Expression redefined: draft of proposed changes
Exciting news about the expression entity! First, recall that the Working Group on the Expression Entity is a sub-group of the FRBR Review Group, the IFLA committee that is officially responsible for FRBR. The Expression Working Group has just released a draft of its proposed changes to the FRBR Final Report. The changes are meant to clear up some problems and confusion with the definition of an expression.
- Proposed changes to the FRBR text regarding expressions: clean copy (31 KB PDF)
- Proposed changes to the FRBR text regarding expressions: marked-up copy (with removed text and new text both clearly indicated) (32 KB PDF)
If you want to comment on the draft, you have until the end of the year. Pat Riva sent me the official announcement:
Invitation to participate: World-wide review of revisions to FRBR
section 3.2.2, definition of the entity expression.You are invited to comment on the attached document as part of a
world-wide review. Comments are due by December 31, 2006The Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records final report was
published by IFLA in 1998. As the FRBR conceptual model is intended to
be enhanced and revised when needed, the Cataloguing Section established
the FRBR Review Group in 2003 with a formal mandate which includes
responsibility for revisions to FRBR. This world-wide review is for the
first revision to FRBR to be prepared.One area that has led to much discussion is the meaning of the group 1
entity expression. As a result of the issues raised, the FRBR Review
Group at its meeting in Berlin in 2003 created the Working Group on the
Expression Entity, chaired by Anders Cato, Royal Library, Stockholm,
Sweden which was charged with the task of clarifying the application of
the entity expression. The Working Group held formal meetings at IFLA
conferences from 2004 to 2006 and prepared revisions to the 1998 text of
FRBR section 3.2.2 (pp.18-20) which defines the entity expression.
Examples have been edited for consistency on pages 21 and 59 as well.
Formal world-wide review of the resulting proposed revision is invited
as the definition of an entity is significant to the model.The main differences are:
- Removal of the stipulation that very slight modifications necessarily signal that a manifestation represents a new expression,
- Treatment of augmentations as expressions of their own separate works,
- More careful phrasing relating to musical performances as expressions,
- Explicitly acknowledging that cataloguing agencies will make operational decisions on expression boundaries.
The Working Group and the Review Group will consider all comments
received. A final version will be presented to the Review Group for a
vote, and if approved, will be presented to the IFLA Cataloguing Section
Standing Committee for a vote of approval.Please send all comments, on or before December 31, 2006, to:
Pat Riva (Chair, FRBR Review Group) Library Technical Services McGill University 3459 McTavish Street Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 1Y1 tel: +1-514-398-4790 fax: +1-514-398-8919 email: pat.riva@mcgill.ca and Anders Cato (Chair, Working Group on the Expression Entity) Kungl. Biblioteket Department for Collection Development & Documentation Head, The National Bibliography, monographs Box 5039 S-102 41 Stockholm Sweden tel: +(46) 8 463 44 29 fax: +(46) 8 463 40 04 email: anders.cato@kb.se
My comments, which I will send on to the appropriate addresses…
The basic idea at the heart of these revisions seems to be that expression does not need to include only EXACT same text, but can include variations that are judged insignificant. Those judgements will always be context specific, based on a particular user community in a particular context. I think this is a fine idea, and support the revisions generally. You could be a bit more clear about this idea, I think.
One specific issue I have though is:
“…but would not justify a new bibliographic record that would tend to be interpreted as a misleading indication that there are two distinct publications…”
This assumes too much about how FRBR entities will be encoded in actual bibliographic records, and how that will be displayed to the user. Most of the FRBR report stays away from even using the phrase ‘bibliographic record’. It would be wiser to avoid such detail here too. That is, seperate expressions may or may not be encoded in actual seperate bib records, and seperate expressions can be displayed to the user through a variety of user interfaces, each of which may be even more or less confusing, and specifics of which are not determined solely by whether a seperate bib record exists.
Again, the overall point to be made here is, I think, that minor changes in text may be judged insignificant by a given user community in a given context, and that defining a new expression based on such a (contextually) insignificant change could be confusing to the user (in that community/context), so a single expression will often include such insignificant changes. I think it is better to write it along those lines, without reference to the specifics of bibliographic records OR specifics of display.
Comment by Jonathan — 2 October 2006 @ 11:39 am[...] frbr and just in case you can’t get enough of that hot topic in cataloging land (aka FRBR), here is the blog FRBR [...]
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