________________________________________ From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Karen Coyle [li...@kcoyle.net] Sent: January-06-12 6:55 PM 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
>Quoting "Brenndorfer, Thomas" <tbrenndor...@library.guelph.on.ca>: >>> Is "embodies" a part/whole relationship? Because you only have one option: >> This is a primary relationship-- a manifestation has an "expression >> manifested" as an inherent aspect of the resource. The expression is >> "embodied" in the manifestation. [Note also Barbara Tillett's >> comment on the potential placeholder nature of the expression >> between the work and the manifestation in these primary >> relationships]. >Yes, but I disagree that this is a whole/part relationship. In FRBR, >and I believe in RDA, whole/part relationships are between things of >the same type. A publication of Moby Dick is not a "part" of the >Expression Moby Dick -- it is a different type of entity. It >"manifests" the expression. It is a transformation. (And as Ron Murray >would point out, it is a different level of abstraction.) >> A whole/part relationship is horizontal. It's work -- contains -- work. >Right, so the question is: can there be "horizontal" relationships >between different types of entities? Like a manifestation to a work. I >believe that logically that cannot be. The issues around this need to be unpacked a bit more. The report on aggregrates described only primary relationships-- between the individual works and individual expressions embodied in the manifestation, and the aggregating work and aggregating expression embodied in the manifestation. These primary (vertical) relationships are not whole-part relationships, which are horizontal relationships (work to work; expression to expression; manifestation to manifestation). The primary relationships (RDA Chapter 17) are not well handled in MARC. Therefore it's hard to picture the conventions to use. Generally, one infers these relationships from the conjunction of data in a MARC record. Whole-part relationships are a different kind of relationship. They can be used along with primary relationships-- they are not mutually exclusive. The whole-part relationship can be done in MARC with a 505 field (and in other ways). So one can have the aggregating work (the compilation of articles) "contain" individual articles (which are separate works). Using this horizontal relationship is not a replacement for the primary relationships for the articles to the manifestation, but it can be the only method we have of inferring those primary relationships. This can be illustrated by a syllogism: A. Aggregating work contains individual articles (each a work) through a 505 field representing a whole-part relationship (Work--Contains (work) using the RDA designators and registered elements) B. Aggregating work "is embodied in" the manifestation (no real convention in MARC, perhaps just the preferred title representing the aggregating work in the 245 field) - there is a registered RDA element though for this primary relationship C. Therefore each invididual article also "is embodied in" the manifestation. (Perhaps the coding for these primary relationships could be automatically generated). In a MARC record, coding for these two kinds of relationships looks redundant. The user can usually infer what's going on. But the advantage to explicitly encoding all the relationships is that it could allow the different relationships to be displayed consistently when information is taken out of context, and when users navigate the relationships to find other related works, expressions, and manifestations (and any other related entities such as creators and subjects). Thomas Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library
