Abstract
The current global information environment has increased competition in places, such
as libraries, where people have traditionally turned to for access to information. As a
result of this competition, it is crucial for managers of large bodies of information—
curators, librarians and archivists–to make the “search and find” process seamless.
Libraries aiming to appeal to web-savvy users have found that a common way to specify
meaning among webpages is by utilizing the Resource Description Framework (RDF),
an essential part of publishing Linked Data in the Semantic Web. Linked Data builds
directly on the architecture of the internet and applies a democratic, decentralized
approach to the task of sharing data on a global scale. This paper provides an
introduction to Linked Data and presents how the Variations/FRBR project at Indiana
University utilized the Resource Description Framework to enhance web-based
discovery services for music students at the Jacobs School of Music.
Describing Diasporan Digital Information Objects
The current global information environment has increased competition in places, such
as libraries, where people have traditionally turned to for access to information. As a
result of this competition, it is crucial for managers of large bodies of information—
curators, librarians and archivists--to make the search and find process seamless.
Because of the array of search engines available to the everyday user (google, yahoo,
bing, etc).Web users are more frequently bypassing library systems and using
alternative data resources. Since 2005, libraries have found themselves in the position
of having to compete for users of their services. Increasingly, they find that they must
publish semistructured and structured data on the Web. “In essence, publishing
interlinking data marks a shift in thinking from publishing data in human readable
HTML documents to machine readable documents. That means that machines can do a
little more of the thinking work for us.”(http://www.linkeddatatools.com) The goal of this
added resource description is to enable next generation library users to benefit from
embedded information made to assist with the easy interchange of multidisciplinary
documents.
Libraries aiming to appeal to web-savvy users have found that a common way to
specify meaning among webpages is by utilizing the Resource Description Framework
(RDF), an essential part of publishing Linked Data in the Semantic Web. Linked Data
builds directly on the architecture of the internet and applies a democratic, decentralized
approach to the task of sharing data on a global scale. “Linked Data is about using the
Web to connect related data that wasn't previously linked, or using the Web to lower the
barriers to linking data currently linked using other
methods”(http://www.linkeddatatools.com). Because the linkages are created through
particular perspectives, it is important to note that majority of digital archives and
repositories we access as users are located and maintained racialized, neo-European
diasporan locations. Historically, libraries have been the curators and preservers of
middle and upper-class materials. Thus, how they structure linkages is through specific
class and racialized frameworks.
I propose that the utilization of the Resource Description Framework can help enrich the
current Web environment by spreading awareness through formal publication of
relationships through more diverse networks. The aim of this paper is demonstrate what
such a diverse relationship might look like by look at Afro Latin Music. I also seek to
establish an understanding of the value and of the challenges that Afro Latin Music
digital objects hold when represented as Linked Data versus traditional hyperlinked
data. Linked Data, has the potential to play an important role in establishing a Web
standard that could enhance Web users cultural awareness.
Linked Data goes beyond linking and allows for contributions of meaning. It can assist
with information integration, help create new paths to information discovery (Patuelli,
2012) and influence the cultural competency levels of web surfers. Linked data can
help to liberate information silos from their old chains, opening up the web to artificial
intelligence processes. By adding meaning to each web address we can change the
nature of ‘the link’. For example, whereas the link between web documents has no
meaning other than “link”, a Linked Open Data link itself has specific meaning. Take the
example of a library record located at the URL: http://vfrbr.info/work/12502. You don’t
know anything else about that URL other than what you can determine from the text in
the web address. By embedding data in the links associated with the URL, information
managers can characterize each URL with a meaning such as “subject of the work”
“stylistic origin” “preferred title of the work” and “composer”.
A good example of the possibilities that Linked Data offers is the FRBR model
(Functional Bibliographic Requirements for Bibliographic Records); it is a metadata
standard endorsed and developed by the International Federation of Library
Associations. Key concepts in the FRBR model are Entities, Attributes and
Relationships. Entities are the things users are searching for (bodies of works, people
and concepts that users are interested in obtaining). Attributes (a characteristic about
some concept, person or body of work) and Relationships are most important to users
in formulating searches. For example, a composer’s work (http://vfrbr.info/work/121502)
and person (http://vfrbr.info/person/3880) entities are associated through a “created by”
(frbrer:P2009) authorship relationship in the library linked data record below.
Via search interface, a user using a library catalog can search for Afro-Cuban
Composer Tania Leon’s orchestral work “Bata” using descriptive links : composer, title
and recording (or score). Each link is dereferencable and is defined at a namespace (a
virtual container for controlled vocabularies). The links attributes used in the above
example come from the “frbrer” and frad” metadata standard published at
(http://metadataregistry.org). The definitions for the “roles”, “Elements”, and vfrbr”
vocabularies are located at:
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/vfrbr/data/rdf/Ontology/owl_vfrbr.rdf.
What makes the above relationship successful is that they were designed for a specific
community. This item was described with the information needs of the music students
at Indiana University in mind. This data could however help other scholars looking to
work with the same data. For example, an Afro-Latin digital humanist looking to make
historical, sociological, and anthropological connections between the contents of these
web resources and other datasets specific to Afro-Latin American research coulduse
this particular linked data if the records were enhanced.
Let us look closer at Tania Leon’s piece. The very title of this orchestral work “Bata” can
have various meanings depending on the researcher: Afro-Latin America, Cuba, drums,
religious musical accompaniment, Santeria, etc. Yet this information is missing from the
example above. Thus, the record serves a purpose for music scholars, but it obscures
and masks the cultural identity and any Afro-Latin references. It illustrates the ways in
which racialized identities are silenced. Specifically, the subject metadata in this record
lack’s any formal indication that the subject of the work is Afro-Cuban. The
vocabularies used to describe subject information (frad:P3050 and
vfrbr:subjectOfTheWork) do not allow for common terms or language terms that might
have meaning to those familiar with Afro Latin culture. These omissions may
unintentionally prohibit a user from locating records based on cultural identity or race.
Without specialized knowledge of Afro Cuban composers or knowledge about searching
for music items digitally, this cultural data might remain hidden to other scholars
unfamiliar with Afro Latin culture.
Keeping in mind the advantages of community specific relationships (EG. styles of Afro
Cuban Rumba cycle: Columbia, Yambu Guaguanco) creating an Afro Latin Music
specific metadata standard could help facilitate broader access to the previously
mentioned Tania Leon record in the Variations Music Library. For those already looking
to make connections with large datasets, the Linked Open Data community offers a
growing body of data with which to work. For example, http://dbpedia.org has
published a multi-domain vocabulary with enough instance data to enhance the
relationships associated with the Tania Leon library record and provide for users to
access external datasets using related terms like: “Santeria” “Religion_in_Cuba”,
“ethnic_groups” and “Afro-Latin_American”. The Geonames vocabulary provides us
with the tools to link our existing geographical data with information about Cuba.
Standardized formats (EG. DTD, XML, RDF) suggest that a specific community adapt a
controlled vocabulary (as mentioned above), which in turn encourages more accurate
representation in a variety of languages. Because there is no single kind of metadata
for documents or other information objects and because there is no generic vocabulary
to draw from, it becomes important for those working in the Afro-Latin American space
to collaborate. They can join some of the other communities that have invested
resources towards facilitating the integration and reuse of web content by utilizing and
enhancing previously published structured data (see: linked open data cloud for
examples).
As people whose cultural identities are central to how we think about data, we can help
other scholars across disciplines find the hidden jewels in existing datasets by
developing our own domain-specific vocabularies. In providing information we must
address issues of power and representation when preparing to describe any aspect of
Diasporan cultural heritage objects. Metadata generation could serve as a community
driven platform for information producers, enablers and controllers alike, as a means to
contend with the power-relations between the West and the African Diaspora research
community (Konadu, 2011).
Digital humanists working in the Afro-Latin American space, can benefit from the
adoption of metadata standards to make better informed decisions with the data they
find and encourage for reuse. We can all do our part to establish an African Diaspora
controlled vocabulary and dataset. Ever try to foaf yourself? Try it…metadata is fun.
Then try linking it to a paper/recording/video or yours. It doesn’t have to stop there.
Acknowledgement: Data from the Variations/FRBR project of the Digital Library
Program at Indiana University was used as primary data for this paper.
Works Cited
Coyle, Karen (2005) Understanding metadata and its urpose. Journal of Academic
Librarianship, 31 (2), 160-163
Konadu. Kwasi (2011). Accessing the archives: sources subjects and subjugation in the
African world. In Benjamin Talton and Quincy T. Mills (Eds.), Black subjects in
africa and its diasporas (179-201) New York: Palgrave Macmillan
Patuelli, Christina M. (2012) Personal name vocabularies as linked open data: a case
study of jazz artist names. Journal of Information Science.
DOI:10.1177/0165551512455989