Report on WG on Aggregates meeting last year
David Bigwood noticed that the report of the 21 August 2007 meeting of the Working Group on Aggregates (23 KB PDF) had been posted.
Members and observers discussed the draft of a paper by Ed O’Neill and Maja Žumer. The draft, sent to committee members several weeks prior to IFLA, summarizes the difficulties and inconsistencies in applying the FRBR model to aggregates, and applies three different, previously identified, modeling approaches to two different works: The Deptford trilogy; and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker. This draft document represents a response to the previous year’s meeting in Seoul, South Korea, where committee members and observers felt the need to have a document describing different models for aggregates, and also describing the ambiguity of the FRBR model in terms of the treatment of aggregates.
The group briefly deliberated the often-discussed “Universality Principle”, which states that if an entity is a work in any of its manifestations, it is a work in all of its manifestations.
… A WG member and an observer noted that we need to define these models in a timely manner, or we could be forced to inherit models that have been defined and applied by innovative creators of library management and e-commerce systems. These software creators might even use hidden organizing principles that would not necessarily work in the best interests of users. The forces that produce these new systems already determine display and access, and we need to determine how best to model and work in these new environments.