FRSAD: Challenges of Modelling the Aboutness

Maja ŽumerUniversity of Ljubljana

Slovenia

(based on the work of the FRSAD WG)

Cologne, July 20. 2010 2

The FRBR family

• FRBR: conceptual model of the biblographic universe– Focus on Group 1(products of

intellectual endeavour)

• FRAD: extension of FRBR – Focus on authority data (Group 2

and works)

• FRSAD: extension of FRBR– Focus on the subject relationship

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FRSAD WG established in 2005

• Marcia Lei Zeng, USA, Chair • Maja Žumer, Slovenia, Co-Chair• Athena Salaba, USA, Co-Chair, secretary • Leda Bultrini, Italy• Lois Mai Chan, USA• Gerhard Riesthuis, The Netherlands • Diane Vizine-Goetz, USA• Ekaterina Zaytseva, Russia• Jonathan Furner, USA• Edward O’Neill, USA

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Terms of Reference• to build a conceptual model of Group 3

entities within the FRBR framework as they relate to the aboutness of works,

• to provide a clearly defined, structured frame of reference for relating the data that are recorded in subject authority records to the needs of the users of those records, and

• to assist in an assessment of the potential for international sharing and use of subject authority data both within the library sector and beyond.

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Challenges of subject access

• Is it possible to objectively determine the topic(s) of each work?

• In what context will the users need a particular work in the future?

• Granularity of topics• Specificity of topics• How to represent the subject of a work?• How will the user formulate the query?• Different knowledge organisation systems

• Subject searching is difficult for users

User tasks FRSAD:

Find

Identify

Select

Explore

FRBR :

Find

Identify

Select

Obtain

FRAD:

Find

Identify

Contextualize

Justify

Products of intellectual or

artistic endeavours

An additional set of entities that serve as

the subjects of works

Agents related to Group 1

.

Extension of FRBR Figure 3.3 "Group 3 entities and 'subject' relationships"

Family added by FRAD

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FRBR Group 3 entities….This part of the model has been

criticized, because it does not include time and does not cover well activities and processes (e.g., Heaney, 1997; Delsey, T. 2005)

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Study and DiscussionsDifferent scenarios discussed: • Keep FRBR Group 3 entities and only

analyse attributes and relationships. • Add time to the FRBR list.• Take Ranganathan’s facets as the basis.• Take <indecs> as the basis. • Make a pragmatic list of entities. One

example is the one by Buizza and Guerrini

• Propose something new

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Two small tests:Four students and faculty members at

Kent State Library school classified existing subject terms used by the NSDL (National Science Digital Library) contributors. These include 3 thousand terms assigned based on a variety of subject vocabularies and free keywords.

Professor Lois Chan classified the subject headings from LCSH she included in her books.

They classified terms into six categories: ‘concrete stuff’, ‘abstract stuff’, ‘event’, ‘time’, ‘place’, and ‘other’

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Test Results

• Blurred distinction between concrete and abstract

• Confusion about proper names• Terms are put into ‘other’ category

• This categorisation is not generally applicable or useful

• There is no generally applicable categorisation

Kent & Dublin meetings, 2006-12

Thema is all the things that could be “subject of” work, including Group 1, Group 2, and Group 3 (=Other)

Group 2

Group1

Other

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FRSAD– generalisation of FRBR

FRSAD

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Nomen: any alpha numeric, sound, visual etc. symbol or combination of symbols by which a thema is known, referred to or addressed as

Thema: anything that can be subject of a work

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Nomens 1-8

Nomen 9

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Types of thema

Depending on the implementation (domain and/or KOS), thema is categorised

• FRBR: object, concept, event, place, +…

• Class and instance• Medicine: medical condition,

symptom, treatment, substance…• …

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Nomen attributes (include but not

limited to) – Type of nomen (identifier, controlled name, …)*– Scheme (LCSH, DDC, UDC, ULAN, ISO 8601…) – Reference Source of nomen (Encyclopedia

Britannica…)– Representation of nomen (alphanumeric, sound,

visual,...)– Language of nomen (English, Japanese, Slovenian,…)– Script of nomen (Cyrillic, Thai, Chinese-simplified,…)– Script conversion (Pinyin, ISO 3601, Romanisation of

Japanese…)– Form of nomen (full name, abbreviation, formula…)– Time of validity of nomen (until xxxx, after xxxx,

from… to …)– Audience (English-speaking users, scientists, children

…)– Status of nomen (provisional, accepted, official,...) *note: examples of attribute values in parenthesis

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Types of nomen

• Identifier (persistent and unique within a domain)

• Controlled name (constructed in authority control/vocabulary maintenance process, which usually serves as access point) (note: called Controlled access point in FRAD)

• Implementation-specific types, e.g.:– Defined by originating system– Defined by language– ….

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Thema relationshipsGeneral relationships between themas (applicable to all types)

• Hierarchical– Partitive– Generic– Instance– Polyhierarchical

• Associative (=other)

Other thema-to-thema relationships are implementation-dependent

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Nomen relationships

• Partitive• Equivalence

Equivalence can be specified further, e.g.:

• Replaces/is replaced by• Has variant form/is variant form• Has derivation/is derived from

– Has acronym/is acronym– Has abbreviation/is abbreviation– Has transliterated form/is transliteration

thema –thema relations

place as thema

place as thema

nomensnomens

thema types (place-specific)

nomen –nomen relations

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The importance of the THEMA-NOMEN model

• Separating what are usually called concepts (or topics, subjects, classes [of concepts]) from what they are known by, referred to, or addressed as

• A general abstract model, not limited to any particular domain or implementation

• Potential for interoperability within the library field and beyond

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Issues identified in the review1. Terminology2. Too abstract – difficult3. Is not taylored specifically to

the library community (LSCH?)

4. Complexity

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Issue 1: Choice of terms

“Latin is oldfashioned/confusing/pretentious”

• Different and overlapping meaning of ‘subject’, ‘topic’, ‘concept’

• Different views on granularity• ‘Name’ was understood as ‘proper name’

Therefore:• Terms from Latin that do not have to be

translated and are not loaded with other meanings

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Issue 2: Too abstract

“FRSAD is too general and abstract”

• Traditionally no explicit conceptual models

• Modelling is difficult• Detailed rules vs. an abstract model

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Issue 3: Not specific to libraries

“No direct relationship with the current cataloguing practice”– Original FRBR entities (+time?)– LCSH

• Interoperability beyond the library domain

• Application profiles should be developed

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Issue 4: Complexity is not modelled“The model should be developed to

explicitly cover simple and complex themas”

• What does ‘complexity’ refer to?• Usually nomen• There is no general ‘atomic level’ thema• Complexity, rules (e.g. precoordination)

depending on the KOS or language

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Current status

• Document submitted• Available on IFLANET (

http://www.ifla.org/en/node/1297)• Accepted for publication a few

days ago

Next step: • Harmonisation