> -----Original Message----- > From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access > [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Heidrun Wiesenmüller > Sent: January 10, 2012 3:52 AM > To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA > Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Some comments on the Final Report of the FRBR Working > Group on Aggregates > > One addendum to my last mail: > > Thanks to Thomas Berger again, I've noted that it says on p. 5 of the > report: "An aggregating work is not a discrete section or even > necessarily an identifiable part of the resulting manifestation and does > not contain the aggregated works themselves." > > I think the last part of this sentence is ample proof that there cannot > be a whole/part relationship between the aggregating work (in the "glue" > sense of the Working Group) and the individual works. >
That's an excellent point, and I see the difference better now. I had begun mulling over the comparison of an "aggregate" -- a collection in the conventional sense -- and "aggregating", a new concept referring to the effort to bring things together. The aggregating work and aggregating expression are entirely new entities that refer to an effort of arrangement, and not the collective effort for the individual works. I think the crux of the matter appears in a particular case where there's both an "aggregate collection of expressions" and an "aggregate resulting from augmentation." A specific collection of short stories may appear in multiple publications, and each publication could be augmented differently with such additional expressions as introductions, notes, and illustrations. That collection of short stories is what has typically been identified, in the structure for the overall heading for the whole and in analytics for each part. But the reality considering each publication embodying those collected short stories is that there might be a large number of aggregating expressions in principle, given the number of different augmentations, and the effort that went into the arrangement for them. So there might be one persistent collection or aggregate of independent expressions, but a huge number of aggregating expressions for each publication with different dependent augmentations. [Also, in considering this, how many manifestations would not be considered "aggregate manifestations" in principle, given that every augmentation is its own expression? Flagging a manifestation as an "aggregate manifestation" might not have very much meaning.] In the original view of aggregates and components, that collection of expressions doesn't become an aggregating expression-- it just becomes its own whole expression, but with parts, with each part remaining its own expression. In modeling this, I can see: 1. Individual expressions embodied in a manifestation (these relationships allowed by the unique many-to-many aspect of expressions embodied in a manifestation). 2. An expression with components embodied in the manifestation (whole-part relationships can be found here, with relationships between the individual expressions and the whole). These whole-part relationships are still allowed in the report with its suggested rewording in FRBR 3.4. 3. An aggregating expression embodied in the manifestation (which also means a realization of a specific aggregating work). But this aggregating expression would be triggered based the declaration of the individual independent expressions and/or the dependent augmentations. Is there a conflict when only the collective expression is declared in a particular instance, without the parts being identified, and without any augmentations declared? If there is only one expression embodied in the manifestation, then there cannot be an aggregating expression, even in principle, but perhaps in other contexts, that one (collective) expression may be shown with relationships to its component parts. Thomas Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library
