There is a handy diagram, Barbara Tillett's Family of Works that shows the categories for works and expressions, and where the cataloging conventions have put the boundary between new works and new expressions.
For a working link, there is page 2 of http://www.frbr.org/files/denton-frbr-talk-handout.pdf The decision of the cut-off for new expression and new work has various dependencies. The main entry concept, reborn as the authorized access point for the work, is dependent on determining responsibility for the work. That identifier for the work remains the same for all expressions of that work. Subject relationships are typically defined at the work level. There has also been the idea of 'superworks' which draws in adaptations. I think such concepts can be handled on the fly by grouping works via the relationship designators. For example, a relevancy ranking in a search result could elevate "adaptation of" or even the whole category of derivative work relationships over other categories (even if those derivative works don't have the keyword used in the search). Displays of search results or within individual records could be co-ordinated around the categories of relationships (derivative, descriptive, whole-part, accompanying, sequential). Such an approach is dependent on underlying relationships being made and links established throughout, vertically from work to expression to manifestation to item, and horizontally at each of those levels. I see a lot of rich functionality at the manifestation-item relationship, where availability and location information at the item level can be embedded within the brief display at the manifestation level. It would be great if that consistent functionality could be extended into the other areas of the catalog data through rigorous relationship structures. Thomas Brenndorfer Guelph Public Library ________________________________ From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA] On Behalf Of Adger Williams [awilli...@colgate.edu] Sent: October-03-13 9:19 AM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA Subject: Re: [RDA-L] WEMI and Bibframe Surely, the difference between an original and its translation is a difference that is a useful to everyone, and the difference between formats of presentation is clearly a useful difference also, but it doesn't seem to me that they are the same kind of difference or, at least, not always so. I'm not sure where the boundary line between performances/recordings that are mere expressions of a work, and performances/recordings that are so cooperative as to merit being new works lies. (I'm told that a film and is screenplay are separate works.) Surely, different performances of a jazz standard may be so different as to be unrecognizably the same work to the un-initiated. There are whole groups of things: (mythology, folk-tales, fairy tales, plots of Shakespeare plays (many of which come out of his Holinshead anyway)) that get constantly recycled and re-used and we don't consider each re-use to be an expression of the original work. I think the categories of Work and Expression are quite stable in their central parts, but they start to lose coherence the further away one gets from the prototypical examples. (That's the nature of categories, of course.) For those of us who get to work with the good examples of a particular category, they make perfectly good sense; for those of us who are doing more fringey things, they don't necessarily work too well. Personally, I think the category "Expression" is too amorphous to stick around, so I'm delighted to see if absent from Bibframe, but I still want to be able to group like things together (Works) and then sort them by the attributes that are ascribed to Expressions. I just don't think their relations to a work are similar enough to each to make Expression a useable category. On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 7:21 PM, Robert Maxwell <robert_maxw...@byu.edu<mailto:robert_maxw...@byu.edu>> wrote: I personally find the expression level extremely useful for distinguishing between, e.g., different translations, different formats, etc. It's not a relationship between works. A translation isn't a different work from the original. A recording of a work isn't a different work from the text. Bob Robert L. Maxwell Ancient Languages and Special Collections Cataloger 6728 Harold B. Lee Library Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 (801)422-5568<tel:%28801%29422-5568> "We should set an example for all the world, rather than confine ourselves to the course which has been heretofore pursued"--Eliza R. Snow, 1842. -----Original Message----- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA<mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA>] On Behalf Of J. McRee Elrod Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2013 1:59 PM To: RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA<mailto:RDA-L@LISTSERV.LAC-BAC.GC.CA> Subject: Re: [RDA-L] WEMI and Bibframe Benjamin said: >I don't see what the category of "Expressions" give us that couldn't be >recorded and expressed through relationships among Works. I agree. And RDA should be reshuffled in arrangement to reflect Bibframe's W/I, even if we can't get ISBD arrangement. __ __ J. McRee (Mac) Elrod (m...@slc.bc.ca<mailto:m...@slc.bc.ca>) {__ | / Special Libraries Cataloguing HTTP://www.slc.bc.ca/ ___} |__ \__________________________________________________________ -- Adger Williams Colgate University Library 315-228-7310 awilli...@colgate.edu<mailto:awilli...@colgate.edu>
