MODS RDF vocabulary

Omeka S
1

There are a couple of earlier threads on using MODS (for example here: Omeka-S: Importing MODS - Omeka S - Omeka Forum) but it is rightly pointed out that the Library of Congress only provides an RDF version of MODS version 1.

I tried loading the indicated file into Omeka and it created 9 classes and 96 properties, but I noticed than none of the properties cover dates. I was expecting to see things like mods:dateCreated and mods:dateModified.

When I look at the OWL RDF file I find that these missing properties have been coded as owl:AnnotationProperty. For example:

      <owl:AnnotationProperty rdf:ID="dateValid">
        <rdfs:subPropertyOf rdf:resource="#date"/>
        <rdfs:comment>A date when resource was valid. (Not necessarily the first or last date, but this is an assertion that on that given date the information was valid.)</rdfs:comment>
        <rdfs:label rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string"
        >Date Valid</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="#ModsResource"/>
      </owl:AnnotationProperty>

From my reading of the OWL Web Ontology Language Reference the AnnotationProperty should be used for things which are talking about the vocabulary, not for elements of the vocabulary themselves. I assume that is why Omeka has not loaded them. They probably ought to be owl:DatatypeProperty terms instead.

I imagine I could edit the RDF file and correct this, but given the MODS RDF representation is already quite out of date, I probably should consider a different approach. It’s a shame, because I am starting with thousands of MARC records, and the MARC to MODS cross-walk is pretty robust.

2

You could add “owl:AnnotationProperty” to the $propertyTypes array (here) and import the vocabulary. The annotation properties should be included.

3

Thank you, that’s helpful! I think I’d want to do that temporarily, as it seems like a good idea to exclude these properties normally.