BIBFRAME

Bibliographic Framework Initiative (Library of Congress)

The Library of Congress > BIBFRAME > Topics and Issues > Titles

Titles
BIBFRAME Topics and Issues

There was a great deal of discussion surrounding BIBFRAME titles, across several different threads, mostly during July, 2014. Much of the discussion reflected confusion over whether a title can/should be expressed as a literal or does a resource need to be constructed to accomodate structured information about the title as well as the various title attributes such as "title source", "title assigner", "title type" and others.

Provided below is a summary of the "current state" of the BIBFRAME title, followed by a proposed simplification.

Current State of the BIBFRAME Title

To begin, we have ...

  • bf:title
  • bf:workTitle
  • bf:instanceTitle

Where bf:title is a literal, but bf:workTitle and bf:instanceTitle are both resources, of type bf:Title.

bf:Titile includes structured information about a title. Properties of bf:Title include bf:partTitle, bf:subtitle, bf:titleType, a few others, and of course the actual title, bf:titleValue.

bf:title is just a convenient way provided to indicate a literal title without having to create a bf:Title resource.

And further ...

An Instance may have, in addition to bf:instanceTitle:

  • abbreviatedTitle
  • keyTitle

And Finally, there is ....

  • titleVariation

Which is a bf:Title, and may belong to a Work or Instance.

Proposed Simplification

  • bf:workTitle and bf:instanceTitle could become literals, and the associated properties now represented within bf:Title could be represented instead as direct properties of the Work or Instance, since there would be only one Work or Instance title. See example 1.
  • bf:title could then be eliminated.
  • Aternatively, bf:title could be retained and bf:workTitle and bf:instanceTitle eliminated. bf:title would be distinguishable as a Work title (formerly, uniform title) or Instance title (formerly title proper) because it would be a property of a bf:Work or bf:Instance respectively.
  • abbreviatedTitle, keyTitle, and titleVariation could become properties whose object could be either a literal or resource. Thus, one could string together the title attributes and represent a title as a literal, or if necessary, create a resource of type bf:Title and represent the title attributes as its properties. See examples 2, 3, and 4.

Examples

Example 1. Consider the Work: Mahler's second symphony, in C minor, for Soprano, alto, mixed voices, and orchestra. (See http://id.loc.gov/resources/bibs/13757818.marcxml.xml.) This information could be represented as follows:

<bf:Work>
    <bf:workTitle>Symphonies no.2, C minor</bf:workTitle>
    <bf:agent rdf:nodeID=”bnode-x24z100”/>
    <bf:musicMedium>soprano</bf:musicMedium>
    <bf:musicMedium>alto</bf:musicMedium>
    <bf:musicMedium>mixed voices</bf:musicMedium>
    <bf:musicMedium>orchestra</bf:musicMedium>
    <bf:musicKey>C minor</bf:musicKey>
    <bf:musicNumber>no. 2</bf:musicNumber>
</bf:Work>
<!--
BIBFRAME Authority -->
<bf:Person rdf:nodeID=”bnode-x24z100”>
    <bf:authorizedAccessPoint>Mahler, Gustav, 1860-1911</bf:authorizedAccessPoint>
</bf:Person>

Example 2. Here, a bf:Title resource is created for an abbreviated title, so that the source can be represented (along with the actual title).

<bf:Instance>
    <bf:abbreviatedTitle rdf:resource=”http://www.example.com/titles/abbreviated/jama”/>
</bf:Instance>

<bf:Title rdf:about=”http://www.example.com/titles/abbreviated/jama”>
       <bf:titleValue>JAMA</bf:titleValue>
       <bf:titleSource>dnlm</bf:titleSource>
</bf:Title>

Example 3. A key title. bf:Title resource is created so that the qualifier ("Barrington") can be represented.

<bf:Instance>
    <bf:KeyTitle rdf:resource=”http://www.example.com/titles/key/economicEducationBulletinBarrington”/>
</bf:Instance>

<bf:Title rdf:about=”http://www.example.com/titles/key/economicEducationBulletinBarrington”>
       <bf:titleValue>Economic Education Bulletin</bf:titleValue>
       <bf:titleQualifier>Barrington</bf:titleQualifier>
</bf:Title>

Example 4. Same title as in example 3 is represented as a literal (qualifier included)

<bf:Instance>
    <bf:keyTitle>Economic Education Bulletin. (Great Barrington)</bf:keyTitle>
</bf:Instance>

Questions

  1. Is it better to retain bf:workTitle and bf:instanceTitle and drop bf:title, or retain bf:title and drop bf:workTitle and bf:instanceTitle?
  2. Properties whose objects may be either a literal or resource are a source of some controversy. Some ontologies do this, however, some experts warn against this practice. What are the pros and cons?

Last Updated: October 21, 2014