Domain-specific extension of BIBFRAME for regional music

conceptual modeling and expert validation

Abstract

This applied-developmental research aimed to develop a model for expanding the Bibliographic Framework in describing regional music. The research was conducted in four main steps, including identifying regional music data elements through text analysis and interviews with experts (which led to the identification of 41 information elements), qualitatively matching these elements with Bibliographic Framework classes and properties using Resource Description Framework triples, achieving an expanded model, and final evaluation based on five structural and content criteria (layer appropriateness, property adequacy, lack of conceptual overlap, class-property compatibility, and the need for development). The evaluation results showed that the Bibliographic Framework is adequate in describing the classical bibliographic dimensions and technical characteristics of musical resources, but has three fundamental conceptual gaps in describing regional music: the inability to represent “performance knowledge” as an independent semantic layer (Music-as-Performance versus Music-as-Object), ontological bias towards Western musicology (Western Music Ontology Bias), and cultural context compression. The findings indicate that elements such as vocal style, performance style, improvisational level, playing technique, non-Western musical systems (position, pitch, rhythmic cycle), and performance identity features (gender, dialect) require targeted conceptual development, while the proposed model, as a complementary and compatible development with the original Bibliographic Framework, increases the descriptive capacity of the model without creating structural inconsistencies and is considered a step towards bringing the “library-based resource” paradigm and the “performance-culture-based” paradigm closer together in the linked data environment.