1. Infrastructure for Use
RDA Infrastructure Beyond the
Guidelines
“What’s an RDA
Record?”
Diane I. Hillmann
RDA UPDATE
2. Descriptive Building Blocks
O Records built from statements (triples)
O Triples contain subject – predicate - object
O Statements contain data
O Elements (classes, properties)
O Relationships (relating ‘subject’ to ‘object’)
O Values (descriptive terminology)
O Where does the data come from?
O How is it maintained over time?
O Where do I find it?
June 29, 2014RDA Update, Las Vegas 2
3. OFirst, a Review of Important Definitions:
O Class = A set of similar things
O Domain = Infers that the thing being described is a
member of a particular class (‘The subject is a
________’)
O Range = The object is inferred to be a member of a
specific class
O Constrained = Contains a domain and/or range
O Unconstrained = Not constrained by a domain or range
O CURIE = Syntax for Compact URIs (superset of XML
prefixes)
4. How Does RDA Support
• Applications like RIMMF?
• Users making choices about local usage?
• Mapping services (and the maps
themselves)?
• Vendors trying to build systems using
RDA?
5.
6. Around that corner …
O RDA Registry [http://www.RDAregistry.info]
O Uses OMR, GitHub for easier (and more
automated) maintenance and
documentation
O Contains a comprehensive set of URIs for
many purposes
O Canonical URI, lexical (multi-lingual)
aliases
O Version and release control
O Outputs in many 'flavors' for the use of
many applications
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9. Documentation on Elements
O Basic information
on elements:
O Suggested
prefix
O Example URIs
O Changelog
feed
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10. Available Downloads
O HTML build from
JSON--LD
O OMR UI used for
updating
O Download choices
updated with every
change to element
sets
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13. URI strategy
O One URI was more than enough, or so
we used to think. We’ve set up multiples
for RDA —Why?
ODevelopers generally want something
they can read easily without a lookup
OVocabulary creators want stability and
maintenance processes that don’t
require a lot of URI changes
OMachines don’t care one way or the
other
June 29, 2014RDA Update, Las Vegas 13
14. Lexical Aliases
O URIs based entirely on labels are not a
good long term strategy for a standard still
developing
O Terminology changes, and labels change
too
O Always redirected after changes
O RDA is an international standard
intended to be available in multiple
languages
O RDA tends to have lots of long element
names, not always ideal for labels
June 29, 2014RDA Update, Las Vegas 14
15. Canonical URIs
O Fixed, stable, always maintained (even as a
redirect)
O Based on numbers or letters and numbers
O Assigned automatically, so no typos
O Language independent (Multiple
languages can be accommodated using
the same canonical URI)
O Change of element itself only necessary if
the definition changes significantly
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16. What’s Next?
O Installing more background processes
to simplify and stabilize operations (and
continue to limit requirements for human
effort )
O Expanding and improving download
options
O More languages
O Improved synchronization with the
Toolkit
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17. AND ...
O Application Profiles (finally?)
O Reflecting the intentions and choices of the
data providers
O Formatted to allow machine-to-machine
interaction (as well as documentation for
humans)
O Enabling [some] validation processes on
usage, constraints and values
O Interoperability without prior agreement
June 29, 2014RDA Update, Las Vegas 17
18. We Welcome Feedback!
O On the RDA-L discussion list
O Email to individuals (see the RDA Registry
home page for addresses)
O Feedback button on every OMR page
O Issues page on the GitHub Project page:
https://github.com/RDARegistry/RDA-
Vocabularies/issues
June 29, 2014RDA Update, Las Vegas 18
Hinweis der Redaktion
RDA Maintainers are using a formal methodology to the RDA standards in the RDA Registry. I a world of change, some stability.
We’ll likely expand this list as technical preferences shift. More ‘how much do you want?’ options coming too.
Note that this photo is of a glacier, presumably melting, so not as immutable as we would like.
URIs in English only assumes that everyone reads English, and that’s not true.
RDA has a commitment to maintaining the standard as an International one.