The FRBR Blog

Pisanski and Žumer, Mental Models of the Bibliographic Universe

Jan Pisanski and Maja Žumer have written a pair of articles about user testing the FRBR model. They appear in Journal of Documentation (66: 5) but preprints are available online:

• Mental Models of the Bibliographic Universe, Part 1: Mental Models of Descriptions (PDF, preprint) (DOI: 10.1108/00220411011066781)
• Mental Models of the Bibliographic Universe, Part 2: Comparison Task and Conclusions (PDF, preprint) (DOI: 10.1108/00220411011066772)

Abstract:

Purpose – The paper aims to present the results of the first two tasks of a user study looking into mental models of the bibliographic universe and especially their comparison to the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) conceptual model, which has not yet been user tested.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper employes a combination of techniques for eliciting mental models and consisted of three tasks, two of which, card sorting and concept mapping, are presented herein. Its participants were 30 individuals residing in the general area of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Findings – Cumulative results of concept mapping show a strong resemblance to FRBR. Card sorts did not produce conclusive results. In both tasks, participants paid special attention to the original expression, indicating that a special place for it should be considered.

Research limitations/implications – The study was performed using a relatively small sample of participants living in a geographically limited space using relatively straight-forward examples.

Practical implications – Some solid evidence is provided for adoption of FRBR as the conceptual basis for cataloguing.

Originality/value – This is the first widely published user study of FRBR, applying novel methodological approaches in the field of Library and Information Science.

How can FRBR say it’s based on user needs?

Notice that line above: “This is the first widely published user study of FRBR.”

Gretchen L. Hoffman’s “Meeting Users’ Needs in Cataloging: What is the Right Thing to Do?” (Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 47: 7, October 2009) (DOI: 10.1080/01639370903111999) talks about how user-centred libraries really are regarding cataloguing. Not very, is her answer. “Cataloging must stop just ‘thinking’ about users. It must show specific behaviors that meet users’ needs. Claims that users are the highest principle of cataloging and librarianship are empty, dishonest, and unethical if not supported by behavior that helps users.”

There’s a paragraph about FRBR that highlights something often pointed out now that the FRBR is going into widespread use through RDA:

Yet, cataloging still claims to focus on users and it places itself within LIS’s user-centered paradigm. Standards and other cataloging initiatives claim to focus on users, but are not actually based on an understanding of users’ needs. For example, the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) is a “conceptual model of the bibliographic universe.” The developers claim they took “a user-focused approach” in the development of the model. Yet, the chair of the study admits, “It did not involve studies of how actual users approach and make use of bibliographic records.” How can FRBR call itself user-focused when users were not studied? This is significant, because this model is the basis of the new cataloging rules, Resource Description and Access (RDA). In this way, the idea of being user-focused is perpetuated. Cataloging standards claim to focus on users but are not based on an understanding of users’ needs that originates from empirical studies of real users.

Hoffman’s article cited one by Clare Beghtol, “Professional Values and Ethics in Knowledge Organization and Cataloging,” (Journal of Information Ethics 17: 1, Spring 2008) (DOI: 10.3172/JIE.17.1.12) . Beghtol was one of my professors at library school, so I looked it up, and what did I find but a short FRBR reference, which I include here for the sake of completeness:

Cutter enunciated three functions of the catalog in 1904. They have been preserved by a number of international conferences through the last hundred years and have been augmented by the recent adoption of the Functional Requirements of the Bibliographic Record (FRBR) (http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr.pdf. Accessed May 27, 2005). Cutter’s three basic functions of the catalog are to allow the library user to identify a known work (e.g., author/title cataloging), to discover an unknown work on a certain topic (e.g., subject headings, thesauri, classification), and to select a particular manifestation of a work from among a number of manifestations held by a library (e.g., bibliographic details and notes). To these basic functions of finding and collocating, FRBR has added the function of allowing an information seeker to find out where to obtain a copy of the work (e.g., through inter-library loan or the Internet). All these functions are implied in the core value of access to information set out by the ethical codes of the three professional bodies noted above.

Data available for download from Indiana U Variations/FRBR project

An email message that Jenn Riley of Indiana University sent out to many mailing lists:

Subject: FRBRized data available for bulk download

The Variations/FRBR [1] project at Indiana University has released bulk downloads of metadata for the sound recordings presented in our Scherzo [2] music discovery system in a FRBRized XML format. The downloadable data includes FRBR Work, Expression, Manifestation, Person, and Corporate Body records, along with the structural and responsibility relationships connecting them. While this is still an incomplete representation of FRBR and FRAD, we hope that the release of this data will aid others that are studying or working with FRBR. This XML data conforms to the “efrbr” set of XML Schemas [3] created for this project. The XML data may be downloaded from http://vfrbr.info/data/1.0/index.shtml, and comments/questions may be directed to vfrbr@dlib.indiana.edu.

One caveat to those who seek to use this data: we plan to continue improving our FRBRization algorithm into the future and have not yet implemented a way to keep entity identifiers consistent between new data loads. Therefore we cannot at this time guarantee the Work with the identifier http://vfrbr.info/work/30001, for example, will have the same identifier in the future. Therefore this data at this time should be considered highly experimental.

Many thanks to the Institute of Museum and Library Services for funding the V/FRBR project.

Also, if you’re interested in FRBR, please do check out our experimental discovery system: . We’re very interested in your feedback!

Jenn

[1] V/FRBR project home page (http://vfrbr.info); FRBR report (http://www.ifla.org/en/publications/functional-requirements-for-bibliographic-records)

[2] Scherzo (http://vfrbr.info/search)

[3] V/FRBR project XML Schemas (http://vfrbr.info/schemas/1.0/index.shtml)