Taking Music Metadata from MARC to FRBR to RDF

Abstract

The Variations/FRBR project aims to contribute to a community understanding of what it means to implement FRBR. Serving as a concrete test-bed for the FRBR conceptual model, a goal of the V/FRBR project is to provide the community with FRBR-compliant data formats and encodings promoting interoperability and exchange of FRBR data between systems and institutions. The first outcome of this goal was a FRBR-compliant XML format developed and released by the project team. Encouraged by recent efforts towards creating library legacy metadata which are Semantic Web-compliant, the V/FRBR project has completed an RDF binding of the V/FRBR data model that will serve to further formal interoperability among all FRBR-based Application Profiles. This article discusses the steps taken towards creating a Semantic Web-compliant, interoperable data model that implements the FRBR conceptual model and can be used in both a generic and a music-specific environment.