Weibel’s Dangerous Waters
Stuart Weibel’s Dangerous Waters blog post of 25 August does a few quick tests to compare Open WorldCat and Google Book Search. He runs into some problems when trying to find a manifestation of a particular expression of Plato’s Republic, because it was published as The Republic of Plato.
Users will benefit from FRBRization of such services. Should The Republic of Plato have appeared within a search for Plato’s Republic? Yeah, for sure. How realistic is it to expect that it can be achieved using economical approaches to FRBRization? Good question.
I think any classic work like that should be handled easily by a good FRBR algorithm. If I remember my MARC right, there should be a 240 Uniform Title field for The Republic of Plato that would group it with the others. Besides, anything by Plato with “Republic” in the title is pretty easy pickings.