Dempsey: Further FRBR applications
Further FRBR Applications, a blog post by OCLC’s Lorcan Dempsey, notices a use for FRBR in a law prof’s thoughts about copyright: finding public domain manifestations of a work. That’s one of those manifestation-level attributes that could be important enough to be elevated up so it’s clearly visible to catalogue users when they’re browsing works. There are others: I don’t care if a book is hardcover or soft, but I’d only read large print as a last resort while others would always prefer it. If I want a movie, I need to know if it’s available on DVD, VHS, or some other format (and, if it’s an international catalogue, if my player can play it and my TV show it). If I wanted the electronic text of a book (e.g. Homer’s The Odyssey) so I could reuse it, I’d definitely want to know if there’s a version that’s out of copyright. Now, most people wouldn’t care about that, but we should let people customize the display so they can see the attributes that mean the most to them. “Save the time of the reader,” as the great Ranganathan said.