Wikidata:Property proposal/issuing agency

issuing agent of work

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Generic

   Done: issuing agent of work (P9901) (Talk and documentation)

Description	organization, entity, or agency responsible for issuing the serial work, such as the official publication organ of the entity; distinct from commercial publisher of the serial work
Represents	person or organization (Q106559804)
Data type	Item
Domain	Any publication (Q732577)--electronic or print--that is continuing in nature for example: periodical (Q1002697), serial (Q2217301), website (Q35127) or monographic series (Q65185088).
Allowed values	organizations (Q43229). However, in rare instances if entities such as person or family are responsible for issuing the serial work, they can be included.
Example 1	Knowledge Organization (Q6423317) should have International Society for Knowledge Organization as issuing agency (Ergon Verlag is one of the publishers).
Example 2	The American Historical Review (Q389936) should have American Historical Association as issuing agency (OUP is one of the publishers).
Example 3	Baltic Journal of Law & Politics (BJLP) (Q50815204) should have Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy and the Faculty of Law of Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania) as issuing agency (De Gruyter is the publisher).
Planned use	When contributing items for serials to Wikidata, I would use this property when creating/editing such items in Wikidata.
See also	issued by (P2378): organisation or other agent that issues or allocates an identifier, code, classification number, etc. authority (P797): entity having executive power on given entity central bank/issuer (P562): central bank or other issuing authority for the currency
Wikidata project	WikiProject PCC Wikidata Pilot/UCLA (Q100999455)

Motivation

This property will allow for greater granularity in terms of defining the role that organizations/corporate entities play in the life of the serial publication. While a publisher can be responsible for the formatting or printing of the serial that makes it available to the public (for ex many commercial publishers play this role), there are corporate entities (non-profits, academic departments, government agencies) who are responsible for the intellectual content of the serial and not just the publishing aspect. In traditional cataloging, these entities are related to the serial work through the relationship designator of "issuing body" as opposed to "publisher." Issuing agencies are often times distinct from publishers in terms of their roles in serial publishing/creation and as such having this property will help differentiate their roles in description of serial items. Indeed, serial publications that are issued by a single agent, often change publishers over the course of its life span. To go with the examples given above of Wikidata items: The American Historical Review has been the official organ of the American Historical Association (issuing agency) since it was founded in the late 1890s but has changed publishers over its long history (self-published; University of Chicago Press (2007-12) and Oxford University Press (since 2012). Similarly Knowledge Organization, which is the official publication of the International Society of Knowledge Organization (issuing agency), has changed publishers over time: from 1974 to 1980 it was published by K. G. Saur Verlag of München; from 1981 to 1997 by Indeks Verlag of Frankfurt; and since 1998 by Ergon Verlag of Würzburg. Similarly, BJLP was initially published by Versita and later by DeGruyter. However, in the absence of a suitable property for issuing agency, in the examples provided above--either the issuing agencies are clubbed together with the publisher (as with The American Historical Review and Knowledge Organization) or missing from statements entirely (BJLP).

The relationship statement/relator term--issuing agent/issuing body of a resource--can be found in current cataloging vocabulary (see RDA Registry here); in the list of relator terms in LC's linked data service (see here); or other ontologies, which could eventually go in an equivalent class (P1709) or equivalent property (P1628) statement. The property, if approved, can include the different from (P1889) statement with the value publisher (P123). Note: The existing property issued by (P2378) is limited to agents/organizations that allocates identifiers which is not the same as an issuing agency responsible for issuance of the serial work. Parobis1 (talk) 20:22, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

WikiProject Periodicals has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead.

Discussion

•  Support --It would be helpful to distinguish between commercial publishers and issuing bodies in Wikidata items for serial publications Helianthus74 22:12, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Support metadataguy 15:19, 13 September 2021 (PST)
•  Support Since the property is defined as applicable to both persons and organizations, maybe the property name "issuing agent" is preferable to "issuing agency", since a person isn't an agency. Possible aliases: issuing body, issuing agency, issued by, organ of, official organ of. Should integrating resources also be in the domain? Websites often have issuing bodies. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 22:57, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
  • "Issuing agent" is preferable and I had thought about using it but wasn't sure if I could/should since it's one of the aliases of the property: issued by (P2378). Agree on the possible aliases. Thanks! Parobis1 (talk) 19:45, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Maryacat (talk) 14:06, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Support--Katpaws (talk) 16:11, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Comment. This would have to be articulated with house publication (P2813), possibly. Thierry Caro (talk) 17:27, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Can it be articulated as a "complementary property (P8882)" of house publication (P2813)? Maybe add "house publisher" to the list of aliases? Thanks! Parobis1 (talk) 20:02, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Support--Uzundzhovets (talk) 19:06, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Emwille (talk) 14:26, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Gyangyanko (talk) 9:29, 15 September 2021 (PST)
•  Support User:imandag 2:13, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Support --Crystal Clements, University of Washington Libraries (talk) 22:22, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Comment To me, the currently proposed label "issuing agent" is the same as the already existing "issued by" (a label which isn't ideal either). It would be good to come up with labels that help differentiate the two and more clearly indicate what an "issuing agent" is meant to be. If it's obvious to librarians, maybe " (library science)" can be here. --- Jura 09:56, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Comment The descriptions of the two properties are very clear and clearly distinguish them. But I don't disagree with Jura that "issued by" isn't ideal. It could be changed to "assigned by" or "assigning agent" or "identifier issued by" or "issued by (identifier)". "issuing agent" in this proposal could perhaps be revised "issuing agent (work)" or "issuing agent of work", which I think is better than Jura's suggestion to use "(library science)". UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 16:07, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
  • I think "issuing agent (work)" or "issuing agent of work" are good options. Perhaps the latter is more clear. I included "website" and "monographic series" to the domain list. Thanks! Parobis1 (talk) 16:45, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Support Adkmeta (talk) 16:58, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
•  SupportTylerRogers (talk) 6:17, 16 September 2021 (UTC)
•  Oppose given that the label hasn't been sorted out. --- Jura 14:23, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Changed label to "issuing agent of work" which helps identify what the property represents. Thanks! Parobis1 (talk) 16:06, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Isn't the publisher the agent of organization that issues it? Or maybe it's a different type of "agent". --- Jura 16:48, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
  • "issuing agent" has a different meaning in cataloging than "publisher". The publisher is responsible for the actual physical manifestation that gets printed or made available electronically. The issuing agent is the body from whom the work emanates. They are responsible for causing the work to be created. The publisher of a serial is often a commercial body, while the issuing agent is a scholarly association or society. For example, Europoésie, the journal of the European Academy of Poetry is published by Daedalus Press. The European Academy of Poetry is the issuing agent. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 15:43, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
• @Parobis1, Helianthus74, metadataguy, Maryacat, Katpaws, Thierry Caro: @Uzundzhovets, Emwille, Gyangyanko, imandag, Clements.UWLib, Jura1: @Adkmeta, TylerRogers: WikiProject Periodicals has more than 50 participants and couldn't be pinged. Please post on the WikiProject's talk page instead.  Done as issuing agent of work (P9901). UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 19:48, 21 September 2021 (UTC)