Modeling Agents and Personas/Pseudonyms #340
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See also the PCC/Library of Congress training presentation "Bibliographic Identities (Personas)", available for download via Google (I can't find a direct link). It discusses one method of modelling a "persona", as a nomen cluster that is associated with a distinct context of use. The context of use is the clustering device, accommodated by Nomen: context of use. An additional clustering device is implied in my slides: the RDA distinction of three categories of appellation/nomen as unstructured name/title, structured access point, and (string) identifier. For example, "BBC", "B.B.C.", and "British Broadcasting Corporation" form a sub-cluster of names used in manifestations by a specific collective agent. As noted, VIAF forms sub-clusters of access points. In theory, there should be no requirement for an identifier sub-cluster, but it may arise in practice. For example, the 'hyphenated' and 'spaced' variations in ISBN may be considered as valid identifiers from the same VES. A nomen cluster is not treated as real-world object (entity) in LRM/RDA, so it cannot be the object of a metadata statement that uses a relationship element. This includes elements with range Nomen: a nomen cluster is not a nomen. It can only be associated with an attribute (datatype) element that has a literal string value. The domain (subject) of the association is Work. The range is a string that represents the nomen cluster. There are two methods of stating such an association.
Work1 has preferred title of work NomenW11 . Work2 has preferred title of work NomenW21 . The 'persona' nomen is effectively embedded in a work nomen. This method requires guidance and instructions on the differentiation and application of distinct string encoding schemes for the same element.
Work1 has authorized access point for work group NomenWG1 . These are distinct from other authorized access points specific to each work. The 'persona' nomen is effectively an added work nomen. This method requires guidance and instructions on the differentiation and application of distinct nomens for the same entity. It also requires separate maintenance from direct nomens, and is the equivalent of maintaining a vocabulary encoding scheme for nomen clusters. All of the nomens are ultimately 'just' strings; the strings are manipulated and concatenated to form other strings using string encoding schemes. Which strings, what manipulations, and the collocation utilities they support are all determined by the naming conventions of local cultures. This includes the expectations of end-users, creators of works and manifestations, and cataloguers. I have also discussed aspects of this in Reconstructing authorities: new approaches to the management and use of authority data |
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In our linked data based approach to RDA we aim not to rely on approaches based on access points. We are examining an approach to nomen clusters that relates all nomens in a 'persona' nomen cluster using "equivalent to". With that approach, each nomen cluster has a central nomen. The URI of the central nomen provides, in an indirect way, a reference to the persona. Idea is that, in our application profile, for example "Rowling" and "Galbraith" are not linked using "equivalent to" but in another example, "BBC", "B.B.C.", and "British Broadcasting Corporation" are linked with "equivalent to". See the attached pdf for an example. |
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Thank you Gordon. That is an approach I was also thinking of, providing IRI's only to the central Nomen (that was what the drawing of the 'label' icon in the PDF was signifying - not really self explanatory, sorry for that :-) and using blank nodes for the others. It is an approach that will work for us I guess, but even when the 'persona' isn't a concept in RDA, I wished we could also come up with an approach that enables us to 'extract' persona's from the RDA graph. Omitting the "equivalent to" relations between the central nomens helps to extract a persona with "all nomens linking to central nomen(that refers to an rda:Person) form the cluster of names of a Persona". Adding "equivalent to" relations between the central nomens too would confuse that approach. Also, a weakness of relying on only the central nomens having a URI is that it breaks when in the future, for one reason or the other, - using blank nodes can have downsides - we might want to give all nomes a URI. |
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Documents
Pseudonyms variations RDA properties Zapounidou
Persons and personas Dunsire
Pseudonyms and persons and WEM Clements
Correspondence and Notes
Initial question from Sofia Zapounidou:
Since you are working on a project regarding RDA representation of bibliographic data I would like your opinion on the representation of pseudonyms.
The aim is to be able to model a Person with all his/her pseudonyms, and also which version of his/her name is used in a specific Work or Expression. This mechanism already exists for Manifestation, but I have not found anything for Work and Expression entities. In case you know that there is way for representing the case I am describing, please tell me so.
With the implementation of this scenario, (I hope that) it will be possible to cluster all Works authored by a Person and provide also sub-clusters under Pseudonyms or variations of the name. Variations of names are important for Greek Name Authorities especially for priests and monks that change their names and titles frequently, e.g. 'Monk A of monastery name' during 1920-1930, 'Bishop A of Thessaloniki' during 1931-1952, and 'ArchBishop A of Greece' during 1953-1960.
Please check the attached image and start reading from the Manifestation level (bottom-up). I have included with dashed arrows what I would expect from RDA and I did not find.
Response from Crystal
Your question is an interesting one, and we discussed it at our MARC21-to-LRM/RDA/RDF mapping meeting this morning.
We think pseudonyms are recorded in RDA as nomen strings for separate Nomens, related to one common entity for a Person, and the Person entity is related to the Works, Manifestations, and Expressions associated with that person and all of their alternate identities/pseudonyms. While pseudonyms can be represented as structured strings in authorized access points for Works/Expressions, and included in values of other properties such as statements of responsibility for Manifestations, a direct relationship between a given nomen string for a Person and that Person’s associated Works/Expressions does not exist in RDA. There are possibilities for relating nomens for different entities to one another. I’ve included a PDF illustration as an attachment, “Pseudonyms and persons and WEM”. The properties I include are just for illustrative purposes, as the exact properties used depend on implementation/application profiles.
Sita Bhagwandin (National Library of the Netherlands) shared a powerpoint with us during the discussion that speaks to the relationships between a person and their personas/identities. The document (attached), “Person and personas or identities” was authored by Gordon Dunsire, and I’ve cc’d him on this email as well. Our mapping work does not cover authority data, so perhaps Gordon has more to say on the subject or can provide a more accurate explanation.
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