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Document Service Ontology (DSO)

Jakob Voß (VZG)

2013-11-11 11:50:56 +0100 (version 0.6.0)

Table of Contents

1 Introduction

The Document Service Ontology (DSO) is a micro-ontology that defines a set of typical document-related services such as provided by libraries, museums and archives.

1.1 Status of this document

This document and RDF serializations of the Document Service Ontology (dso.ttl in RDF/Turtle and ssss.owl in RDF/XML) are generated automatically from a source file written in Pandoc Markdown syntax.1 Sources and updates are available at http://github.com/gbv/dso.

This is version 0.6.0, last modified at 2013-11-11 11:50:56 +0100 with revision 74c773e.

The current version of this ontology is a preliminary draft for open discussion. Feedback is welcome!

Revision history

1.2 Namespaces and ontology

The URI namespace of this ontology is http://purl.org/ontology/dso#. The namespace prefix dso is recommended. The URI of this ontology as a whole is http://purl.org/ontology/dso.

@prefix dso: <http://purl.org/ontology/dso#> .
@base        <http://purl.org/ontology/dso> .

The following namespace prefixes are used to refer to related ontologies:

@prefix bibo:   <http://purl.org/ontology/bibo/> .
@prefix daia:   <http://purl.org/ontology/daia/> .
@prefix foaf:   <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
@prefix gr:     <http://purl.org/goodrelations/v1#> .
@prefix owl:    <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix rdfs:   <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix schema: <http://schema.org/> .
@prefix ssso:   <http://purl.org/ontology/ssso#> .
@prefix vann:   <http://purl.org/vocab/vann/> .

The Document Service Ontology (DSO) is defined in RDF/Turtle as following:

<> a owl:Ontology ;
    rdfs:label "Document Service Ontology" ;
    rdfs:label "DSO" ;
    vann:preferredNamespacePrefix "dso" .

2 Overview

This ontology defines the core class DocumentService representing the set of possible services related to documents. The set of documents is not limited to a specific class (such as bibo:Document from the Bibliographic Ontology, foaf:Document from FOAF vocabulary, and schema:CreativeWork from schema.org vocabulary) although use of these classes is recommended. A document may be an abstract entity (e.g. a work or an edition of a book), a physical or digital copy, or a unique object (e.g. a statue in a museum). Some document services, however do only make sense with specific types of documents. To link documents and document services, this ontology defines the inverse properties hasDocument and hasService. The ontology further defines a set of specific document services, typically found in the context of GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) institutions.

3 Document service class

A document service is a kind of service that is somehow related to one or more documents. To indicate the specific type of document service, one should use a subclass of this class and assing additional service types, such as ssso:ServiceEvent from the Simple Service Status Ontology, schema:Offer or schema:Product from schema.org vocabulary, and gr:Offering or gr:ProductOrService from GoodRelations vocabulary.

dso:DocumentService a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:label "DocumentService" ;
    rdfs:seeAlso ssso:ServiceEvent, gr:Offering, schema:Offer ;
    rdfs:isDefinedBy <> .

4 Specific document service classes

4.1 Loan

A loan is a DocumentService that involves the temporary transfer of usage rights of a document from a service provider (e.g. a library) to a service consumer (e.g. a library patron).

dso:Loan a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:label "Loan" ;
    rdfs:subClassOf dso:DocumentService ;
    rdfs:isDefinedBy <> .

4.2 Presentation

A presentation involves the display or similar usage of a document in a restricted environment, e.g. within the rooms or in the intranet of a library or museum.

dso:Presentation a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:label "Presentation" ;
    rdfs:subClassOf dso:DocumentService ;
    rdfs:isDefinedBy <> .

4.3 Interloan

For interloan a document is made accessible mediated by another institution.

dso:Interloan a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:label "Interloan" ;
    rdfs:subClassOf dso:DocumentService ;
    rdfs:isDefinedBy <> .

4.4 OpenAccess

An Open Access service implies to free accessibility of a document without any restrictions by the service provider (Open Access or free copies).

dso:OpenAccess a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:label "OpenAccess" ;
    rdfs:subClassOf dso:DocumentService ;
    rdfs:isDefinedBy <> .

4.5 Digitization

A digitization DocumentService creates a digital document from a physical document, for instance a digital photograph or a 3D-scan of a physical object.

This class is just a suggestion!

4.6 Identification

A service to identify a document that is only known with limited properties (e.g. only parts of the title). In RDF such document is typically expressed by a blank node.

This class is experimental!

5 Properties

5.1 hasDocument

Relates a DocumentService to a document. The relation is rather lax as it only tells that a specific document is somehow involved in a specific document service. To express more specific relations, one should define and use sub-properties, such as daia:availableFor and daia:unavailableFor.

dso:hasDocument a owl:ObjectProperty ;
    rdfs:label "hasDocument" ;
    rdfs:domain dso:DocumentService ;
    owl:inverseOf dso:hasService ;
    rdfs:seeAlso foaf:Document, bibo:Document ;
    rdfs:seeAlso daia:availableFor, daia:unavailableFor ;
    rdfs:isDefinedBy <> .

5.2 hasService

Relates a document to a DocumentService.

dso:hasService a owl:ObjectProperty ;
    rdfs:label "hasService" ;
    rdfs:range dso:DocumentService ;
    owl:inverseOf dso:hasDocument ;
    rdfs:seeAlso foaf:Document, bibo:Document ;
    rdfs:seeAlso daia:availableFor, daia:unavailableFor ;
    rdfs:isDefinedBy <> .

7 References

7.1 Normative References

7.2 Informative References

  1. Documents are generated using makespec.↩