Information in the form of
recorded intellectual creation
Documents, texts, works
The universe of
informative artifacts
Sometimes known as the bibliographic universe.
Most limited definition: written texts.
Limited definition: recorded intellectual creation.
Expansive definition: any object designated as
informative.
Slide 2
What kinds of entities populate the
bibliographic universe?
Compare these statements:
•I went to the MOMA in New York and saw Van Gogh’s Starry
Night.
•I also saw a screening of Rosemary’s Baby there.
What is the difference between Starry Night and Rosemary’s
Baby?
Slide 3
What kinds of entities populate
the bibliographic universe?
Compare these statements:
• Afterwards I went to the Strand bookstore and bought a cheap
used paperback for the plane, Murder at the Savoy, in the
Martin Beck series.
• Apparently the Swedish title of that book is Police, Police,
Mashed Potatoes.
• The Laughing Policeman is an excellent title in that series.
• The Kindle version has some typos, so you might get a printed
copy instead.
Slide 4
What kinds of entities populate the
bibliographic universe?
When I talk of Starry Night, I mean a specific, unique
item.
When I talk of Murder at the Savoy, I may mean a
specific, unique item (the copy I just purchased), or I
might mean a specific version but not necessarily a
unique physical item (in Swedish the title that means
“Police, police, mashed potatoes”), or I might mean just
Murder at the Savoy in all its potential variations.
Slide 5
Documents, texts, and works
The terms work, text, and document help us to distinguish
between these different uses of Murder at the Savoy.
•The copy I bought at the Strand is a document, an individual
item.
•The sequence of words and symbols that is contained within the
copy I bought at the Strand is the text. Other copies have the
same text. Other formats, such as a Kindle version, may also have
the same text.
•All the different potential sequences of words and symbols—all
the versions, or texts—constitute the work.
Slide 6
Documents, texts, and works
The artistic work Starry Night is represented by a single text, a
single document.
The work Murder at the Savoy, on the other hand, has a number
of texts and many documents (copies). When we say Murder at
the Savoy, sometimes we mean the whole set of potential
variations (the work) and sometimes we mean something more
specific.
Slide 7
The indeterminacy of the work
Like the notion of the species in biology, it is often difficult to say
where one work ends and another begins. In fact, compared to
works, the species is an orderly concept, even with its multiple
potential definitions.
People have come up with different rules of thumb for
distinguishing between works: for example, in the FRBR model,
a strict translation is not a new work, but a loose translation is.
Unfortunately, there is little agreement about these rules; for other
people, any translation should be a new work.
Slide 8
Are these the same work?
• Video footage of a warehouse on fire, shot by a
bystander with a cell phone, by a news crew
with a camera, and by the security camera of a
neighboring establishment.
• A tweet and the tweet retweeted by another
user.
• The song La Bamba performed by Ritchie
Valens (studio version) by Los Lobos (studio
version) by Los Lobos (live, bootleg tape).
Slide 9
Are these the same work?
• A blog post that comments on a linked Web
page; the same blog post when the linked page
changes its text; the same blog post when the
link becomes dead.
• The Aiken-Rhett house in Charleston, as
completed in 1818, and as it is today,
“conserved and stabilized.”
• The Russell house in Charleston, as completed
in 1808 and as it is today, “gracefully
restored.”
Slide 10
Are these the same work?
• The Huffington Post today, the Huffington Post
one week ago, the Huffington Post one hour
ago.
• The arcade version of Pong, the home version
of Pong, and a current Web version.
• The currently operational version of World of
Warcraft, as played for one hour, the World of
Warcraft system without any players.
Slide 11
The indeterminacy of documents
Compared to the work, the idea of a document
seems easy to understand. Buckland shows some
difficulties here.
Objects can be treated as informative, as
evidence of some assertion, even if they were not
created for that purpose, or even if they were not
created by people at all.
Slide 12
Are these documents at all?
• Briet’s antelope in a field, Briet’s antelope in a
zoo, Briet’s antelope dead and stuffed in
someone’s house over the mantel, Briet’s
antelope preserved as a biological specimen.
• The chair you are sitting in; an Eames lounge
chair in the showroom at Design Within
Reach; an Eames lounge chair in the MOMA.
• A lecture like this one, even if it’s not
recorded.
Slide 13
Who the hell cares?
My brain hurts! Does it matter whether an
antelope is a document or whether the Swedish
version of Murder at the Savoy is a different
work from the English version?
Two groups care a lot: textual scholars and
information scientists (er, documentalists? us.).
Slide 14
Textual studies and bibliography
Textual scholars attempt to map, describe, and
compare all the versions (texts) of a work.
Think of Shakespeare’s plays: there are so many
different versions, even from Shakespeare’s
lifetime (quartos, folio, etc). And printers make
so many errors! How can we interpret
Shakespeare’s plays with confidence if we do not
have the correct “text of the work”?
Slide 15
The work as an ideal version
For some textual scholars, the work is understood as
“the correct version” of a set of texts. (There is some
similarity here to the Linnean idea of basing a species
definition off an ideal specimen.) However, the work as
conceived in this way may have never actually existed
as an embodied text.
This idea of the work focused around an author’s
perceived intentions as obtained through a variety of
evidence.
Slide 16
The work as an ideal version
This sense of the work has fallen out of favor:
•Authorial intention is less often used as the basis of
interpretation.
•Changes made by editors and publishers are less likely
to be seen as “mistakes.”
Slide 17
Products of textual scholarship
Textual scholars’ research may take these forms:
•Analytical bibliography/descriptive bibliography.
•Textual criticism and critical editions.
Slide 18
Information
science/studies/documentation/librarian
ship/etc
Information scholars and professionals try to determine
how best to “collect, preserve, organize, represent,
select, reproduce, and disseminate” (in Buckland’s
words)…what? What are the units we are working with?
Documents? (Does one ever want an antelope?) Works?
Texts?
It depends? Sometimes one wants a specific copy of
Hamlet, sometimes one wants any of a certain subset (in
English), sometimes one just wants…Hamlet.
Slide 19
Functional Requirements for
Bibliographic Records (FRBR)
FRBR is an entity-relationship model to describe the
bibliographic universe, developed by the International
Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) as a
conceptual model for library catalogs.
One goal of the FRBR model is to show relationships
between entities. (Wouldn’t it be great to show how all
the things that might be considered Hamlet are related?)
Slide 20
FRBR entity-relationship model
FRBR entities
include works,
expressions,
manifestations,
and items.
Chart from Tillet, 2004
Slide 21
FRBR works
A work in the FRBR model is “a distinct intellectual or
artistic creation.” FRBR examples of works:
• All editions of an anatomy textbook are one work.
• A Bach organ fugue and an arrangement for chamber
orchestra are the same work.
• A French movie in its original form and a version with
English subtitles (and one dubbed into Japanese) are the
same work.
Slide 22
FRBR expressions
An expression in FRBR is analagous to a text: “the
intellectual or artistic realization of a work” in a form,
be it textual, sound, image, musical notation, whatever.
The expression encompasses the intellectual but not the
physical form (e.g., typeface and layout are not part of
the expression). Examples of expressions:
• The score and performances of a quintet.
• A German text and its English translation.
Slide 23
FRBR manifestations
A manifestation in FRBR is the realization of an
expression in a physical medium. The same expression
can be embodied in different manifestations. All copies
that are produced as part of the same set are the same
manifestation. Examples of manifestations:
• The same performance of a musical work on CD and
on LP (two manifestations, one expression).
• The same edition of a newspaper in print and in
microform (two manifestations, one expression).
Slide 24
FRBR items
An item in FRBR refers to the actual physical
copy of a manifestation. Examples of items:
• A particular autographed copy of a book.
• A particular copy of a musical score in which
one page is missing.
Slide 25
User tasks for FRBR entities
The FRBR report identifies four tasks that users
should be able to accomplish with all the entities:
• Find.
• Identify.
• Select.
• Obtain.
Slide 26
Attributes and entities in FRBR
Each entity has a different set of attributes.
Some attributes are similar: works and expressions both
have titles. (The title of a work, under which
expressions are grouped, might be Hamlet, but the title
of a particular expression might be William
Shakespeare’s Hamlet.)
Some attributes are completely different. Manifestations
have publishers. Works don’t.
Slide 27
Interlude: library catalogs
• UT catalog (traditional).
• Worldcat (some clustering of versions; uses
existing standard records).
• Australian Literature Resource, Austlit
(implements some FRBR goals, but not with
current cataloging record structure or rules).
Slide 28
Limitations of FRBR:
computer game case study
McDonough and colleagues try to map versions of the computer
game Adventure to the entities in the FRBR model.
The difficulties that they encounter seem relevant to the use of
FRBR in organizing any digital artifacts:
• Many versions with different underlying code may exist for a
single version of the user experience.
• The experience of a digital artifact depends to a variable extent
on the software and hardware infrastructure in which it is
embedded. What constitutes the game?
Slide 29
Documents or information?
Is it different to think of a universe of information as
opposed to a universe of documents, texts, and works?
When you search the Web, are you searching for
documents or “information”? In what situations is it
useful to consider documentary structures and in what
situations is it useful to consider “information” unbound?
Can—should—information be unbound?
Slide 30