The FRBR Blog

Scribe, a pseudonymous librarian who blogs at Quiescit Anima Libris, posted Francis Miksa t’other day and linked to my post a week ago where I said you should listen to a great talk by Miksa.

Browsing around, I saw The Problem with Blogs by Catalogers/Techies, from April 2007, and felt my ears burning:

I really like reading blogs by other catalogers and by technology people. They can be informative, and insightful, and give me links to more good things and more NEW things.
However, they also tend to use tech terms and cataloging terms to the extreme. This is related to the problem I have with FRBR (the “new” cataloging standard). If I am not an experienced cataloger, or a tech guru, some, nay, MANY of these blogs are completely unintelligible to me. Thus, they are useless! I think that one reason Lawrence Lessig has enjoyed such ridiculous success with his articles, and blogs, and books, is that he is accessible to almost everyone. He doesn’t dive into minutiae; he keeps it general and smart and, most importantly, relevant to a broad audience. Jim over in your cataloging department who has “the coolest blog about cataloging!”, cites people you’ve never heard of, terms you’ve never used, and programs you would never want.

Now, I’m a fairly experienced cataloger and organizer. I know what they’re getting at, most of the time. But sometimes I feel like a kindergartener, and I don’t think that is my fault.

I’m going to use the example of FRBR again. I use AACRII, and am comfortable with the terminology of AACRII. I’m even somewhat experienced in FRBR terminology, since my cataloging professor has been part of the movement to change our terminology to encompass all kinds of materials (books, web sites, journals, antelopes, etc).
But when I go to almost any website that talks about FRBR, I’m lost almost immediately. Who is that person they’re touting? What article? What the hell do you mean by manifestation? How do I apply that very abstract term to my own concrete stack of books and cds and multi-volume treatises that are sitting on my desk? Does anyone know? Does anyone really care?

It’s a fair cop, guv. Often I just post pointers to obscure blog posts or articles in scholarly journals that many readers can’t get to. In my defense, right at the top of each page it says this is a “weblog following developments around the world in FRBR.” It’s mostly informational, so that there’s one easy place where people can track what’s going on with FRBR. If something new is available, I want to point to it, whether it’s introductory or advanced, widely applicable or obscure.

A book might be the answer: Robert Maxwell’s A Guide for the Perpexed or Arlene Taylor’s Understanding FRBR: What It Is and How It Will Affect Our Retrieval Tools. Or the “Confused?” links in the top left for online introductions. Should I have more basic intro-to-FRBR links?

Is there anything in particular you blog readers would like to see covered here this year? Special features on something? Let me know. I could try to get in some expert guest bloggers, for example.