Works ontology
An ontology describing library and archive works, including their physical items and relationships.
Work
An individual work such as a text, archive item or picture; or a grouping of individual works (so, for instance, an archive collection counts as a work, as do all the series and individual files within it). Each work may exist in multiple instances (e.g. copies of the same book). N.B. this is not synonymous with "work" as that is understood in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions' Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records model (FRBR) but represents something lower down the FRBR hierarchy, namely manifestation. Groups of related items are also included as works because they have similar properties to the individual ones.
Item
A specific instance of a work: for instance, an individual physical copy with its own location. This corresponds to the bottom, Instance, layer of FRBR. Works that are unique - that is, have only one copy - are described in terms of a Work for their intellectual content, linked to an Item describing their local (usually physical) characteristics.
WorkType
A broad, top-level description of the form of a work: namely, whether it is a printed book, archive, painting, photograph, moving image, etc.
Place
A physical location that relates in some way to a work: for example, the place at which a work was published or otherwise created.
Period
A period of time which can have a start and an end. Each of which could be reprented by a range.
Concept
A concept that forms part of a controlled vocabulary.
Genre
A genre or technique describing a work.
Agent
A person, group, event or organisation asscoaited with a work.
Language
A language recognised as one of those in the ISO 639-2 language codes.
Series
A series of works.
Subject
The subject of a work.
Contributor
A contribution to a work.
ProductionEvent
An event contributing to the production, publishing or distribution of a work.
items
Relates the general bibliographic description of a work to specific instances of it, each item forming a unique incarnation of that work. Item here corresponds to the bottom layer of FRBR.
isPartOf
Relates an work to its host work.
hasPart
Relates an work to its parts.
copyOf
Relates an entity to one of which it forms a copy - that is, a transcription or other duplication. (This property is used when it results in the creation of a new bibliographic entity and not simply for second instances of a particular work.)
originalOf
Relates an entity to one that forms a copy of it. (This property is used when it results in the creation of a new bibliographic entity and not simply for second instances of a particular work.)
creators
Relates a work to its author, compiler, editor, artist or other entity responsible for its coming into existence in the form that it has.
publishers
Relates a published work to its publisher.
placeOfPublication
Relates a work to its place of publication.
placeOfCreation
Relates a work to its place of creation; typically this will be used for unpublished works, whilst published works will instead use the property hasPublicationLocation.
subjects
Relates a work to the general thesaurus-based concept that describes the work's content.
genres
Relates a work to its genres.
workType
Relates a Work to the general WorkType that describes the work's form: published text, painting, and so on.
publicationDate
Relates the publication of a work to a date, when the work has been formally published. This date is not identical with the property createdDate: for example, a work may be created at a particular time but only published after the author's death, or a work may be published in a modern edition long after first publication. An extreme example would be the works of Aristotle, all of which are created some centuries BCE but not published in the formal sense for many centuries after this
createdDate
Relates the creation of a work to a date, when the date of creation does not cover a range
language
Relates a work to its primary language
series
Relates a work to a series it is a part of
works
Relates a series to works that are part of it
contributors
Relates a work to contributors to that work
agent
Relates an contribution to the responsible agent.
roles
Relates a contributor to the role they played in the contribution.
classification
Relates a work to its classifications.
production
Relates a work to its production events.
function
Relates a production event to a specific function.
modifiedDate
Relates the last recorded modification of a work to a date
title
The title or other short label of a work, including labels not present in the actual work or item but applied by the cataloguer for the purposes of search or description.
partNumber
The part number the work is in a group or series of works.
partName
The part name for the work in a group or series of works.
level
Indicates the position of a work within a hierarchy of works: for example, Collection, Series, Item etc. The terminology used here will typically be drawn from external systems and may not necessarily correspond directly to the terminology of this ontology: for instance, in archive catalogues the term Item may be used to describe an entity that combines properties assigned in this ontology to the Work and Item classes.
alternativeTitle
Alternative title for a work, usually used for published material: former title, variant forms, translation of main title, etc.
lettering
Recording written text on a (usually visual) work.
physicalDescription
A description of specific physical characteristics of the item - condition, dimensions, details of cover or binding, etc. - or, in the case of digital objects, any notes relating to this digital manifestation over and above notes of file format.
extent
Number of physical pages, volumes, cassettes, total playing time, etc., of of each type of unit.
dimensions
Expressed in centimeters, millimeters, or inches; may include a parenthetical qualifier giving the format of the item (e.g., (fol.), (8vo)).
positionInSeries
Position in series or volume number.