1. Linked Data Working Group Report
Good morning. I’m Jim Soe Nyun. Presenting with me this morning is Kirk-Evan Billet. Together we’re the Co-Chairs of the Music Library Association’s Linked Data Working group. This morning we’ll be giving a very brief overview of the work of the activities of the Working Group.
Kirk-Evan Billet
James Soe Nyun
For Cataloging and Metadata Committee Meeting
Orlando, February 23, 2017

2. Genesis of MLA’s Linked Data Working Group (LDWG)
MLA’s Linked Data Working Group was formed in May of 2016 as an initiative of the Cataloging and Metadata Committee. We thank Tracey Snyder for coming up with the name, which has the handy acronym of L D W G, or “Ludwig.”
The group formed in response to the Performed Music Ontology Project that you’ve just heard Nancy Lorimer and Kevin Kishimoto discuss.
Bust of Beethoven, plastic and wood, €5.90, from Beethoven-Haus, Bonn
Image:

3. Some Aims of the Performed Music Ontology Project:
Develop a BIBFRAME-based ontology for performed music in all formats
Domain-specific enhancements and/or extensions of BIBFRAME for use by the library community as a common standard
Establish a model by which these standards can be created, endorsed, and maintained by the community
The Performed Music Ontology project has a core aim to “Develop a BIBFRAME-based ontology for performed music in all formats.” In addition to accomplishing the goal to create enhancements or extensions of BIBFRAME, it …
[click] … works to “Establish a model by which these standards can be created, endorsed, and maintained by the community,” and …
[click] … “Do this through partnering with domain communities and the PCC”
As one of two major players in the domain of music, the Music Library Association, along with, ARSC, the Association of Recorded Sound Collections, was asked to participate in the development of the ontology. There was no existing group within MLA devoted to this tasks, so a new exploratory working group, was formed to assist in the Stanford project. Enter LDWG…
Do this through partnering with domain communities and the PCC

4. Members of LDWG: Anne Adams Kirk-Evan Billet, co-chair Christopher Bruhn Michelle Hahn Lisa Hooper Damian Iseminger Bob Kosovsky Anna Alfeld LoPrete Casey Mullin Charlotte Price Tracey Snyder Terry Simpkins James Soe Nyun, co-chair Kimmy Szeto Jennifer Vaughn Hermine Vermeij Brad Young
LDWG exists as a working group of the Cataloging and Metadata Committee. Looking at this roster of members you’ll see a preponderance of catalogers, but a few names represent specializations outside of cataloging. Domain expertise for music isn’t limited to catalogers and metadata specialists, and we sought out interested parties from throughout the organization.

5. Tasks for LDWG: Develop Use Cases for the Performed Music Ontology Group
The first and main task for LDWG was to develop use cases to become raw material for Performed Music Ontology discussions. LDWG use cases took their place among others generated by ARSC and Stanford.

6. Use Case Areas: Medium of Performance Aggregates Sequence Events
Performers
LDWG members generated use cases in five areas: medium of performance, aggregates, sequence, events, and performers.

7. Example Use Cases:
Hip-hop researcher would like to see a list of performers who appeared at a specific venue during a certain period in order to trace history
Conducting student would like to identify conductors of recordings of Mahler’s Symphony no. 6 in which the scherzo is performed as 2nd movement in order to assess preference and impact
Two examples, presented here in condensed form, can give a sense of the range of coverage and the kinds of user situations in the use cases. In the first, a user persona characterized as a researcher of hip-hop needs to trace the history of who performed at a specified hip-hop venue during a certain period. Data to support this case would have to assert performer relationships and also connect performance events to a location. In the second, the user is a conducting student who needs to assemble recordings of performances of Mahler’s 6th Symphony that make use of an alternative ordering of movements. Here, the data would have to support the sequence of components within the performed work.

8. Use Cases: Requirements for Medium of Performance
Allow a user to…
Discover works by any subset of overall MoP
Draw conclusions about works through MoP information
Many other tasks identified…
Analysis of the entire set of use cases invoking medium of performance allowed a list of requirements to emerge. We looked at requirements in 2 directions: 1 originating from the user, and the other originated from the work. Here are just two examples of user-direction requirements. A user may need to discover works that match just a subset of overall medium of performance, or a user may need to draw conclusions about a given work through medium information.

9. Use Cases: Requirements for Medium of Performance
Allow describing works to convey…
What is necessary to perform the work
That an instrument substitutes for another
Many other tasks identified…
Likewise, requirements can be looked at from the work direction – in a sense personifying the work. Here again are just two examples. A given work can be seen as needing to convey the performing forces used in its performance; it may also need to signal that, in given performance, a substitution has been made in the declared medium.

10. Tasks for LDWG: Review Event Models
Later, LDWG was given the task of evaluating a few promising ontologies for their coverage of requirements identified by the Performed Music Ontology work. The idea here is a basic one to linked data: re-use existing data models where practicable.

11. Event Models Evaluated:
DOREMUS/FRBRoo
Europeana Data Model
Music Ontology
Event Ontology
LDWG members looked at DOREMUS (an acronym for Données en Réutilisation pour la Musique en function des Usages, or, in the English version, Doing Reusable Musical Data), which is based rather closely on the object-oriented version of FRBR, the Europeana Data Model, the Music Ontology, and the Event Ontology. These models were evaluated as potential candidates for use as extensions to BIBFRAME.

12. Tasks for LDWG: Review and comment on work coming out of the Performed Music Ontology project
LDWG members also had the opportunity to comment on work by the Performed Music Ontology project in several other areas, including the modeling of thematic catalog and opus numbers.

13. Future Community Involvement in ontology development
LDWG is one model for ontology development
Community input will also be needed for ontology maintenance
Over the course of the last year, LDWG has filled the role of providing MLA input into the Performed Music Ontology project in furtherance of the project’s goal of partnering with domain communities. However, as an informal Working Group within the Cataloging & Metadata Committee, LDWG will dissolve after the Performed Music Ontology project concludes its work. That leads us to the question of “What next?”
The documentation for a 2014 NISO initiative to preserve RDF vocabularies references findings from DCMI and LOV that early ontology development led to a number of orphan vocabularies, vocabularies left wandering in the wilderness for reasons that often point to a lack of funding or other support. To avoid this fate, the PMO project aims to develop a more sustainable model that involves “partnering with domain communities and the PCC.” MLA’s participation through the Linked Data Working Group has opened up channels of communication in one branch of that partnership. The Performed Music Ontology has a bright future for being used in BIBFRAME and other linked data environments to help our users better explore materials that we offer them, so there are strong reasons for MLA to look at ways to remain involved in a partnership that will sustain the Ontology. Stay tuned for developments.

14. Where to go next?