan,
approvedinNovember2011,statestheintentionofpromotingthe
translation of ISBD and the declarations in OMR, in addition of
thedefinitionofguidelinesfortranslators. Frommyparticipation,
onseveraloccasions,indebatesconcerningthetranslationofIFLA
declarations,Iamgoingtohighlightsomeissuesthataffectmany
Latin languages such as Spanish, Italian, Croatian, Slovenian etc.
Thesignificanttopicsdiscussedarethefollowing:
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Styleissues
Asfaraslabelsareconcerned,thereisagoodpractice,drawnfrom
some communities of the semantic web, to use capital letters for
classes names in RDF. Moreover, in English, words are joined to-
gether, what is called CamelCase, for instance the ISBD subclass:
ParallelTitleCompoundEncodingScheme,butthisisnotpossibleto
applytoSpanish. Insomecasestheuseofcapitalletterscouldbe
accepted,evenforprepositionswhiletheconjunctionwithoutspace
is not accepted. Therefore, in Spanish it was accepted the use of
capitallettersforthefirstletterofthefirstwordorforeveryword,
butwithoutjoiningthewords. Anotherissueregardstheproperty
labels: theyarealwaysverbalphrases. Infacttheiraimistoserveas
predicateintheRDFtripleRDF:Subject–Predicate–Object. With
respecttoLatinalphabetsaccordingtothebestpracticesusedforthe
semanticwebcommunity,itisrecommendedtowriteinlowercase.
Fromthebeginningitwasadoptedtheconventiontoavoid,asfaras
possible,tousetheindefinitearticles,whenpossible,withtheaimof
normalizingandreducingthelengthofthelabels. Likewise,when
havingtochoosebetweenthesingularandplural,itwaspreferred
tousethesingular,wheneverpossible. Thesedecisionswerealso
appliedduringthecreationoftheISBDsetofelements,sincethe
standardswerebeingrevisedatthattime.
Sourcesofreference
IntheRDFdatamodel,thesourceofreference,thetextofthestan-
dard, is essential for programmers and developers; indeed, they
could use and consult it as an additional aid to make a better se-
manticcontextualizationoftheproperty. Fromthestart,adecision
takenbytheFRBRReviewGroupwasthatlabels,definitionsand
scope notes of the RDF’s framework would be kept aligned and
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matched, as possible, with the text of FRBR; this would have the
advantageofallowingnaturallanguageprocessing. Inparticular,
labels would have match with the text accepted in the standard;
concerningdefinitions,theiralignmentwiththetextisimportant,
eveniffewmodificationsarerequiredtoadjustittothecontextand
making it understandable, that is, they will be as extracts; in the
caseofscopenotesmoreflexibilityinthecompilingisalsoallowed.
Atthebeginning,astherewasnoexperienceonwhichtobaseour
work, the way we decided to follow for translating into Spanish
thesedispositions(labels,definitions,notes),wasinevitablytheir
literaltranslationfromtheEnglishversion. Thisdecisionpresented
lotofproblemsforthecomprehensionofthetextinthelanguage
oftranslation,Spanish,and,atthesametime,fortherespecttothe
officialstandardtext. Inthecaseoflabels,forexample,itwasneces-
sarytoaddprepositionstohelpinterpretingtheproperties,which
werenotintheEnglishversionoftheFRBRreport. Wecontinuedto
workinthiswayforawhile. However,afterfacingmanysituations,
partially already cited, which were useful as forced the group to
reconsidercertainissuesanddecisions. As,forexample,itwascon-
sideredthattheSpanishdeveloperswouldhavepreferredtousethe
officialSpanishtranslationoftheFRBRreportasreferencesource
and,therefore,thedeclarationswouldhavetoalignwiththeofficial
Spanishversion,insteadoftheEnglishone. Thatrevokedtheinitial
decisiontobasetheSpanishtranslationoftheRDFdeclarationson
thatavailableinEnglish,alwaysavoidingthesemanticambiguity.
Two solutions arised: If available, we would have to use the offi-
cialtranslationofthereferencesourceforthedeclarationinRDF,
andifnotpresent,itwouldbenecessarytobasethetranslationson
theEnglishdeclarations,concerninglabels,definitionsandscope
notes. Obviously,iftranslationsofreferencesources(standardand
models) are not updated represent other serious problem. Even
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