Abstract

This study proposes a method for restructuring the object property model of BIBFRAME 2.5.0 ontology, developed by the Library of Congress, by applying property characteristics defined in the OWL 2 standard. Although BIBFRAME was designed to replace the MARC bibliographic format using RDF, the current ontology lacks systematic assignment of object property characteristics, limiting its semantic accuracy and reasoning capabilities. Accordingly, this study examines the applicability of six OWL 2 property characteristics—FunctionalProperty, SymmetricProperty, TransitiveProperty, AsymmetricProperty, ReflexiveProperty, and IrreflexiveProperty—to the object properties of BIBFRAME. The analysis revealed that some properties required functional constraints, others allowed multiple values, and several relationship properties needed transitive or asymmetric attributes. In particular, transitive and asymmetric characteristics proved essential for expressing complex resource relationships in detailed property groups. Additionally, a comparison of OWL axioms before and after the assignment showed that the total number of axioms increased by 58, including 43 logical axioms, demonstrating an enhancement in structural consistency and reasoning capability. Unlike previous studies focused mainly on structural analysis of BIBFRAME, this study presents a systematic method for enhancing the logical completeness of the ontology. Future research should empirically verify the effectiveness of this approach in bibliographic data transformation and query optimization.