I was the "author" of Appendix J for the JSC, so I will try to answer
from that perspective.
At 11:32 AM 2/16/2010, Karen Coyle wrote:
I'm pondering the RDA relationships, as defined in Appendix J. I need
clarification ...
A relationship is between two "things". FRBR has lists of Work-Work
relationships, Expression-Work relationships, etc. Appendix J lists
relationships as either Work, Expression, Manifestation or Item
relationships. So...
1) are all relationships in Appendix J between equivalent entities?
e.g. are they all Work-Work, Expression-Expression?
At some point in the process of developing the list of relationship
designations in Appendix J, I realized that it was NOT valid to
assume that the relationships in question were between equivalent
entities. The designations are very explicit about the nature of
what might be called the "target" entity; even for the same
relationships (e.g., "based on"), the designators are qualified to
distinguish between a related work and a related
expression. However, the nature of what might be called the "source"
entity is NOT specified, so "based on (work)" could be a work-to-work
relationship or an expression-to-work relationship. A "source"
entity can be either a work, an expression, a manifestation, or an item.
2) If not, how can one tell what the two "things" are that are being related?
The "target" entity is explicitly identified in the relationship
designation. For the "source" entity, you have to discover the
nature of the source entity itself. In other words, the relationship
designation itself does not fully identify the nature of the related
entities; you have to look at the entire logical triple and determine
the nature of the entities being related. (Note that you also have
to do this in order to generate the correct reciprocal relationship.)
In a scenario 1 implementation, the nature of the "source" entity is
implicit in the type of record used to record the relationship; if
the "source" entity is described in a Work record, it is a work,
etc. In a scenario 2 or scenario 3 implementation, it can be more
difficult, particularly if the "source" entity is desccribed in a
bibliographic record containing a composite description of a
manifestation and the expression of the work embodied in the
manifestation. Implicitly a relationship to a related work that is
included in such a description could be inferred to be a related work
relationship. This is one more reason (if more are needed) why RDA
really needs a scenario 1 implementation.
3) I don't find some relationships that seem to be key:
- Expression of
- Manifestation of
- Item of
The relationships between work, expression, manifestation and item
for a given resource are defined as Primary Relationships and are
dealt with in Chapter 17 of RDA. The relationships in question are
treated in RDA as elements; relationship designations are not
provided for elements; the element name itself designates the relationship.
This is one of the quirks of the way that RDA deals with
relationships. The most general relationships -- the primary
relationships; the general relationships between persons, families
and corporate bodies (e.g., "creator"); and the general relationships
between works, expressions, manifestations, and items (e.g., "related
work") are treated as elements, while the more specific types of
relationships are treated as relationship designations in Appendices
I, J and K. We understand that this distinction is arbitrary and
that any application of RDA will need to find a way to deal with this
in a consistent manner.
- Translation of (Expression as translation of Work)
Translation of/Translated as is covered in Appendix J under J.3.2.
Note, however, that Work is an abstract entity that has no linguistic
content and therefore no language; the translation relationship is
always between two expressions, e.g., an English translation of the
original German expression of the work Goethe's Faust. Our current
practice obscures this fact by using the same access point to name
both the work and its expression in its original language;
technically, we should (and hopefully will) distinguish between
Goethe. Faust (the work) and Goethe. Faust. German (the original expression).
John Attig
ALA Rep to the JSC
Penn State University
jx...@psu.edu
