Dave, I can give you the work/edition story. It's based on a data model 
that is up and coming in the library world called "Functional 
Requirements for Bibliographic Records" or "FRBR" (pronounced furbur). [1]

The idea is that a Work gathers together all of the different versions 
(translations, revised editions, etc.) of a single creative "thing" - so 
that you have one entry for "Hamlet" even though you have hundreds or 
thousands  of different publications with that content. The Edition is 
pretty much one-to-one with a published work, the kind of thing that 
would be assigned an ISBN. In FRBR this is called a "Manifestation".

OL's division between Work and Manifestation is not identical to FRBR's 
-- in part because it's hard to get it right when you're working with 
data created before the model was developed. The primary author and the 
subject headings are associated with the Work. Publication information 
is associated with the edition.

If you need more, let me know.
kc

[1] Brief description and links: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_Requirements_for_Bibliographic_Records

Actual document:
http://archive.ifla.org/VII/s13/frbr/frbr_current_toc.htm
or
http://www.ifla.org/files/assets/cataloguing/frbr/frbr_2008.pdf

On 10/8/12 9:45 AM, Dave Holmes-Kinsella wrote:
> Hi:
>
> I've gotten hol dog the 6GB or so of tarred goodness that is the OL dump
> from July of this year. Trying to parse my way through it with Python
> and MySQL.
>
> Questions are
> a) what's the difference between Works and Editions?
> b) can anyone elaborate the file formats for me?
>
> Am wiilling.happy to turn into documents or class/libraries in return
> for wisdom of same.
>
> If it helps, I'm 4 blocks  from Internet Archive and am willing to bribe
> with coffee and/or chicken wings from that place on 16th and Clement…
>
> --- dhk
> [email protected]
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ol-tech mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to 
> [email protected]
>

-- 
Karen Coyle
[email protected] http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
_______________________________________________
Ol-tech mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.archive.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ol-tech
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send email to 
[email protected]

Reply via email to