[Developers] [Data-modeling] Proposed refactoring in the publishing domain

[Faye Li]

Is Written Work going to be a co-type for Published Work as well?

I'd like to see the Authorship type solve the problem of modeling pen 
names and pseudonyms. For example, "Quidditch Through the Ages" is 
published under the author name "Kennilworthy Whisp", and "Fantasic 
Beasts & Where to Find Them" is published under the author name "Newt 
Scamander". But of course it was J. K. Rowling who wrote both books and 
holds the copyright for both.

Ideally (i.e. a "nice to have") it would allow users to specify this 
information at the edition level -- as writers, completely unaware of 
data modeling implications, sometimes change their print names between 
editions. The result is that a book previously published anonymously or 
under a pseudonym may bear the author's real name in a later edition.

-- Faye


Jeff Prucher wrote:
> There have been several requests made, over the last few months, to allow
> for more flexibility of attributing authorship and other contributions to
> written works, and also to add various properties to a number of types in
> the publishing domain. Toward this end, I've created a new type, "written
> work" that will be an included type on all the various types that represent
> written works -- book, short story, poem, short non-fiction, review, and
> translation.
>
> The new type is currently on sandbox. I'd appreciate it if anyone who is
> interested could take a look at it and let me know what you think. Please
> look before Monday evening (Pacific Time), since sandbox will be refreshed
> then.
> http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/schema/book/written_work
>
> I've filled out the contents of the April 2007 issue of the Magazine of
> Fantasy and Science Fiction as an example. Click the various items in the
> contents property to see the type in action.
> http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f800000000514f951
>
> One feature is to treat authorship (or similar form of creative
> contribution) as a compound value type which will allow for multiple types
> of contribution to be recorded in the same property and for all the
> disparate types of works to be listed together on the contributors' pages.
> Currently, author and editor are treated as separate properties; having a
> single property will allow Freebase to reconcile more easily to other
> data-sources, which usually store these in the same field. This will also
> allow us to record books where the illustrator is tied to the book itself,
> rather to individual editions (as in most children's picture books, but as
> opposed to, say, an illustrated edition of Huckleberry Finn).
> See http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/guid/9202a8c04000641f8000000006c3521e
> and http://sandbox.freebase.com/view/make_way_for_ducklings for some further
> examples.
>
> Another of the new type is that a number of other properties can usefully be
> shared by all types of written works, rather than being distributed onto
> each. These properties are: original language, date written, copyright date,
> date of first publication, and online versions. Others will probably arise,
> but this seems like a good set to start with.
>
> (I'm copying the developers list in case anyone is writing an application
> using any of the publishing domain types.)
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Jeff Prucher
> Type Librarian & Ontologist
> Metaweb
>
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