Authority Control and Semantic Interoperability

| 23 | Authority control and semantic interoperability | November 18, 20131

Authority control and semantic interoperability in cooperative library systems

Lars G. Svensson


The World Wide Web is transforming from strings to things

The authority data librarians curate are about things (people, places, …)

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A discovery system revolving around authorities is one way of achieving this


Instead, they could give information on documents about things


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Filter to literature about:Paris (France)Paris (Texas)Paris (Prince of Troy)

A discovery system revolving around authorities is one way of achieving this

In the German speaking world, all authorities are collected in the GND


GND

PND SWD GKD EST

The GND uses an entity-based model

• Corporate Body

• Conference or Event

• Subject Heading

• Work

• Place or Geographic Name

• Family

• Person


The GND Ontology is a formalisation of that entity-based model in OWL


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In the DNB linked data service, we use GNDO to build authority representations


<gnd:DifferentiatedPerson rdf:about="http://d-nb.info/gnd/118508288"><gnd:publication>Grand Concerto pour le Piano forte. - s.a.</gnd:publication><gnd:variantNameEntityForThePerson rdf:parseType="Resource">

<gnd:forename>...</gnd:forename><gnd:surname>Beethofen</gnd:surname>

</gnd:variantNameEntityForThePerson> <gnd:professionOrOccupation rdf:resource="http://d-nb.info/gnd/4032009-1"/> <gnd:placeOfActivity rdf:resource="http://d-nb.info/gnd/4007666-0"/> <gnd:publication>Werke. - s. a. abgeschlossen 1865</gnd:publication><gnd:geographicAreaCode rdf:resource="http://d-nb.info/standards/vocab/gnd/geographic-area-code#XA-DE"/> <gnd:oldAuthorityNumber>(DE-101c)127037454</gnd:oldAuthorityNumber> <gnd:variantNameEntityForThePerson rdf:parseType="Resource">

<gnd:prefix>van</gnd:prefix> <gnd:forename>Ludovicus</gnd:forename> <gnd:surname>Beethoven</gnd:surname>

</gnd:variantNameEntityForThePerson> <gnd:variantNameEntityForThePerson rdf:parseType="Resource">

<gnd:prefix>van</gnd:prefix><gnd:forename>Ludwig</gnd:forename> <gnd:surname>Bethoven</gnd:surname>

</gnd:variantNameEntityForThePerson>[…]

The RDF/OWL model has triggered interesting re-use

| 23 | Authority control and semantic interoperability | November 18, 201311 Proje

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Libraries can leverage those structures to build entity-centric discovery

Topical search can revolve around subject headings


We can also explore networks of persons


Through vocabulary interlinking we can achieve (almost) true multilinguality

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So is the use of semantic networks a cure-all for navigation in libraries?


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We often focus too much on books and forget the authorities (people, places, …)


A discovery system revolving around authorities can add new perspectives


I see some far-reaching

opportunities!

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Search engine integration of authorities linked to bibliographic information can drive traffic to libraries


The Giant Global Graph: Where Callimachus meets Tim Berners-Lee


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Technology

Authority Control and Semantic Interoperability