The FRBR Blog

“Twisty Little Passages Not So Much Alike: Applying the FRBR Model to a Classic Computer Game” was presented by Matthew Kirschenbaum, Doug Reside, Neil Fraistat, Jerome McDonough, and Dennis Jerz at Digital Humanities 2009 in June. (The classic computer game is Adventure.)

The conference program is only available as humungus 52 MB PDF and isn’t on the readable web, so to read the full abstract of the paper you’ll have to download it and look on page A22. I can’t even easily copy and paste a sample paragraph, I’m afraid, so you’re on your own.

(Thanks to Kevin Hawkins for telling me about this.)

While browsing the Zotero Code4Lib group I found this paper added by Mark Matienzo: FRBR as an Interdisciplinary High-middle-range Theory for Information Science — A Theoretical Perspective, by Allen Renear and and Dave Dubin. It was given at a conference last year but I hadn’t come across it before.

ABSTRACT: We suggest that IFLA’s Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records is an interesting, if unexpected, example of Merton’s “theories of the middle range” and show how theoretical analysis and refinement of such theories can illuminate the deep interdisciplinarity of information science.

… At the very heart of the notion of a middle range theory is the view that they guide empirical research by providing hypotheses for exploration, and by explaining empirically observed phenomena. A full account of FRBR as a middle range theory would therefore naturally focus on these hypotheses, the resulting research, and the effectiveness of the theory in explaining empirical observations. However this topic, as important as it is, and as timely as it is, will not be taken up in here. We focus on a different, and somewhat neglected, aspect of middle-range theories: the role of theoretical analysis and refinement in their conceptual evolution.

I hadn’t heard of Robert K. Merton either, but now I have some good reading ahead and perhaps you do too.

Cataloging & Classification Quarterly sent out this call for papers. You’ll recall they did a special issue on FRBR in 2004 which you’ve probably already read. Send them more papers about FRBR, FRAD, or FRSAD!

(Edited down slightly from what was sent out.)

/CCQ/ welcomes the submission of research, theory, and practice papers relevant to the broad field of bibliographic organization.

This journal, published now 8 times a year by Taylor & Francis, LLC, is respected as an international forum that emphasizes research and review articles, description of new programs and technologies relevant to cataloging and classification, and considered speculative articles on improved methods of bibliographic control for the future.

Articles are particularly welcome in areas dealing with research-based cataloging practice, including user behavior, user needs and benefits. Authors are encouraged to submit manuscripts via email with attached word document to the Editor, Sandra K. Roe, Bibliographic Services Librarian, Illinois State University (email: <skroe@ilstu.edu>).

*_Annual Best Paper Award_* Taylor & Francis sponsors an annual prize for CCQ with a small financial
stipend for the Best Paper of the Year.

*_Complimentary Print Sample_* A free print specimen copy may be obtained by sending an email to Jason McAndrew <jason.mcandrew@taylorandfrancis.com>

*_For More Details_* Further details may be found at the CCQ home page: http://catalogingandclassificationquarterly.com/

New article in Library Resources and Technical Services 53:3 (July 2009): “How the Current Draft of RDA Addresses the Cataloging of Reproductions, Facsimiles, and Microforms,” by Steven A. Knowlton.

Abstract: The cataloging of microforms and other reproductions has been difficult throughout the history of cataloging codes, particularly due to the “multiple versions problem.” The proposed new cataloging code, Resource Description and Access (RDA), seeks to clarify the relationship between reproductions and originals by applying the principles of Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) to cataloging. While the use of FRBR principles does help to identify the relationships between works in the catalog, RDA as currently designed is challenging for the cataloger and includes many data that may prove to be difficult for catalog users to understand.

Michalis Sfakakis and Sarantos Kapidakis, Eliminating Query Failures in a Work-Centric Library Meta-Search Environment, Library Hi Tech 27:2 (DOI: 10.1108/07378830910968236).

Abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to describe how approaches such as semantic based query rewritings and FRBR work entities composition could solve existing problems and improve the overall behavior of a mediated based meta-search environment. Moreover, it aims to present meta-Composer, which is a meta-search engine without query failures that composes work level entities for display, as well as an autonomous open service for discovering substitutions of unsupported access points, in the context of the Z39.50 environment.

“I have no idea if anyone looks at comments on month old messages” said Joe Hourclé a couple of weeks ago. I do, but sometimes I don’t follow up fast enough, such as my delay in pointing out this preprint: FRBR Applied to Scientific Data (266 KB PDF).

ABSTRACT: The distinction between a creative work and the physical item that contains that work is clearly delineated in FRBR and other research by the Library Science community. A similar confusion exists in the scientific realm between the underlying scientific data and the digital objects that contain those data. We present a similarly scoped reference framework for sensor-based scientific data, drawing on the concepts in FRBR, and compare it with the application of FRBR for cataloging other non-book records.

Identifying FRBR Work-Level Data in MARC Bibliographic Records for Manifestations of Moving Images, by Kelly McGrath and Lynne Bisko, is in issue 5 of The Code4Lib Journal. Here’s the abstract:

The library metadata community is dealing with the challenge of implementing the conceptual model, Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR). In response, the Online Audiovisual Catalogers (OLAC) created a task force to study the issues related to creating and using FRBR-based work-level records for moving images. This article presents one part of the task force’s work: it looks at the feasibility of creating provisional FRBR work-level records for moving images by extracting data from existing manifestation-level bibliographic records. Using a sample of 941 MARC records, a subgroup of the task force conducted a pilot project to look at five characteristics of moving image works. Here they discuss their methodology; analysis; selected results for two elements, original date (year) and director name; and conclude with some suggested changes to MARC coding and current cataloging policy.

Norberto Manzanos announced that an English translation of his Spanish paper “El Impacto de FRBR en Argentina: Implementación de un Modelo de Objetos Basados en FRBR, CRM y FRBRoo en CAICYT-CONICET” is now online.

• El Impacto de FRBR en Argentina: Implementación de un Modelo de Objetos Basados en FRBR, CRM y FRBRoo en CAICYT-CONICET (356 KB PDF)
• The Impact of FRBR in Argentina: Implementation of a model based on FRBR-ER, CRM and FRBRoo at CAICYT-CONICET (101 KB PDF)

This article presents a computer science design for the registry of documentary material based on models FRBR-ER, CIDOC CRM and FRBR-OO that is being developed in CAICYT-CONICET. The proposal leaves from the first group of entities defined by the model FRBR-ER (Work, Expression, Manifestation and Item) and incorporates some of the proposals of the other two models. In general, it rescues of these the use of the paradigm of objects, which derives in a more rigorous definition of concepts. It takes from them, among other things, the modelization of events, which allows to represent documents in its temporary process. It to deepen in other aspects that not yet have been treated by FRBR-OO: the lack of exhaustive classification, ontológical status of the Item and its relation with the hardware, the problem of the responsibility and the function of the documentary person in charge and the problem of the names. Since the presented product is at the moment in use in CAICYT-CONICET’s data base of argentine ISSN, it is detailed which is the approach of the model to the problem of the series. Finally, some particularitities of the implementation are mentioned: use of the Smalltalk language, his dialect of opened code, Squeak, and frameworks independent that has been developed: Atón and Smallfaces.

Squeak! Cool.

Timothy J. Dickey, “FRBRization of a Library Catalog: Better Collocation of Records, Leading to Enhanced Search, Retrieval, and Display.” Information Technology and Libraries 27:1 (March 2008)

The Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)’s hierarchical system defines families of bibliographic relationship between records and collocates them better than most extant bibliographic systems. Certain library materials (especially audio-visual formats) pose notable challenges to search and retrieval; the first benefits of a FRBRized system would be felt in music libraries, but research already has proven its advantages for fine arts, theology, and literature—the bulk of the non-science, technology, and mathematics collections. This report will summarize the benefits of FRBR to nextgeneration library catalogs and OPACs, and will review the handful of ILS and catalog systems currently operating with its theoretical structure. Editor’s note: This article is the winner of the LITA/ Ex Libris Writing Award, 2007.

I mentioned this paper last year when it won the award. Congratulations again to Timothy Dickey!

Ying Zhang and Yuelin Li, A User-Centered Functional Metadata Evaluation of Moving Image Collections, Journal of the American Society for Information Science 59:8, March 2008.

ABSTRACT: In this article, the authors report a series of evaluations of two metadata schemes developed for Moving Image Collections (MIC), an integrated online catalog of moving images. Through two online surveys and one experiment spanning various stages of metadata implementation, the MIC evaluation team explored a user-centered approach in which the four generic user tasks suggested by IFLA FRBR (International Association of Library Associations Functional Requirement for Bibliographic Records) were embedded in data collection and analyses. Diverse groups of users rated usefulness of individual metadata fields for finding, identifying, selecting, and obtaining moving images. The results demonstrate a consistency across these evaluations with respect to (a) identification of a set of useful metadata fields highly rated by target users for each of the FRBR generic tasks, and (b) indication of a significant interaction between MIC metadata fields and the FRBR generic tasks. The findings provide timely feedback for the MIC implementation specifically, and valuable suggestions to other similar metadata application settings in general. They also suggest the feasibility of using the four IFLA FRBR generic tasks as a framework for user-centered functional metadata evaluations.