[metadataLibrarians] XML thesaurus languages

[Keith Jenkins]

Hi, Jenn.

I'll second Bill's suggestion, and even go so far as to highly
recommend SKOS, which we've been looking into using here.

Even though it is RDF, the XML form of SKOS is not too hard to follow
(unlike some other, very ugly RDF/XML I've seen!).  In the example
below (which comes from http://www.w3.org/TR/swbp-thesaurus-pubguide),
just think of the "rdf:about" attribute as an ID, and the
"rdf:resource" as an IDREF.  The attribute values (which look like
URLs, but may or may not be of any use to a Web browser) serve as
universally unique IDs, which would allow others to relate their
vocabularies to yours, if desired.

  <skos:Concept rdf:about="http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/concept/1750">
    <skos:prefLabel>Economic cooperation</skos:prefLabel>
    <skos:altLabel>Economic co-operation</skos:altLabel>
    <skos:scopeNote>Includes cooperative measures in banking, trade,
industry etc.,
      between and among countries.</skos:scopeNote>
    <skos:broader rdf:resource="http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/concept/4382"/>
    <skos:narrower
rdf:resource="http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/concept/2108"/>
    <skos:narrower
rdf:resource="http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/concept/9505"/>
    <skos:narrower
rdf:resource="http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/concept/15053"/>
    <skos:narrower
rdf:resource="http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/concept/18987"/>
    <skos:related rdf:resource="http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/concept/3250"/>
    <skos:inScheme rdf:resource="http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus"/>
  </skos:Concept>

(See http://www.ukat.org.uk/thesaurus/term.php?i=1750 for the HTML
display of this term.)

Although SKOS allows for more complex things such as multiple
vocabularies, ordered collections of concepts, and versioning, the
basic structure of the XML really isn't too far from something much
simpler that I made up a couple years back:

  <entry>
    <term>Gaita (Flute)</term>
    <uf>Flauta pastoril</uf>
    <bt>Flute</bt>
    <bt>Musical instruments--Portugal</bt>
    <bt>Musical instruments--Spain</bt>
    <rt>Flaviol</rt>
    <rt>Galoubet</rt>
    <rt>Pipe (Musical instrument)</rt>
  </entry

I'm expecting that we'll be seeing a lot more RDF in the near future,
which is why I'm inclined towards SKOS.  And in the meantime, we can
treat it just like any other XML--using XSL, etc., and not worrying
too much about the fact that it is also RDF :-)

-Keith


On 1/5/06, Riley, Jennifer L <jenlrile at indiana.edu> wrote:
> Thanks, Bill, I'll add this to the consideration list. This particular
> project probably isn't a good candidate to make a major foray into RDF,
> since all of the existing code operates on XML defined by XML Schemas,
> but I'm doing my best to keep an open mind. :-)