LibraryThing tackles FRBR
Much interesting activity at LibraryThing involving FRBR. With such a large group of interested and intelligent people who want to contribute a bit of time to make their collections and the system better, they can do things no-one else can.
Tim said, “Note that the term and to some extent the idea of ‘expressions’ is borrowed from FRBR, a largely unimplemented library idea. It doesn’t escape our notice that this might turn out to be the most comprehensive implementation of FRBR, and an inspiration and help to the library world.” Indeed.
Here are some links:
- Background post for general audience: LibraryThing and FRBR?
- LibraryThing dives into editions and expressions. Tim Spalding puts a question to LT members: “We’re looking at the possibility/feasibility of introducing two levels below the ‘work’—one for editions and one for ‘expressions.’”
- Then the announcement: LibraryThing gets work-to-work relationships!. There was a discussion in the new features forum with the same name, LibraryThing gets work-to-work relationships!, which turned into such a long thing that it was carried over into a new thread.
- HelpThing help on Works and Relationships
These are the kinds of relationships:
- contains
- is a retelling of
- is a (non-series) sequel to
- is a (non-series) prequel to
- is an adatation of
- is an unabridged version of
- is an expanded version of
- is a parody of
- is a reply to
- was inspired by
- is a study of
- reference guide/companion to
- is a supplement to
- is a commentary on the text of
- is a concordance to
- is a student’s study guide to
- is a teacher’s guide to
From HelpThing on Works and Relationships
General Principles/Rules
- Create no new works.
- Link whole work to whole work.
- This doesn’t change any rules about what’s a work.
- This isn’t for series.
- Make the closer link.
- Relationships are reciprocal.
- When in doubt, leave it out and talk about it with others before adding the relationship.
Here’s a screenshot to show the interface:
Beautiful.
I don’t see the work-to-work relationships in the librarything.ck.getwork web service, but I expect they’ll add it soon (or maybe it’s there and I missed it).