Draft of ISO 25964-1 - Now available

Draft of ISO 25964-1 "Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies. Thesauri for information retrieval”

Work has been under way since May 2008 to revise and extend the international standards for thesauri, ISO 2788 and ISO 5964. The updated content of these two standards, plus other material needed to support interoperability, will be combined in a new standard ISO 25964, as follows:

ISO 25964. Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies
Part 1: Thesauri for information retrieval
Part 2: Interoperability with other vocabularies

Part 1, officially numbered ISO/DIS 25964-1, has been released as a draft available for public comment until the end of February 2010.

Part 1 covers monolingual and multilingual thesauri. As well as updating the entire content of ISO 2788 and ISO 5964, coverage includes:
guidelines for thesaurus management software;
a data model for monolingual and multilingual thesauri;
recommendations for exchange formats and protocols.
An XML schema for data exchange is included as an informative appendix, and is available free of charge here. Please click the “comments” link on this web page, to give your feedback on the draft schema.

The whole standard may be viewed online. You have to register on the site, but there is no charge for registration, and it is easy to submit comments on each clause, whether you are in the UK or not. Alternatively a hard copy is available from BSI at a price of £36 (just £18 for BSI members). Place your order online (where the draft is listed under an alternative number of 09/30165649 DC).

A copy of the whole draft may also be obtained from any of the national standards bodies which are members of ISO, the International Organization for Standards.

Development of the standard is managed by a Working Group known as ISO TC46/SC9/WG8, which has participants from 15 countries and is led by Stella Dextre Clarke of the UK. The Secretariat is provided by NISO (USA). WG8 is now actively working on Part 2 of the standard, which will provide guidance on mapping between vocabularies.

See official website. Further information may be found in the ASIS&T Bulletin, and in an article in the Technology Watch Report.

RDA Full Draft Out W/C 3 November

Just in case anyone doesn't subscribe to LIS-UKBIBS:

The Joint Steering Committee has announced that the full draft of RDA will be available for constituency review the week of 3 November.

The plan is to make it available in a prliminary version of the software.

Full post here.

Call for Comments: SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference; SKOS Primer

The W3C Semantic Web Deployment Working Group is pleased to announce the publication of a Last Call Working Draft for the Simple Knowledge Organisation System Reference (SKOS): http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-reference-20080829/

Our Working Group has made its best effort to address all comments received to date, and we seek confirmation that the comments have been addressed to the satisfaction of the community, allowing us to move forward to W3C Candidate Recommendation following the Last Call process.

The Working Group solicits review and feedback on this draft specification. In particular, the Working Group would be keen to hear comments regarding any features identified at risk, and from those implementing (among others):

* Editors: editors that either consume or produce SKOS;
* Services: vocabulary services that provide access to vocabularies using SKOS;
* Checkers: applications that check whether the constraints on SKOS vocabularies have been violated.

Comments are requested by 3 October 2008, at which time the Working Group intends to close Last Call. All comments are welcome and should be sent to public-swd-wg@w3.org; please include the text "SKOS comment" in the subject line. All messages received at this address are viewable in a public archive.

The Working Group intends to advance the SKOS Reference to W3C Recommendation after further review and comment. This Last Call Working Draft signals the Working Group's belief that it has met its design objectives for SKOS and has resolved all open issues.

The Working Group has also published an update of the companion SKOS Primer: http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-primer-20080829/

The Working Group expects to revise this Primer while the SKOS Reference is undergoing review and eventually publish the Primer as a Working Group Note. Please see also: http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-reference-20080829/#status http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-skos-primer-20080829/#Status

Alistair Miles, Senior Computing Officer
Image Bioinformatics Research Group Department of Zoology
University of Oxford
Web: http://purl.org/net/aliman

Sean Bechhofer
School of Computer Science,
University of Manchester
Web: http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/people/bechhofer

ISKO UK Event - Sharing Vocabularies on the Web via SKOS

We would like to invite you to the next ISKO UK event entitled Sharing Vocabularies on the Web via Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) which will take place on 21 July 2008 at University College London.

Predictions for the Semantic Web are heavily dependent on the ability of computers to reason and communicate using controlled vocabularies. SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) development aims to bring forward these capabilities.

SKOS names a family of standards being created to express the semantic structure of controlled vocabularies (thesauri, classifications, subject headings etc.) so that they can be accessed and interpreted by programs and services. As a draft Web standard, SKOS Reference provides a data model that can be used as a vehicle for the development, use and sharing of knowledge organization systems across information sectors and within the Semantic Web framework.

Aware of the growing importance of SKOS, ISKO UK in cooperation with School of Library, Archives and Information Studies at UCL has invited a group of experts to introduce this standard, explain its status, potential and scope. Our speakers are involved in the development and application of SKOS and related standards and are hoping to provoke some interesting discussion.

Members of the W3C Semantic Web Deployment Working Group, Alistair Miles and Antoine Isaac and Bernard Vatant from Mondeca, will explain the role of SKOS in the Semantic Web, the ideas behind SKOS and the way it is intended to function. The convenor of BSI committee IDT/2/2/1 Stella Dextre Clarke and collaborators Leonard Will and Nicolas Cochard will discuss the data model of the recently developed BS 8723 standard known as DD8723-5, focusing on its relationship with SKOS and interoperability issues. Ceri Binding and Douglas Tudhope from University of Glamorgan will present their AHDS-funded Semantic Technologies for Archaeological Resources project, raising issues for practical applications of SKOS and SKOS-based terminology web services.

This event, the third in ISKO UK's KOnnecting KOmmunities series, promises a fascinating glimpse of the future of controlled vocabularies. No one involved or interested in the development, management or implementation of controlled vocabularies can afford to miss it. Book your place on the event's page.

Presentations and audio recordings from the ISKO Seminar "Tools for Knowledge Organization Today"

ISKO UK Seminar Tools for Knowledge Organization Today was held on 4th September 2007 at University College London.

The Seminar exploried current developments in knowledge organization systems, standards and the work of groups in the knowledge organization field, such as Networked Knowledge Organization Systems/Services (NKOS) and British Computer Society - Knowledge, Information, Data and Metadata Management (BCS-KIDMM).

Slideshow files and audio recordings of the talks given by Stella Dextre Clarke, Douglas Tudhope, Vanda Broughton and Conrad Taylor, are now available from the event's website

Invasion of the Knowledge Organizers

London, England, 22 August 2007.

The authorities in London have issued a warning that the city is likely to be hit by several swarms of Knowledge Organizers next month. The first swarm will make landfall on 4 September, when the UK Chapter of ISKO hold their half-day seminar Tools for knowledge organization today.

Disorganized knowledge workers are advised to take extra care on 12 September, when mixed swarms of knowledge managers and data managers are forecast to hit the Charing Cross area. First to arrive will be those attending the afternoon seminar of NetIKX - the Network for Information and Knowledge Exchange - at the DWP in John Adam St., where Stella Dextre Clarke will be speaking on Standardising the language of information and knowledge management – the Agony and the Ecstasy.

Following in the early evening of the 12th., another swarm is expected to descend upon the British Computer Society's premises in Southampton Street for a meeting entitled Information, data and metadata: why they need to be managed. The meeting marks the launch of Keith Gordon's new book Principles of Data Management: Facilitating Information Sharing.

After a brief respite, we are warned that a further swarm is due to hit the Covent Garden area on 17 September in the form of the BCS KIDMM (Knowledge, Information, Data and Metadata Management) day conference KIDMM: MetaKnowledge Mash-up 2007. Since this gathering comprises a number of different species which do not normally swarm together, visitors to the area are advised to be on their guard against unpredictable behaviour.

So, make sure you get these in your diary:

04 September: Tools for knowledge organization today
12 September: Standardising the language of information and knowledge management – the Agony and the Ecstasy
12 September: Information, data and metadata: why they need to be managed
17 September: KIDMM: MetaKnowledge Mash-up 2007

Semantic Web - an interview with Tim Berners-Lee

From ZDNet.co.uk (08 Jun 2007):

David Berlind interviews Sir Tim Berners-Lee (video), the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium at the MITX (Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange) Technology Awards held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts. The inventor of the world wide web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee was awarded the organisation's 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award.

See also D. Berlind's item on the ZDNet blog "Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee Unplugged: Semantic Web better than APIs for data access"

SKOS Use Cases and Requirements: Working Draft

From SKOS discussion list:

Request for Comments: SKOS Use Cases and Requirements: Working Draft

2007-05-16: The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of SKOS Use Cases and Requirements [1]. Knowledge organization systems, such as taxonomies,thesauri or subject heading lists, play a fundamental role in information structuring and access. These use cases and fundamental or secondary requirements will be used to guide the design of SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organisation System), a model for representing such vocabularies. Learn more about the Semantic Web Activity. We would greatly appreciate your comments and feedback on this Working Draft, which should be submitted to the SWD mailing list [2].
[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-ucr/
[2] mailto://public-swd-wg@w3.org

Functional Requirements for Authority Data - draft now available for review

From the IFLA CLASS list:
The IFLA Working Group on Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records (FRANAR) is pleased to announce that a 2nd draft of "Functional Requirements for Authority Data" (previously titled "Functional Requirements for Authority Records") is now available for worldwide review.
This draft, updated in response to comments received during the previous review, is on the IFLA web site at http://www.ifla.org/VII/d4/wg-franar.htm. Comments should be sent by July 15, 2007 to:

Glenn Patton
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
6565 Kilgour Place
Dublin OH 43017-3395
Phone: +1.800.848.5878, ext. 6371 or +1.614.764.6371
Fax: +1.614.718.7187
Email: pattong@oclc.org