Re: [RDA-L] The purpose of standards
James Weinheimer wrote: With online resources, everyone is looking at *exactly the same files* so the utility of even considering an online resource in terms of a manifestation may be far less useful. It seems to me that the concept of manifestation is no less important when considering online resources. And they are certainly not always exactly the same files. For things such as electronic journals, there can be very significant differences between manifestations (the one found on the publisher's web site vs. Ebsco vs. Gale, etc.). And then there are also ebooks, where you have versions for Kindle, for Nook, etc. Sound files can be in various formats and at different bit rates. Graphic files can be in different formats and resolutions. Many books, films, sound recordings, etc. have been digitally converted and remastered multiple times, and there are very real differences between the versions--differences which can be significant, perhaps even critical, to the user. Compared to the print world, one could argue that we are dealing with a greater number of manifestations, and there will always be a need to distinguish between them, on both the managerial side (e.g. selection and acquisition) and the user side (obtaining files whose formats and features meet the user's needs). Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library k...@northwestern.edu (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
Re: [RDA-L] Multiple electronic manifestations (was RE: [RDA-L] The purpose of standards)
Yes, that doesn't surprise me. But they're going to care if one manifestation is PDF, and another is Kindle, and another is mobi, and another is ePub. (They might even know what those words mean, but they're going to care that if they have an e-reader, some of those formats will work on their particular e-reader and some won't). If different electronic manifestations end up with slightly differnet textual content (different pagination if they have pagination at all, or slightly different actual text) -- then it's also going to matter for scholarly citations to know which text was cited (or which version's page 12), and be able to retrieve the appropriate cited version. And it of course matters for own internal control, which vendor platform hosts a given copy, so we can remove the advertisement of access temporarily (if vendor platform is down) or permanently (if vendor goes away or we stop licensing from them). On 12/27/2012 3:39 PM, Benjamin A Abrahamse wrote: It is definitely true that, from the point of view of resource management, each manifestation has its own particular information that needs to be looked at separately. But its also true--or at least so it seems to me from the feedback our users give us--that very few users care what provider they get their e-book or articles from. For example, we often get complaints from users about the intermediary menu our link-resolver shows when we have the same content from multiple providers, as it creates an extra step and occassionally some confusion about exactly what is going on. The users that have preferred provider, I would guess, get to their resources via the provider (or by other means, Google Scholar, etc.) and not through our catalog. (Then again, here at MIT we follow, whenever possible, a single record approach which might be understood in FRBR-terms as expression-level cataloging. So maybe our users are already particularly finnicky about what they see in the catalog?) So while I think the concept of different electronic manifestations is important for catalogers, but I'm not sure the practice of generating records for each specific electronic manifestation is going to make our catalogs more appealing to end-users. My .02, b Benjamin Abrahamse Cataloging Coordinator Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems MIT Libraries 617-253-7137 -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Kevin M Randall Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 12:52 PM To: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca Subject: Re: [RDA-L] The purpose of standards James Weinheimer wrote: With online resources, everyone is looking at *exactly the same files* so the utility of even considering an online resource in terms of a manifestation may be far less useful. It seems to me that the concept of manifestation is no less important when considering online resources. And they are certainly not always exactly the same files. For things such as electronic journals, there can be very significant differences between manifestations (the one found on the publisher's web site vs. Ebsco vs. Gale, etc.). And then there are also ebooks, where you have versions for Kindle, for Nook, etc. Sound files can be in various formats and at different bit rates. Graphic files can be in different formats and resolutions. Many books, films, sound recordings, etc. have been digitally converted and remastered multiple times, and there are very real differences between the versions--differences which can be significant, perhaps even critical, to the user. Compared to the print world, one could argue that we are dealing with a greater number of manifestations, and there will always be a need to distinguish between them, on both the managerial side (e.g. selection and acquisition) and the user side (obtaining files whose formats and features meet the user's needs). Kevin M. Randall Principal Serials Cataloger Northwestern University Library k...@northwestern.edu (847) 491-2939 Proudly wearing the sensible shoes since 1978!
Re: [RDA-L] Multiple electronic manifestations (was RE: [RDA-L] The purpose of standards)
I agree that those differences matter; it's one of the reasons those much-maligned intermediary menus stay up. But in the current, record-based environment, I'm not sure if it's such a great idea to have each separate manifestation on its own record. A lot of the data will be redundant; and in any case most of the data we store to manage these resources live outside of the catalog, in an ERM and/or link-resolver. In some future system--either an E/R system like the ones the original drafters of the FRBR report envisioned, or more likely something based on linked data--I can see how each manifestation having its own record (or identifier) will be useful both to staff and users. But we're not there yet. --Ben p.s. Let me hasten to add: I doubt Kevin was suggesting that each electronic manifestation requires a separate bib; I think he was just talking about the utility of the concept of related manifestations with respect to e-resources. Benjamin Abrahamse Cataloging Coordinator Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems MIT Libraries 617-253-7137 -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Jonathan Rochkind Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 3:44 PM To: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca Subject: Re: [RDA-L] Multiple electronic manifestations (was RE: [RDA-L] The purpose of standards) Yes, that doesn't surprise me. But they're going to care if one manifestation is PDF, and another is Kindle, and another is mobi, and another is ePub. (They might even know what those words mean, but they're going to care that if they have an e-reader, some of those formats will work on their particular e-reader and some won't). If different electronic manifestations end up with slightly differnet textual content (different pagination if they have pagination at all, or slightly different actual text) -- then it's also going to matter for scholarly citations to know which text was cited (or which version's page 12), and be able to retrieve the appropriate cited version. And it of course matters for own internal control, which vendor platform hosts a given copy, so we can remove the advertisement of access temporarily (if vendor platform is down) or permanently (if vendor goes away or we stop licensing from them). On 12/27/2012 3:39 PM, Benjamin A Abrahamse wrote: It is definitely true that, from the point of view of resource management, each manifestation has its own particular information that needs to be looked at separately. But its also true--or at least so it seems to me from the feedback our users give us--that very few users care what provider they get their e-book or articles from. For example, we often get complaints from users about the intermediary menu our link-resolver shows when we have the same content from multiple providers, as it creates an extra step and occassionally some confusion about exactly what is going on. The users that have preferred provider, I would guess, get to their resources via the provider (or by other means, Google Scholar, etc.) and not through our catalog. (Then again, here at MIT we follow, whenever possible, a single record approach which might be understood in FRBR-terms as expression-level cataloging. So maybe our users are already particularly finnicky about what they see in the catalog?) So while I think the concept of different electronic manifestations is important for catalogers, but I'm not sure the practice of generating records for each specific electronic manifestation is going to make our catalogs more appealing to end-users. My .02, b Benjamin Abrahamse Cataloging Coordinator Acquisitions, Metadata and Enterprise Systems MIT Libraries 617-253-7137 -Original Message- From: Resource Description and Access / Resource Description and Access [mailto:RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca] On Behalf Of Kevin M Randall Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2012 12:52 PM To: RDA-L@listserv.lac-bac.gc.ca Subject: Re: [RDA-L] The purpose of standards James Weinheimer wrote: With online resources, everyone is looking at *exactly the same files* so the utility of even considering an online resource in terms of a manifestation may be far less useful. It seems to me that the concept of manifestation is no less important when considering online resources. And they are certainly not always exactly the same files. For things such as electronic journals, there can be very significant differences between manifestations (the one found on the publisher's web site vs. Ebsco vs. Gale, etc.). And then there are also ebooks, where you have versions for Kindle, for Nook, etc. Sound files can be in various formats and at different bit rates. Graphic files can be in different formats and resolutions. Many books, films, sound recordings, etc. have been digitally converted and remastered
[RDA-L] The purpose of standards
On 12/21/2012 09:52 PM, Deborah Fritz wrote: snip At the risk of sounding even more obsessive-compulsive than Bob, I offer you this. /snip and On 12/21/2012 05:29 PM, Heidrun Wiesenmüller wrote:Here's a postscript to the discussion (for those of you who still care): snip Here's a postscript to the discussion (for those of you who still care): /snip I want to make clear that I believe that all of these concerns are indeed very important if we want to create and maintain high-quality standards. The people who create the records (i.e. standardized products of any type) *must* care because if even they don't care, why should we expect anybody else to care? And why should the public provide money to create products that nobody cares about? Bibliographic records that conform to high-quality standards are the only products we have. Anyone off of the street, or any computer can easily make garbage records, and make them easier, cheaper, faster, and if garbage records are considered to be the same as anything else, they will be better as well. Specific matters of quality aside, what I challenge is the re-opening of questions that were solved long ago. If someone can demonstrate that the former methods don't work any longer or if they can demonstrate that there are better and more efficient ways to do the same job, then those would be good reasons to re-open such questions. For instance, long experience has proven that transcribing the title of an item exactly is extremely important to the running of a library. Therefore, accuracy and even extended rules for titles became necessary. And yet transcribing the same rules for titles may have little purpose *in an internet world* where the title of a resource can change in an instant and the earlier title no longer even exists. This is a fundamentally different situation from title changes for e.g. printed serials and series because the earlier issues held in the library will forever bear the former titles. So in this regard, re-opening the question of transcribing titles may make sense. Another example of a fundamental difference from printed copies versus materials on the internet is that everyone is looking at *the same file*. In the physical world, each library that adds an item is examining an individual copy that might, or might not, differ in certain specific ways from other similar items. In the printed world, for the sake of coherence and efficiency, all of these individual items have been lumped together into what is called a manifestation in FRBR terms, or an edition in earlier terminology, based on certain definitions. The definitions for manifestation can and have changed, leading to the situation where something that on one day had been considered a different manifestation/edition, on another day becomes a new manifestation because of changes to the definition. With online resources, everyone is looking at *exactly the same files* so the utility of even considering an online resource in terms of a manifestation may be far less useful. In terms of work/expression/manifestation/item, I ask what could constitute an item when considering webpages and websites? With manifestations, it seems that the only way to consider the different manifestation aspects of a webpage would be to relate it to the Wayback Machine in the Internet Archive somehow. But I certainly wouldn't want to catalog each one of those manifestations. The website of Microsoft.com currently has 3226 earlier versions (or manifestations/editions) in the Internet Archive! http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.microsoft.com Yet for physical materials, the idea of the manifestation/edition still makes as much sense as it ever did. So, I am not against the need to re-open old questions, but I maintain that there need to be good reasons for re-opening those questions. In the current cases, I cannot find any reasons at all--in fact, I have tried to point out in some of my podcasts how there will be serious negative consequences for the public. These consequences should not be ignored. It seems to me that the motivation is some need to shoehorn everything into a highly dubious and unproven metaphysical construct such as FRBR. A construct that is unproven especially in relationship to online materials. So, I applaud those who take these matters seriously. They are doing a very important task. What I question is the need to re-open questions if there is no practical utility in it. -- James weinheimerweinheimer.ji...@gmail.com First Thushttp://catalogingmatters.blogspot.com/ Cooperative Cataloging Ruleshttp://sites.google.com/site/opencatalogingrules/ Cataloging Matters Podcastshttp://blog.jweinheimer.net/p/cataloging-matters-podcasts.html
