Karen Coyle wrote: FRBR claims to be based on a "relational" model, as in "relational database."
-------------------------------- I do not think FRBR self-identifies as a "relational" model. It is an Entity-Relationship model. This may seem like hair-splitting but, while the E-R model also framed the underlying structure of relational databases, I do not think that the E-R model need be restricted so narrowly to the relational database as a specific "offspring" of the model. The E-R model relies on a set of entities, the relationships between those entities, the attributes of the entities, and the attributes of the relationships. This modeling seems readily extensible to implementations such as RDF, linked-data, and others. This is evidenced by the ability of the E-R model to be expressed through FBRB principles which themselves are manifested in a specific cataloging code, RDA, that has three conceived implementation scenarios. The linked-data sessions I have attended have spoken of Subject-Predicate-Object structures. I do not see a significant difference at the large-scale between the E-R model and linked-data's SPO model. E-R model details can be resolved into SPO structures as needed: Subject entity has relationship Predicate to Object entity; Subject entity has attribute-nature Predicate of Object specific attribute; Subject relationship has attribute-nature Predicate of Object specific attribute. Things are a little dicey and complicated because the E-R model relationships, as predicates between the E-R model entities, are themselves subject to SPO analysis with their attributes. But this does not seem beyond the extensibility of the linked-data modeling I have witnessed. The FRBR report, in the closing paragraph of "Areas for Further Study", poses the possibility that the E-R analysis may be applicable to "the structures used to store, display, and communicate bibliographic data." As we consider prospective new bibliographic frameworks, that would appear to be the stage at which we find ourselves (and the area of most controversy -- where FRBR is erroneously assumed to already apply directly to them). I am intrigued by the potentials for cross-fertilization between the "competing" models, as I see there the greatest opportunity to transcend the specific limitations of each (remembering that limitations are almost a universality of models, being simplifications). The challenge is to develop models that are sufficiently complex to ADEQUATELY describe reality while being sufficiently simple that they don't entail reproduction of reality (which obviates the utility of the model). John F. Myers, Catalog Librarian Schaffer Library, Union College 807 Union St. Schenectady NY 12308 518-388-6623 mye...@union.edu
