FRAR draft
Glenn Patton sent word to the FRBR mailing list that a draft of the Functional Requirements for Authority Records specification is available. That’s FRAR. FRANAR is Functional Requirements and Numbering of Authority Records, and the IFLA group doing all this is the Working Group on FRANAR. It’s a bit confusing.
What’s an authority record? The document says at the start:
For the purposes of this study, an authority record is defined as the aggregate of information about an entity whose name is used as a controlled access point for bibliographic citations or records in a library catalogue or bibliographic file. The authority record normally contains the authorized or preferred form for the access point as established by the library, as well as variant forms and related access points used as references. In addition, the authority record may contain information pertaining to the entity associated with the access point (i.e., the person, corporate body, work, concept, etc. represented by the access point) as well as to relationships between that entity and other entities represented by related access points. The authority record will also normally include information identifying the rules under which the access point was established, the sources consulted, the cataloguing agency responsible for establishing the access point, etc.
It’s the thing that keeps Richard Burton the explorer separate from Richard Burton the actor in a library catalogue, and stops you from thinking one of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands made a secret visit to Mecca in 1853.
FRAR and FRBR are closely tied together and you’ll want to read this. Comments are open until late October.