Dictionaries

Dictionaries in LexBib

Initially being meant for LOD-ification of publication metadata, LexBib ontology is now being further developed, so that conceptual-lexical resources (LCR) such as dictionaries can be represented, linked to other LCR through a defined set of properties, and linked to the bibliographical items or other types of distribution that embody them.

We follow the three-level entity hierarchy for the representation of artistic or creative endavour proposed in the FRBR ontology, widely used in libraries, which we map to the two-level hierarchy for the representation of LCR metadata proposed in Metashare. These hierarchy levels, expressed as OWL classes, are the following:

FRBR class	Metashare class	LexBib class	MetaShare definition
frbr:Work		Q41	[An abstract notion of a creation; used to group different expressions (editions, versions) of the same work]
frbr:Expression	ms:LexicalConceptualResource	Q4	A resource organised on the basis of lexical or conceptual entries (lexical items, terms, concepts, etc.) with their supplementary information (e.g., grammatical, semantic, statistical information, etc.)
frbr:Manifestation	ms:DatasetDistribution	Q24	Any form with which a dataset is distributed, such as a downloadable form in a specific format (e.g., spreadsheet, plain text, etc.) or an API with which it can be accessed

The entity Schemata for LexBib LCR and LCR Distributions are aligned to those of the corresponding FRBR and Metashare classes (in other words, the LexBib class is a subclass of both). This has several implications:

• Properties that describe LCR content belong to the LCR item.
• Properties that describe the LCR distribution, e.g. a physical dictionay in book form, or an electronic dictionary in a dictionary web portal or as downloadable dataset, belong to the LCR Distribution item.
• LCR Distribution items, when they have publication metadata as books have, are LexBib Zotero items, i.e. in LexBib wikibase, members of class LexBib BibItem. This applies mainly book publications, and distributions on CD-ROM. But also online electronic dictionaries are collected can have publication metadata and exist as Zotero items.
• A dictionary with the same contents in printed form, on CD-ROM, available in a mobile app, or downloadable in different serialization formats (XML, JSON, etc.) will be represented as the same resource with different distributions.

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See what's in the database

A graph of test items can be viewed using this Query.