1. UNIMARC and linked data
Gordon Dunsire and Mirna Willer
Presented at Session 187 (Advancing UNIMARC: alignment and innovation) of the World Library and Information Congress : 77th IFLA General Conference and Assembly,
13-18 August 2011, San Juan, Puerto Rico

2. Overview Background Linked data and the Semantic Web
Methods and issues in representing UNIMARC for the Semantic Web
Recommendations

3. Background
Representation of IFLA standards for use in the Semantic Web
Work of the FRBR Namespaces project and IFLA Namespaces Task Group
Work of the ISBD/XML Study Group
Included a feasibility study of representation of UNIMARC
Representations allow legacy catalogue records to be published as linked data using RDF
Branding IFLA standards for authority & trust
Semantic Web lets “Anyone say Anything about Any resource”

4. Linked data and RDF Resource Description Framework (RDF)
Designed for machine-processing of metadata at global scale (Semantic Web)
24/7/365
Trillions of operations per second
Everything must be dis-ambiguated
Machines are dumb
A simple approach helps!
Machine-readable identifiers

5. RDF triple Metadata expressed as “atomic” statements
A simple, single, irreducible statement
The title of this book is “Cataloguing is fun!”
Constructed in 3 parts
“Triple”
Subject of the statement = Subject: This book
Nature of the statement = Predicate: has title
Value of the statement = Object: “Cataloguing is fun!”
This book – has title – “Cataloguing is fun!”
subject – predicate - object

6. Machine-readable identifiers
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI)
Can be any unique combination of numbers and letters
No intrinsic meaning; it’s just an identifier
RDF requires the subject and predicate of triple to be URIs
Object can be a URI, or a literal string (“Cataloguing is fun!”)
URIs can be matched by machine to link triples together

7. UNIMARC element identifiers
Number (ISBN)
Element:
Tag:
010
1st ind.: b
2nd ind.:
(Unique in element set) b
Subfield: a
Target audience code
Coded Information Block:
100bba
Character position:
(Unique in element set)
17-19
children, ages 9-14
Target audience vocabulary:
Code: d
(Unique in vocabulary)

8. Vocabularies and Element sets
Controlled terminologies represented as vocabularies
UNIMARC entities, attributes, and relationships form an element set
Attributes and relationships represented as properties/predicates
Entities represented in RDF as classes
But only 1 entity in UNIMARC-B (Resource)
ISBD already has an equivalent class for Resource

9. UNIMARC and ISBD properties
Element identifier/URI: unimarcb:P205bbb
Label (English): (has) issue statement
Equivalent ISBD URI: isbd:P1011
Label (English): has additional edition statement
The meaning is the same, but the identifiers and labels are different
unimarcb:P205bbb same as isbd:P1011 (in RDF)
Or use isbd:P1011 instead of unimarcb:P205bbb

10. Translations
The same identifier is used for translated elements (captions, definitions, etc.) and vocabularies (preferred terms, definitions, etc.)
E.g. Vocabulary of 116bba0 = Coded data for graphics: Specific material designation

11. Graphics SMD translation example
Term identifier/URI: namespace/b
Notation: b
Preferred label (English): drawing
Preferred label (Italian): disegno
Preferred label (Portuguese): desenho
Definition (English): An original visual representation (other than a print or painting) ...

12. Triples from UNIMARC records
Create or obtain URI for the Resource described
Obtain URI for UNIMARC tag/subfield
Direct from tag/indicators/subfield encoding
Obtain URI of value of subfield, or use a literal value
URI from vocabulary or UNIMARC Authority
Publish triple

13. Recommendations: Foundation
Approve the method of identifying UNIMARC elements and vocabularies.
Approve the pattern for namespaces for UNIMARC/B and /A elements and vocabularies.
Decide on initial creation and maintenance of UNIMARC elements and vocabularies in the Open Metadata Registry (OMR).
Decide between re-use of existing ISBD namespaces for UNIMARC/B or representing all UNIMARC/B elements and link to existing ISBD classes and properties as appropriate.
11/11/2018
Dunsire & Willer. UNIMARC and Linked Data, IFLA 2011 San Jose, Puerto Rico

14. Recommendations: Foundation
Investigate further the re-use of existing FRAD/FRBR and FRSAD namespaces or representing all UNIMARC/A elements and link to existing FRAD/FRBR/FRSAD classes/subclasses and properties as appropriate.
Investigate further the appropriate classes for UNIMARC/A in relation to UNIMARC/B, FRAD/FRBR and FRSAD.
Support and promote the translation of UNIMARC classes and properties in national languages.
11/11/2018
Dunsire & Willer. UNIMARC and Linked Data, IFLA 2011 San Jose, Puerto Rico

15. Recommendations: Application
Discuss and consider the requirements for Application Profiles for UNIMARC.
Check and verify the availability of SKOS representations of other external vocabularies used in UNIMARC.
Investigate and verify internal UNIMARC vocabularies for suitable SKOS representations; consider approaching the owners of external vocabularies to liaise on developing SKOS representations.
11/11/2018
Dunsire & Willer. UNIMARC and Linked Data, IFLA 2011 San Jose, Puerto Rico

16. Recommendations: Application
Investigate further the “combinatorial explosion” of UNIMARC properties; determine if some combinations are invalid and do not require a separate property.
Consider and approve the re-use of aggregated ISBD elements which are represented in RDF using Syntax encoding schemes (SES), which will avoid the need for developing UNIMARC equivalents.
Monitor relevant MARC21 developments, especially the Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative recently announcement by the Library of Congress.
11/11/2018
Dunsire & Willer. UNIMARC and Linked Data, IFLA 2011 San Jose, Puerto Rico

17. Thank you