I think that Ed Jones has described the continuum eloquently but has come to the wrong conclusion. I can't regard a film of Pride and Prejudice as simply an expression of the novel, whereas I could accept a sound recording of someone reading the entire novel as an expression. Too many things have changed, from the text (continuous prose to screenplay) to the addition of visual aspects. Using the play analogy, there _is_ a substantial difference between the visual recording of a stage performance, even with its additional visual choices of camera angles, lighting, close-ups vs. panoramas, and a film with a different text (plays are not screenplays), setting outside of a stage, and considerable additional creative input in the form of editing, sound effects and composed music, etc. The point is that somewhere along the continuum a work changes into another work. Cataloging rules have provided some rough guidelines on where these breaks are (adaptation from one genre to another, change in responsibility, substantial revision of content), but these do not cover all possibilities nor the needs of all communities. Even current rules recognize this and try to allow for the difference when librettos are considered part of the musical work, but as a separate textual work when published without reference to the musical work.
As I have pointed elsewhere, one of the advantages of the FRBR definition of "work" is its very flexibility and, dare I say, vagueness. These features allow the definition to be different for different communities and even to change for the same community over time. Diane Hillman rightly says that we need to be able to distinguish those versions in our catalogs or databases, preferably with some sort of machine-manipulable identifier. We already have versions of records constructed by different communities using different cataloging rules such as DCRM(B), AMIM along with AACR2 records. Manuscripts can be cataloged using AACR2 chapter 4, AMREMM, or DACS. Greta de Groat has a very valid point about the "textualism" of past and even current cataloging rules. The standards need to allow for both. As for OCLC, I find their imposition of "standards" very strange given their acceptance of massive numbers of records that duplicate existing records. At the very least, the addition of a change of language or rules in the 040 field (pardon me for speaking MARC :)) should be reason for a different record. Ed Jones also makes the point that different musical performances of a work are generally considered expressions rather than different works. This is true even for operas, where stage directors and designers create quite different experiences of the same musical score. I think that visual materials catalogers would argue that the amount of change is much greater in a "remake" of a film with different actors. The different actors certainly help make the different work through their interpretations of the role and sometimes through the words and actions they add to the screenplay. Are these activities always attributes of "work?" Can the same entity or role sometimes be an attribute of the "expression" level? I am learning a great deal from these discussion, and I think that we are getting a better idea of what RDA and (perhaps even FRBR) will need to encompass as we tackle these issues. -- Laurence S. Creider Head, General Cataloging Unit & Special Collections Librarian New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM 88003 Work: 505-646-4707, 505-646-7227 Fax: 505-646-7477 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Wed, March 12, 2008 4:50 pm, Ed Jones wrote: > I hesitate to venture into this discussion, since it's very complex, but > two things occur to me: > > > > (1) As Barbara Tillett has observed, there is a continuum among > bibliographic entities, and the break between expression and work is > necessarily somewhat arbitrarily defined within a given cataloging > community. Having said that, a play provides a useful object for > examining the nastier parts of this continuum, moving first from a > manuscript to a printed text, then perhaps a digital text that can be > read by a text-to-speech reader; from this to a recording for the > hearing impaired, where the text is read aloud by a volunteer, to an > audiobook read by a professional reader or actor, to a recording of a > radio version of the play, with sound effects and perhaps a bit of > narration (maybe several iterations, one with an American cast, another > with British, Australian, etc.); from this to a full-blown performance > before an audience, with all the complexity that entails, to a > videotaping of that performance, and maybe another videotaping of the > next night's performance (and of the various regional and traveling > productions), to a formal recording of the performance in a studio, to a > motion picture version filmed on location (and maybe several versions by > different besotted directors). At what point do we cross from an > expression to a new work? I'm not sure, but I suspect that as long as > the underlying text remains relatively intact, we never do. > > > > (2) Another argument for relating performers to the expression rather > than the work can be found in the recording of a musical performance. > Presumably one wouldn't consider the recording of a performance of a > given piece by one orchestra to be a different work from the recording > of a different performance of the same piece by another orchestra? If > not, then what about the recording of an opera, where we've introduced a > degree of acting to the performance (ignoring for the moment our more > flamboyant conductors)? Of a Broadway musical (where the acting > predominates)? Except in those rare instances where the work is > incapable of being performed by anyone other than those who originally > performed it, I think performance (including acting) must be considered > an expression-level activity. > > > > Since RDA is being organized in terms of the FRBR user tasks and > entities, I'm not sure these are academic questions. Each bibliographic > element in RDA will presumably be related to a given FRBR Group 1 > entity? > > > > Ed Jones >
