FRBR 20 years on
Karen Coyle
Rome, Feb. 2014
FRBR Timeline
1990 – Stockholm meeting
1992 – Terms of reference completed
1994? – First draft for comment
1998 – Final draft
2009 – Current draft
Stated goals
Develop a framework for understanding
purposes of the bibliographic record
Recommend basic level of functionality for
national library bibliographic records
Develop core-level standard to reduce
cataloging costs
Ensure that records meet user needs
Leading up to
FRBR
The rise of the work in the
20th century
Levels of bibliographic
abstraction
Collocation of works (Lubetzky)
Expansion of catalogs to the “2nd kind of
power” (Wilson)
Addition of the work to cataloging with
uniform titles in AACR
Bibliographic
relationships
Tillett’s doctoral
dissertation and life’s work
Bibliographic Families (Wilson)
NY
1969
NY
1971
NY
1970
“The Studhorse Man”
as a Wilsonian family
NY
1969
TO
1969
LO
1969
Smiraglia, 2001
Ont
1973
Ont
1977
Ont
1982
Ont
1988
Fr Trans
1985
Fr Trans
1990
“A library is a growing organism”
S.R. Ranganathan
E-R model
Required methodology in Terms of Reference
document, 1992
Derived from database design methodology
“FRBR is not a data model. FRBR is not a metadata scheme.
Identify
FRBR
is not a entities
system design structure. It is a conceptual
model of the bibliographic universe.” B. Tillett, 2005
Explore relationships
Define attributes
E-R modeling for
database design
Conceptual model
main entities and relationships, macro level; not
actionable; independent of technology
Logical model
adds detail; resolves links; defines values;
normalizes; operational in terms of applications
Physical model
describes a database, with tables, keys,
normalized data; responsive to applications.
Results
142 pages of
text
3 diagrams
Reading E-R
Ron Murray “From Moby Dick to Mashups”
Alternate models
Event-driven models
Content-emphasizing models
Models that categorize more than describe
FRBRCore and the linked data cloud
actors and actions
In music,
expression often a
performance by
someone other than
creator
Manifestation is
usually the action of
a third party (except
in fine art)
FRBRoo
CIDOC Conceptual
Reference Model
by
International Council of
Museums
FRBRoo
Object-oriented model
Coordinates CRM & FRBR
concepts
Multiple layers of works
and expressions
Published and nonpublished works
<indecs> event-oriented
content and carrier
variations
ExpressionLevel
Bibliographic
Record
Shoichi Taniguchi
content
carrier
classes and
categorization
Semantic Publishing and
Referencing
SPAR
Publishing materials,
mostly texts, in the
academic environment
FaBiO, the FRBR-aligned
Bibliographic Ontology
treats WEMI as classes
sub-classes
bibliographic types to W
EM
Manifestation is physical
description only
Work sub-classes
announcement, artistic work, biography, case for support,
correction, critical edition, dataset, essay, examination paper, grant
application, image, instructional work, metadata, model, opinion,
policy, proposition, questionnaire, reference work, reply, report,
research paper, review, sound recording, specification, vocabulary,
work collection, work package, working paper
Expression sub-classes
Gantt chart, abstract, addendum, article, audio document, book,
brief report, call for applications, case for support document,
chapter, comment, computer program, conference paper,
conference poster, cover, data file, data management plan,
database, dust jacket, e-mail, editorial, excerpt, expression
collection, figure, grant application document, index, instruction
manual, lecture notes, letter, manuscript, metadata document,
movie, news item, oration, patent application document, patent
document, periodical issue, periodical volume, personal
communication, policy document, presentation, project plan,
Manifestation
sub-classes
quotation, rapid
communication, report document, repository,
analog
manifestation,
digital
manifestation,
manifestation
collection
spreadsheet,
structured
summary,
supplement,
supplementary
information file, table, vocabulary document, vocabulary mapping
document, web content, workshop paper
:article a fabio:JournalArticle ;
dc:title "Nicotinamide-2,2,2-trifluoroethanol (2/1)" ;
dcterms:creator [ a foaf:Person ;
foaf:name "Johnston, B.F." ] ;
dcterms:creator [ a foaf:Person ;
foaf:name "Florence, A.J." ] ;
dc:rights
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk> ;
dc:language "en" ;
fabio:hasPublicationYear "2009" ;
fabio:publicationDate "2009-04-01" ;
frbr:embodiment :printedArticle , :webArticle ;
frbr:partOf :issue ;
fabio:doi "10.1107/S1600536809007594" ;
:volume a fabio:JournalVolume ;
prism:volume "65" ;
frbr:partOf :journal .
:issue a fabio:JournalIssue ;
prism:issueIdentifier "4" ;
frbr:partOf :volume
FaBIO’s Expression ~
Taniguchi’s
FRBRCore (in RDF)
Developed by Ian Davis and Richard Newman
in 2005
Not sanctioned by IFLA
Used by FaBiO, Scholarly Works Application
Profile (SWAP), Europeana Data Model, and
others
Over 30 million uses on LOD Cloud (mostly
German libraries)
BIBFRAME
Two-level bibliographic
model
• bf:Work =
frbr:Work+frbr:Expression
• bf:Instance =
frbr:Manifestation
RDA
Rules organized around FRBR concepts
Record and data store neutral
….
Summary
a conceptual model, to be interpreted and
integrated
a network, not a tree
actors and actions
separation of content and carrier
the need for flexibility
Thank you!
kcoyle@kcoyle.net
http://kcoyle.net