Expanding Access: FRBR and the Challenges of Nonprint Materials Allyson Carlyle Information School University of Washington Seattle, WA, USA OLAC Annual Conference 2004, ©2004 Allyson Carlyle

Overview o Introduction o FRBR Review o Challenges for Nonprint Materials o Focus on Work and Expression o Conclusion

FRBR and the Future of Cataloging o Documents, users, and the unknown… o FRBR is only one step toward our progressive understanding and interpretation of the bibliographic universe.

The FRBR Model o FRBR presents an entity-relationship (ER) model of the bibliographic universe. o An ER model identifies entities, attributes, and relationships (and more). o An ER model is a specific type of conceptual model. o As a conceptual model, FRBR is not a code of rules, but an attempt to facilitate a “commonly shared understanding” of the bibliographic universe.

Overall Challenge: Implementing a Conceptual Model o The real challenge of FRBR, which covers all that I will talk about today, is how to implement a conceptual model. o Conceptual models are guides; they do not provide operational decisions. o Many operational decisions must be made to incorporate FRBR into cataloging practice.

Entities in FRBR Products of Intellectual or Artistic Endeavor: Work Expression Manifestation Item Agents in the World (Creators, Disseminators, Users): Person Corporate Body Family Subjects of Works: Concept Object Event Place Group 1 & 2 entities Group 1Group 2Group 3

What FRBR Can Do For Nonprint Materials o FRBR has the potential to: o promote shared understanding of nonprint materials to help improve cataloging practice; o clean up problem work displays for nonprint materials, such as music, that are difficult to display intelligently at present; o help us focus on what each part of a bibliographic record is there for; it relates each part of a cataloging record to catalog objectives; o make catalogs more helpful to users.

Challenges o Many of the challenges that nonprint (as well as print) materials pose for FRBR are ones that we have always had. o The bibliographic universe is still the same as it always has been!

What is a work? o FRBR defines work as “a distinct intellectual or artistic creation.” o Pride and Prejudice, an exercise for beginning cataloging – do the movie and the book represent the same work?

Examples of Works o Examples: o Star Wars o George Frideric Handel’s Concerti Grossi o Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club o … The Globe and Mail?

Work Challenge #1: Boundaries o One of the challenges to FRBR in general, and nonprint materials in particular, is to decide when you have a new (related) work and when you have an expression. o Do we want to re-examine the current boundaries as implemented in current cataloging practice and in AACR2?

Related Work or Expression? o In presentations and articles about FRBR (not by the FRBR committee), a frequent example I’ve seen for an expression of a work is a movie version. o In current cataloging practice, a movie version is treated as a new work, not as another edition of an existing work, so if FRBR were interpreted according to existing rules, it would not be an expression.

Work Challenge #2: Rule Revision o As Martha M. Yee noted in her 1982 article “Integration of Nonbook Materials in AACR2”, there is no general rule for entry for works of mixed responsibility in AACR2. o With the incorporation of FRBR into the rules, we have an excellent opportunity to write such a rule. o This rule could establish general work boundaries for works of mixed responsibility.

Radical Response – Rely on T&J o Cataloger taste & judgment - should we consider making a truly general rule (that probably reflects reality) that o incorporates the rule of three (if more than 3 contributors, enter under title) and o directs catalogers to use their T&J to determine main entry for all other new works of mixed responsibility?

Radical Response – Un-Integrate o Should we consider un-integrating our rules for entry in AACR2? o We have little evidence that integrated rules for entry support catalog use (of course, we have little evidence that un- integrated access rules would be helpful either!)

Work Challenge #3: Whole/part o Beethoven’s 9 th, another exercise for beginning cataloging – is the Ode to Joy a work or is it an expression of a work? o Cataloging, especially cataloging nonprint items, is frequently engaged with wholes and parts of wholes.

Easy Wholes? o Mostly, a whole is what we think of as what is conjured up by the FRBR definition of work – “a distinct intellectual or artistic creation.” o In current practice, when we catalog a part of such a whole, we sometimes catalog it as an expression of a work, and sometimes as a separate work.

FRBR Relationships o With relationships explicitly identified and linked in a FRBRized catalog, we should be able to make one choice or another without having to worry so much about the consequences in the catalog.

Collections, Another Whole/Part Issue o Collections of previously existing works do not, perhaps, fit the FRBR work definition as “distinct creation” quite so well.

There are collections, and then there are collections… o Some collections are created concurrently, following a specific direction (e.g., several short films on the same theme produced for simultaneous, collective release). o Others are selected consciously by an editor from an array previously existing works, and given a collective title – o or they are selected and *not* given a collective title.

and then, there are serials. o What type of work is a serial work? o With a serial, you have the whole (the serial) and the parts (articles, etc.). o Ed Jones noted that the FRBR definition of work as a distinct creation is difficult to apply to serials.

Response – Consider adopting two definitions of work? o Patrick Le Bœuf, referring to musical works, proposes that we consider works to be of two types: o bona fide (those that fit the distinct creation definition) or o fiat (collections and parts published separately). o If we accepted this proposal, part of Ed’s challenge to FRBR would be met.

Works With Complex Relationships o One of the realities of nonprint materials is that they sometimes have very complex whole/part relationships. o For example, sound recordings, can contain: o multiple works o multiple parts of multiple works o multiple musical works related to textual works o multiple parts of musical works related to multiple parts of textual works…

What is an expression? o FRBR defines as “an intellectual or artistic realization of a work in the form of alpha-numeric, musical, or choreographic notation, sound, image, object, movement, etc. or any combination of such forms.”

What is an expression? o The specific intellectual or artistic form a work takes each time it is realized. o For a textual work, it may be interpreted as a string of characters (letters, spaces).

Examples of Expressions o Examples: o Henry Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body, text and illustrations representing the 2 nd edition o Great Peoples of the Past, a National Geographic map, scale 1:5,450,000 o Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, widescreen, with English subtitles.

Expression Challenges o Incorporating the expression entity into cataloging rules and practice will be the most difficult part of implementing FRBR. o Why? o Expressions have rarely been incorporated into cataloging practice before now; o The expression entity is difficult to understand; o As a result of these two things, expression will be a challenge to implement.

Expression Challenge #1: Boundaries o How will we determine when we have an expression vs. when we will have a new work? o Are there cases where currently we would identify a new work that in a FRBRized environment we want to create an expression?

A Serials Example o Currently, we create a new serial record (and thus declare a new serial work) when we catalog an item with a serial edition statement, for example, when we add “Mid-Atlantic ed.” as qualifier to a serial title. o Will we make some of these differences into expression level differences, instead of work differences?

Expression Challenge #2: Identification o AACR2 is divided into two parts, description and access. o Information about expressions appears in both parts of AACR2.

Expression Identifiers in Part I o In AACR2 descriptive chapters, information about expressions is included in these places (among others): o area 3 details such as scale for cartographic materials; o much of what is in the second element of the physical description area, for example, “illustrated” for books, or “black and white” for moving image materials.

Expression Identifiers in Part II o In Part II, some uniform title additions identify expressions, for example: o version information for music and other types of materials; o language.

Other Inconsistencies o Sometimes information that is in the same place in AACR2 identifies different FRBR entities, for example, “Other physical details” in Area 5. o Sometimes this element identifies expression information (e.g., black and white for a moving image); o but sometimes it identifies manifestation information, e.g., “double-sided” to describe a flip chart.

Expression Identification Questions o In FRBRizing our practice, will we make this information appear in a more consistent location in our records and our rules? o If we don’t, will we increase the potential confusion about expression?

Lack of Expression Information o Some information necessary for identifying expressions simply isn’t required in AACR2 and so may be completely absent, for example: o translator names o illustrator names

Manifestation Challenge - Boundaries o Some features that now clearly indicate editions of the same work may identify either manifestations or expressions – how will we decide? o Braille – new expression or new manifestation? o Sometimes we may want our decision to reflect what will be best for users, not simply whether something *is* a manifestation or expression.

The Ultimate FRBR Challenge: How Much Change Can We Handle? o If we, in FRBRizing AACR2, address even some of the issues I’ve raised (and I’m sure there are many others), it is possible that we are looking at significant changes, both to AACR2 and possibly to MARC. o Are we ready for that?

The Good News: Selective Implementation o The problems that FRBR was created to address are associated with a minority of the works that we work with, so only a small percentage of records will benefit from being FRBRized. o In other words, we don’t have to do them all! o With a shared effort on those works, we can make progress in a coordinated way.

Conclusion o FRBR has brought cataloging practice and theory to the world’s attention. o FRBR is really the latest development in a continuum of cataloging theory and practice – it represents a natural progression. o FRBR provides a unique opportunity for the cataloging community to reflect on what it is that we do and why we do it.