The UNIMARC in RDF project:
namespaces and linked data
Mirna Willer, Gordon Dunsire, Predrag
Perožić
Presented at Session 222, IFLA WLIC
2013, 22 August 2013, Singapore
The project
• Representation of UNIMARC structure and
code lists in RDF (Resource Description
Framework)
• Funded for first year by Permanent UNIMARC
Committee
– Focus on UNIMARC Bibliographic format
• Will take more than 1 year …
– Further funding required …
Constructing the element set
• “classes and attributes used to describe
entities of interest”
– W3C Library Linked Data Incubator Group
• Represented as RDF classes and properties
– In the Open Metadata Registry (OMR)
– Uploaded from spread-sheets
• Representation at finest level of granularity to
avoid loss of information
tag tagCap
210 PUBLICATION,
DISTRIBUTION,
ETC.
ind1 ind1Cap
ind2 ind2Cap
sub subCap
#
Not applicable / #
Produced in multiple a
Place of
Earliest available
copies, usually
Publication,
publisher
published or publically
Distribution,
distributed
etc.
definition
The town or other locality
where the item is published or
distributed or, in the case of a
manuscript, written.
210 PUBLICATION,
DISTRIBUTION,
ETC.
0
Intervening
publisher
#
Produced in multiple a
copies, usually
published or publically
distributed
Place of
Publication,
Distribution,
etc.
The town or other locality
where the item is published or
distributed or, in the case of a
manuscript, written.
210 PUBLICATION,
DISTRIBUTION,
ETC.
1
Current or latest
publisher
#
Produced in multiple a
copies, usually
published or publically
distributed
Place of
Publication,
Distribution,
etc.
The town or other locality
where the item is published or
distributed or, in the case of a
manuscript, written.
210 PUBLICATION,
DISTRIBUTION,
ETC.
#
Not applicable / 1
Earliest available
publisher
Not published or
publically distributed
a
Place of
Publication,
Distribution,
etc.
The town or other locality
where the item is published or
distributed or, in the case of a
manuscript, written.
210 PUBLICATION,
DISTRIBUTION,
ETC.
0
Intervening
publisher
1
Not published or
publically distributed
a
Place of
Publication,
Distribution,
etc.
The town or other locality
where the item is published or
distributed or, in the case of a
manuscript, written.
210 PUBLICATION,
DISTRIBUTION,
ETC.
1
Current or latest
publisher
1
Not published or
publically distributed
a
Place of
Publication,
Distribution,
etc.
The town or other locality
where the item is published or
distributed or, in the case of a
manuscript, written.
URI
U21011a
Label
Place of publication … in Publication, distribution,
etc. (Current or latest publisher) (Not published …)
Semantic information embedded in content
200 1#$aBibliographica belgica
$fCommission belge de bibliographie
$f= Belgische Commissie voor bibliografie
U2001_f : First Statement of Responsibility
“= “ : Parallel
??? : Parallel First Statement of Responsibility
UNIMARC Alignment with ISBD
UNIMARC
Property Label
U200__a Title proper
ISBD
A Property Label
= P1004 has title proper
<>
P1117 has title of
individual work by
same author
P1137 has common title
of title proper
Alignment is equal, broader, and narrower!
Value vocabularies
• “thesauri, code lists, term lists, classification
schemes, subject heading lists, …”
– W3C Library Linked Data Incubator Group
• Often represented in RDF using Simple
Knowledge Organization System (SKOS)
110 (CODED DATA FIELD: CONTINUING RESOURCES)
$a (Continuing Resource Coded Data)
Attribute
Character
position
Type designator
0
Frequency of issue l
Regularity
2
U110__a0
U110__a1
Value
Notes
c
a
a
newspaper
daily
regular
U110__a2
Property URI = Subfield URI + Character position
“daily”@en
unimarcb:U110__a0
resource:
123
unimarcb:U110__a1
unimarcb:U110__a2
“giornaliera”@it
crtype:
c
reg:
a
“diária”@pt
freq:
a
skos:prefLabel
skos:notation
“a”
Frequency map for
Dublin Core, MARC 21, and RDA
Thank you!