Four questions: Pat Riva
Today I’m delighted to have the second instalment of Four FRBR Questions with another eminent FRBRian. Pat Riva, new chair of the FRBR Review Group, was kind enough to answer the questions. If you haven’t met her, here’s a chance to get to know a bit about her right at the start of her tenure as chair.
When did you first hear about FRBR?
I’m not really sure. I think it must have been during the lead-up to the 1997 International Conference on the Principles and Future Development of AACR (held in Oct. 1997 in Toronto). The major papers were circulated prior to the conference and discussed on a listserv. Shelley Sherry Vellucci’s paper on bibliographic relationships summarized all the important work in that (very interesting) area, and let me realize that the IFLA FRBR report was something I wanted very much to know more about. I wasn’t able to do anything further (due to being heavily involved in a major system migration in my day job) until 2001 when I made FRBR-related work (specifically membership in the Format Variation Working Group at that time newly established by the JSC) the focus of my sabbatical. After that, one thing just lead to another.
What’s your involvement with it now?
A few weeks ago I would have said an interested commentator, but as of August 19 I’ve started as chair of the FRBR Review Group. I remain involved in the RDA revision process as a member of the Examples Group. I’m very interested in seeing how the incorporation of FRBR concepts and principles will work out in the cataloguing code.
What’s one thing you think the FRBR world needs most?
Large-scale implementations in systems.
What’s your one-line non-librarian description of FRBR?
It’s all about relationships, some things are more closely related, others more distantly, others not at all. FRBR gives us the framework to capture our intuitions about these relationships.