Core Ontology

The NYPL Core Ontology provides a vocabulary for describing bibliographic resources owned or managed by NYPL.

An Item is an intellectual entity owned or managed by NYPL. An Item may be a single, standalone entity or contain other Items, such as a scrapbook of ephemera, an atlas of maps, or a book of essays. An Item represents the original physical object and contains its descriptive information. Items may stand on their own or may be part of a Component or a number of Collections.

A Component is a grouping of one or more intellectual entities within a collection, such as an archival fonds, a record series. Like an Item, a Component represents physical objects owned or managed by NYPL and contains descriptive information. The intellectual entities contained within Components may be further identified and described as Items. Unlike Items, Components cannot stand alone and must belong to one or more Collections.

A Collection is an aggregation of NYPL bibliographic resources, including any combination of Items, Components, or other Collections. Collections may represent physical collections, synthetic collections, selections of Items for display in an exhibition, user or staff-curated lists, or any grouping of bibliographic resources.

Namespaces

 

Item
Equivalent class	nypl:Item
Description	An intellectual entity owned or managed by NYPL
Refines	pcdm:Object

 

 

Component
Equivalent class	nypl:Component
Description	A grouping of one or more intellectual entities within a collection, such as an archival fonds, a record series.
Refines	pcdm:Object

 

Collection
Equivalent class	nypl:Collection
Description	An aggregation of NYPL bibliographic resources, including any combination of Items, Components, or other Collections
Refines	pcdm:Collection

Properties

 

 

Alternative title
Equivalent property	dcterms:alternative
Description	An alternative name for the resource.
Range	xsd:literal
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Contributor
Equivalent property	dcterms:contributor
Description	A person or organization responsible for making contributions to the resource. Includes creators. Specific roles are also asserted with MARC relator predicates.
Range	edm:Agent
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Date created
Equivalent property	TBD dcterms:created
Description
Range	xsd:literal (encoded to EDTF)
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Description
Equivalent property	dcterms:description
Description	A description or summary of the content of the resource.
Range	xsd:literal
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Identifier
Equivalent property	dcterms:identifier
Identifier	An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context.
Range	xsd:anyURI
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Language
Equivalent property	dcterms:language
Description	A language of the resource.
Range	dcterms:LinguisticSystem (as skos:Concept)
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Note
Equivalent property	skos:note
Description	A general note, for any purpose.
Range	xsd:literal (string prepended with note type from source system, ex. "Content note: ")
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Owner
Equivalent property	nypl:owner
Description	The division, collection, branch, or external agent responsible for management of the content.
Range	skos:Concept
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Place
Equivalent property	dcterms:spatial
Description	Spatial characteristics of the resource.
Range	TBD
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Resource type
Equivalent property	dcterms:type
Description	The nature or broad genre of the resource.
Range	skos:Concept (from LC Resource Types)
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Subject
Equivalent property	dcterms:subject
Description	A topic of the resource.
Range	skos:Concept
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Title
Equivalent property	dcterms:title
Description	A name given to a resource to identify or describe it
Range	xsd:literal
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

Relationships

Some properties denote relationships between core entities and similar external entities. Some resources are members of another resource, such as items in a collection. Some resources reproduce other resources, such as a microfilm copy of an archival collection. Some resources are part of larger series, such as issues of a journal or newspaper.

Since our model defines a resource instance per holding, some resources will share common characteristics and their equivalence will be asserted with a relationship.

 

 

Has member
Equivalent property	pcdm:hasMember
Description	Links to a subsidiary core resource..
Range	pcdm:Object, pcdm:Collection
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Member of
Equivalent property	pcdm:memberOf
Description	Links from a core resource to a containing core resource.
Range	pcdm:Object, pcdm:Collection
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Equivalent to
Equivalent property	bf:hasEquivalent
Description	Identifies other copies of the same expression in the Registry (ex., items with the same catalog bnumber or photographic prints of the same photo).
Range	Item, Component

 

 

Reproduction of
Equivalent property	bf:reproduction
Description	Physical reproduction of another core resource, ex. a microfilm reproduction of an archival collection. Does not apply to digital surrogates.
Subclass of	bf:equivalentTo
Range	Item, Component, Collection
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

Has reproduction
Equivalent property	bf:originalVersion (?)
Description	Has a physical reproduction, ex. a microfilm reproduction of an archival collection. Does not apply to digital surrogates.
Range	Item, Component, Collection
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

 

 

In series
Equivalent property
Description	Is part of a periodical or monograph series, ex. a volume of a journal.
Range
Domain	Item, Component, Collection

Context Classes

In addition to core resource classes, additional locally-defined and external classes support the description of bibliographic resources. Context classes provide additional information about the objects of statements.

An Agent is a person or organization who has the potential to perform intentional actions for which they can be held responsible.

An Organizational Unit is a department or unit within an organization. Within the context of the NYPL Registry Core Classes, an Organizational Unit is the division, collection, branch, or external agent responsible for management of the content identified.

A Concept is a unit of thought. The Concept class defines concepts as controlled vocabulary terms within an organizational scheme or thesaurus. The Registry draws from widely used external concept schemes, such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings and the Virtual International Authority File, as well as locally minted schemes, such as BILLI, an RDF representation of NYPL’s Billings classmark system.

 

Agent
Equivalent class	edm:Agent
Description	A person or organization who has the potential to perform intentional actions for which they can be held responsible.
Refines

 

 

Concept
Equivalent class	skos:Concept
Description	A unit of thought.
Refines

 

 

Organizational Unit
Equivalent class	org:OrganizationalUnit
Description	The division, collection, branch, or external agent responsible for management of the content identified.
Refines	org:Organization

 

 

Classmark
Equivalent class	billi:Classmark
Description
Refines	skos:Concept

Context class properties

 

 

Alternate name
Equivalent property	skos:altLabel
Description	An alternative lexical label for a resource.
Range	xsd:literal
Domain	Agent, Organization, Concept

 

 

Exact match
Equivalent property	skos:exactMatch
Description	A concept in another vocabulary that is close enough to be used interchangeably with the subject.
Range	skos:concept
Domain	Agent, Organization, Concept

 

 

Has org unit
Equivalent property	org:hasUnit
Description	Indicates a unit which is part of this Organization, e.g. a Department within a larger Organization.
Range	org:OrganizationalUnit
Domain	Organization

 

 

Organization code
Equivalent property	skos:notation
Description	A code or abbreviation for an organizational unit.
Range	xsd:literal
Domain	Organization

 

 

Preferred name
Equivalent property	skos:prefLabel
Description	The preferred lexical label for a resource, in a given language.
Range	xsd:literal
Domain	Agent, Organization, Concept

 

 

Unit of
Equivalent property	org:unitOf
Description	Indicates an Organization of which this Unit is a part, e.g. a Department within a larger Organization.
Range	org:Organization
Domain	Organization