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Carriers and Bound-Withs

RareMat and ArtFrame, 2018.03.16

Table of Contents

Introduction

In current library systems, describing individual items that share a carrier – and therefore share a call number or other identifier – poses a variety of challenges. In the case of “bound-withs” (also called “composite volumes” or “Sammelbands”/”Sammelbände”), each individual publication that has been bound into the single physical unit is described separately, while information related to the volume as a whole is included in the description of the first item. The RareMaterials/ArtFrame Ontology Extension Group identified the need to describe such resources both individually and as a whole.

An individual resource in a bound-with may have its own particular custodial history, distinct from the other resources, while the fully bound volume may also have a custodial history that should be noted. Statements about the volume itself, such as binding information and table of contents, should not be attached to a single unit from the volume but to the volume itself. The proposed model allows for such description. This model can be used with resources beyond bound-withs: it can apply to any type of resource that comprises items created or produced separately but later unified into a single physical object, such as scrapbooks or photograph albums. For published resources, only items that have been bound together subsequent to publication, rather than issued or reissued together by the publisher (omnibus volumes and nonce collections), are covered in this model.

Not all carriers are considered collections in the way bound-withs are, however. In the case of two paintings on a single sheet, for example, one may wish to describe the individual paintings, but the sheet would not constitute a “collection” and likely does not need its own description.

BIBFRAME bf:carrier/bf:Carrier cannot be applied to our use cases because they are used for instance- rather than item-level description. In addition, bf:carrier indicates the type of carrier (“Categorization reflecting the format of the storage medium and housing of a carrier”), not a relationship between resources on a carrier and the carrier.

Note that the relationships among the parts of a bound-with or items that share a carrier can be derived from the relationships of the parts to the whole, and it would therefore be redundant to define predicates for the part-part relationships.

Summary of Recommendations

Sample Data

“Bound (3rd) with 5 other titles. Bound with 1st in vol. 10560349 (parent record’s identifier).”

“Painting 1 pasted on sheet with painting 2.”

“Later sketch on verso.”

Part I. The Bound-With Model

Summary

Most of the proposed Bound-With model is derived from terms from other ontologies: BIBFRAME, dcterms, and other RareMat/ArtFrame models. The only RareMat-specific terms relate to the BoundCollection class itself and the class hierarchy in which it is positioned.

Areas covered by other ontologies:

Diagram

Bound-withs diagram

Term Specifications

Classes

ex:BoundCollection

bf:Item

bf:Instance

bf:Identifier

bf:Title

Properties

dcterms:hasPart

dcterms:isPartOf

seq:precedes

seq:directlyPrecedes

seq:follows

seq:directlyFollows

Sample RDF

Bound-withs

:item1 a bf:Item ; 
    dcterms:isPartOf :boundCollection . 

:item2 a bf:Item ; 
    dcterms:isPartOf :boundCollection ;
    seq:follows :item1 .

:boundCollection a ex:BoundCollection , bf:Item ;
    dcterms:hasPart :binding ;
    ex:hasCustodialHistory :custodial_history .

Areas for Future Research

Part II. The Carrier Model

Summary ——- The carrier model proposes linking items directly to their carriers, and deriving relationships between the individual items via their shared relationship to the same carrier. To prevent the unnecessary proliferation of carrier classes, we recommend using P2_hasType to specify a specific carrier from a controlled vocabulary, such as the RDA carrier terms.

Areas covered by other ontologies:

Diagram

Carriers diagram

Term Specifications

Classes —- bf:Item

Properties

ex:isOnCarrier (Object Property)

ex:carries (Object Property)

Sample RDF

Artworks on a sheet

:artwork1 a bf:Item ;
    bf:itemOf :instance1 ;
    ex:isOnCarrier :carrier1 .

:artwork2 a bf:Item ;
    bf:itemOf :instance2 ;
    ex:isOnCarrier :carrier1 .

:carrier1 crm:P2_hasType <http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300014671> .

Areas for Future Research