Heidrun,
I've been assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that references to FRBR
relationships in RDA, like "work manifested," are essentially unusable
until there is a FRBR-modeled carrier for the bibliographic data. I have
a similar assumption about things like "identifier for the expression,"
which really cannot exist until there is a FRBR-modeled carrier that
allows -- nay, requires -- those identifiers in order to create the
entities and their relationships.*
It makes very little sense to me to be creating a text string for these
relationships which have to be machine-actionable in order to have the
scenario 1 data structures.
kc
*Hopefully without diverting this discussion, I think there is a
difference between the system identifier for the expression *entity* and
a string, like an ISBN, that might be considered to identify, or
partially identify, an entity in the bibliographic description through
its use in various contexts.
On 6/3/12 7:51 AM, Heidrun Wiesenmüller wrote:
I am mulling over the data element "work manifested" in the examples
for RDA bibliographic records released by the JSC some time ago:
http://www.rda-jsc.org/docs/6JSC_RDA_Complete_Examples_%28Bibliographic%29_Revised_2012.pdf
For instance, look at the example for Arlene Taylor's "The
organization of information" (book 1, p. 10): There, you'll not only
find the data element "creator" (Taylor, Arlene G., 1941-), but also
the data element "work manifested" (Taylor, Arlene G., 1941-.
Organization of information). Note the beautiful footnote: "No
equivalent encoding in MARC 21". In the earlier version of these
examples wich accompanied the full draft of 2008, this data element
wasn't there at all, and its appearance now strikes me as rather odd.
Granted: "Work manifested" (17.8) is a core element in RDA (cf. 17.3:
"When recording primary relationships, include as a minimum the work
manifested."). But in 17.4.2, three conventions for recording primary
relationships are outlined, and I believe that only the first and the
second presuppose "work manifested" as a single data element: For
these two methods, an identifier for the work (method 1) or the
authorized access point representing the work (method 2),
respectively, are used.
The third method, however, does not seem to require one single data
element "work manifested": "Prepare a composite description that
combines one or more elements identifying the work and/or expression
with the description of the manifestation." So, in this case, the
identification of the work is achieved by one or more elements which
really belong on work level, although in the record they are mixed
together with information on manifestation level. Typically, these
will be the data elements for the first "creator" and for the
"preferred title of the work" (vulgo: uniform title). I'd argue that
in cases where there's no need to determine a uniform title (e.g. if
there is only one manifestation of the work in question), the title of
the manifestation can be used instead.
The RDA example for "book 1" mentioned earlier follows this third
method for recording primary relationships, i.e. it is a "composite
description", which basically looks like the conventional MARC record.
Therefore, I find it hard to understand why the information about the
work manifested is given _twice_ in the same record: Once _implicitly_
according to method 3 (by giving the data elements "creator" and
"title proper" as part of the composite description) and a second time
_explicitly_ according to method 2 (by giving the authorized access
point representing the work).
Shouldn't it be either the one (in a composite description) or the
other (in a different implementation scenario for RDA, something
closer to scenario 1)? As it stands now, the information given seems
to be redundant.
Any ideas?
Heidrun
--
Karen Coyle
kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
