Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
Schutt, Misha wrote: The moral of this story, I guess, is that two works may be separated by multiple layers of derivativeness. True. Traditionally, we didn't give much attention to the closeness or the nature of a relationship between works. If at all, one added a uniform title and a little, rather informal note and that was it - let the user figure out the usefulness of that. RDA, however, asks for a more detailed inspection because it is a cornerstone of the FRBR model that related works, expressions and manifestations be made transparent and meaningfully presented in a catalog to assist the users in their arduous tasks of finding and selecting the right thing. And this will mean a bit more work, sometimes bordering on literary criticism, delving much deeper into the content than cataloging rules used to require. B.Eversberg
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
Bernhard Eversberg wrote: snip Schutt, Misha wrote: The moral of this story, I guess, is that two works may be separated by multiple layers of derivativeness. True. Traditionally, we didn't give much attention to the closeness or the nature of a relationship between works. If at all, one added a uniform title and a little, rather informal note and that was it - let the user figure out the usefulness of that. RDA, however, asks for a more detailed inspection because it is a cornerstone of the FRBR model that related works, expressions and manifestations be made transparent and meaningfully presented in a catalog to assist the users in their arduous tasks of finding and selecting the right thing. And this will mean a bit more work, sometimes bordering on literary criticism, delving much deeper into the content than cataloging rules used to require. /snip This is correct, but the amount of additional work remains to be seen, along with questions of maintaining consistency. I suspect training people to reach these levels will be exceptionally difficult based on my own experience of many of the catalog records produced today, where I have seen very little consistency in the use of 6xx$v (which can become very confusing) and with subject analysis in general. If this is the case now, how can we attempt to teach catalogers to achieve a decent level of consistent analysis in, e.g. isAdaptationOf or isTransformationOf or isImitationOf? This will be genuinely new and is probably more confusing than the $v. I am sure that the FRBR relationships are not exhaustive, and there will be campaigns for additional relationships such as isIllogicalConclusionOf or isBadJokeOf or isPlagiarismOf! :-) Again, I think it all comes down to what users need (i.e. the user tasks) and being realistic in what we can achieve. The library community must decide the best ways to allot their resources, and while explicating such relationships may be a nice thing to do and marginally useful for some of our patrons, is it what people want and is it the best use of our resources? (Obviously, I don't think so) Do people just want more reliable access to materials that have been selected by some disinterested experts? Certainly when someone is looking at one resource or metadata for that resource, they need to be aware of other resources in various other ways. But there are many ways to do this task using more informal (i.e. traditional) methods. We should also not forget the Web2.0 possibilities, which may go a long way toward linking records and resources. James Weinheimer j.weinhei...@aur.edu Director of Library and Information Services The American University of Rome via Pietro Roselli, 4 00153 Rome, Italy voice- 011 39 06 58330919 ext. 258 fax-011 39 06 58330992
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
Quoting Bernhard Eversberg e...@biblio.tu-bs.de: Schutt, Misha wrote: The moral of this story, I guess, is that two works may be separated by multiple layers of derivativeness. True. snip RDA, however, asks for a more detailed inspection because it is a cornerstone of the FRBR model that related works, expressions and manifestations be made transparent and meaningfully presented in a catalog to assist the users in their arduous tasks of finding and selecting the right thing. And this will mean a bit more work, sometimes bordering on literary criticism, delving much deeper into the content than cataloging rules used to require. I find it hard to think that this will happen; at least, not widely. See, for instance, the newly-formulated BIBCO standard record http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/BSR-Final-Report.pdf -- a formula less than core in terms of content required -- where the prescription for the uniform title states (for 240, i.,e. uniform title under author's name): Supply if known or can be easily inferred from the item being cataloged. Since the commonest relationship, and the most frequent application of 240, is translation, and not every document discloses the title of the work/expression/manifestation from which it was translated, I can only suppose that the guiding spirits of BIBCO are not serious about the FRBR as applied in RDA. And since I'm sure I've read that LC intends to adopt the BIBCO standard record for at least some of its cataloguing, I suspect that the initial application of RDA will be partial, probably designed to be as much like AACR2 as can be attained. Hal Cain Dalton McCaughey Library Parkville, Victoria, Australia hec...@dml.vic.edu.au This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
Quoting hec...@dml.vic.edu.au: See, for instance, the newly-formulated BIBCO standard record http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/BSR-Final-Report.pdf -- a formula less than core in terms of content required -- where the prescription for the uniform title states (for 240, i.,e. uniform title under author's name): Supply if known or can be easily inferred from the item being cataloged. One key difference between library cataloging and the web-based concepts in the semantic web work is that the latter sees metadata as being built up as information becomes available. So metadata in a networked environment is additive -- it's not a one-time creation. If one contributor knows the uniform title (Work title), then all linked Manifestations now have access to that title. Also, it appears to me that the RDA Group 1 relationships mix bibliographic relationships and intellectual relationships. Librarians may excel at noting bibliographic relationships, but certain users, such as professors of literature, will be the best source of information on intellectual relationships. In a networked environment, it may be possible for those experts to provide their own view of the bibliographic universe that interests them. (As often happens, this takes us directly back to Vanevar Bush's Memex and the sharing of links.) What worries me most about the FRBR WEMI view in which each entity is a record is that it places a nearly impossible burden on the cataloger. Which is why I'm exploring the possibility of a recordless view -- which would consist of short statements (Jane is author of Book) that are each valid, and can be combined with other statements to build up to a complete bibliographic description. I don't know yet if this is possible. It would use semantic web concepts, not the RDA scenario 1, but perhaps scenario 0. It assumes an open bibliographic environment where statements can exist with metadata contributed by others. If I get a clear enough picture in my head, I'll make a drawing! kc -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
Karen Coyle wrote: What worries me most about the FRBR WEMI view in which each entity is a record is that it places a nearly impossible burden on the cataloger. Which is why I'm exploring the possibility of a recordless view -- which would consist of short statements (Jane is author of Book) that are each valid, and can be combined with other statements to build up to a complete bibliographic description. I don't know yet if this is possible. It would use semantic web concepts, not the RDA scenario 1, but perhaps scenario 0. It assumes an open bibliographic environment where statements can exist with metadata contributed by others. If I get a clear enough picture in my head, I'll make a drawing! While this sounds great, what worries me most is the sorry fact that the MARC universe is practically immovable. Just think of the non-sort indicator or the ommission of the article of the uniform title. For years and years, these issues have been deplored, improvements in MARC specifications have even evolved - and yet nothing happens. And these are very minor issues. It's not the fault of MARC as such, but MARC is the hub of that universe, and any changes at this hub would send disturbances into the farthest corners of it, at the speed of light. So, you would have to build a parallel universe, nothing less, and make the lossless (!) migration to it less expensive than to stay in the old one. But what, BTW, is scenario 0? B.Eversberg
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
I agree with Karen Coyle's argument, and I share the concern about FRBR concepts pushing catalogers away from the bibliographic detective work that they should be concentrating on, and into something else that they have neither the time nor, frankly, the training and inclination to do. I raised this question at a FRBR pre-conference last summer in Chicago: Do we really expect catalogers to spend their time establishing works? Or is the question of workhood -- if indeed it needs to be answered -- something that is better left to literary and historical scholarship? The answer I was given was, Well that's what they've always been doing with uniform titles. But is it? To my mind, a uniform title is basically an instruction to collocate items under a fixed, but essentially arbitrary label. It recognizes the fact that, in certain circumstances the user is aided by cataloger-intervention, but makes no real claim that the uniform title alone represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation. After all, most of the rules for uniform title give the cataloger a fairly wide degree of latitude in constructing that title, because it is recognized on some level that it is a device, not an existential statement. (As an aside, a gripe I have, not so much about FRBR, as the way it has been sold, as it were, to catalogers, is that the examples of workhood seem always to be carefully chosen so that the nature and name of the work is obvious or at least non-controversial. I think we all can agree on the workhood of Shakespeare's Hamlet... leaving out those few who are convinced it was penned by Sir Francis Drake, or Queen Elizabeth! But the vast majority of materials that I work with are neither so well known nor well-represented by multiple editions that the task of figuring out exactly what the work is and should be called would I believe take considerable footwork and time.) I like the idea of a recordless view. It pushes us toward looking at the concept a little differently. Work is really just a deduced relationship among various editions. Like all relationships among entities, it should be noted when it is deemed useful, and ignored when it isn't. Instead of establishing works as such we should just be recording statements like: Agency X calls Editions A and B different versions of the same Work, W. More food for thought, B Benjamin Abrahamse Head, Serials Cataloging Section Cataloging and Metadata Services MIT Libraries 617-253-7137 -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:rd...@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010 8:58 AM To: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J) Quoting hec...@dml.vic.edu.au: See, for instance, the newly-formulated BIBCO standard record http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pcc/bibco/BSR-Final-Report.pdf -- a formula less than core in terms of content required -- where the prescription for the uniform title states (for 240, i.,e. uniform title under author's name): Supply if known or can be easily inferred from the item being cataloged. One key difference between library cataloging and the web-based concepts in the semantic web work is that the latter sees metadata as being built up as information becomes available. So metadata in a networked environment is additive -- it's not a one-time creation. If one contributor knows the uniform title (Work title), then all linked Manifestations now have access to that title. Also, it appears to me that the RDA Group 1 relationships mix bibliographic relationships and intellectual relationships. Librarians may excel at noting bibliographic relationships, but certain users, such as professors of literature, will be the best source of information on intellectual relationships. In a networked environment, it may be possible for those experts to provide their own view of the bibliographic universe that interests them. (As often happens, this takes us directly back to Vanevar Bush's Memex and the sharing of links.) What worries me most about the FRBR WEMI view in which each entity is a record is that it places a nearly impossible burden on the cataloger. Which is why I'm exploring the possibility of a recordless view -- which would consist of short statements (Jane is author of Book) that are each valid, and can be combined with other statements to build up to a complete bibliographic description. I don't know yet if this is possible. It would use semantic web concepts, not the RDA scenario 1, but perhaps scenario 0. It assumes an open bibliographic environment where statements can exist with metadata contributed by others. If I get a clear enough picture in my head, I'll make a drawing! kc -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J) (fwd)
Bernhard said regarding relationship terms:
[snip]
Practically, these terms will have to be coded, not recorded
verbally, for otherwise international interoperability would suffer.
And for codes, no URIs, please.
[snip]
Conferning relationship of persons to mantifestations, in our
multilingual situation, this seems to me an added reason not to apply
100/110/600/610/700/710 $e for our original cataloguing, unless and
until requested by a customer, e.g., Folger, whose items are usually
unique, and will not be acquired by another client.
As for $4, I doubt most of our client libraries would have an ILS able
to translate codes into terms in the language of the catalogue for
some time.
All clients who have responded have asked that the $e/$4 relators be
removed on export.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
Hal Cain said:
Since the commonest relationship, and the most frequent application of
240, is translation, and not every document discloses the title of the
work/expression/manifestation from which it was translated, I can only
suppose that the guiding spirits of BIBCO are not serious about the
FRBR as applied in RDA.
While many of the new standard records call for less than AACR2, and
less than our clients want, e.g., parallel titles for serials,
collation for remote electronic resources, justification for all
added entries, 240 uniform title is one area in which our clients
agree with the simplified standards. Clients do not want a 240 which
differs in language and is not on the item, since they don't have a
record for the item in the original language to which to relate this
record; the display of the unknown title confuses patrons seeking the
known English title under author. They will accept 246 1
$iTranslation of:$aOriginal title, which is less work than a
500/730.
I suspect FRBR will confuse more than help patrons, implying that the
library has items it does not. Just as most items represent the
only work/expression/manifestation by a given author, most items in a
collection are the only manifestation of a work in the collection,
apart from Shakespeare and Bach.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
James said:
True. Traditionally, we didn't give much attention to the closeness
or the nature of a relationship between works. If at all, one added
a uniform title and a little ...
More common in our records are 600$a$t and/or 700$a$t, justified by
notes, to express relationships between works/manifestations.
__ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca)
{__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/
___} |__ \__
Re: [RDA-L] Question about RDA relationships (App. J)
But such instances where the WEMI for the library's copy collapse to a single thing, then the library catalog should similarly concatenate the record display to show it as the single item held. This is an implementation and display issue, not a FRBR or record issue. (And I am aware of the historical difficulties with implementation and display.) John F. Myers, Catalog Librarian Schaffer Library, Union College 807 Union St. Schenectady NY 12308 518-388-6623 mye...@union.edu -Original Message- From: J. McRee Elrod I suspect FRBR will confuse more than help patrons, implying that the library has items it does not. Just as most items represent the only work/expression/manifestation by a given author, most items in a collection are the only manifestation of a work in the collection, apart from Shakespeare and Bach.
