The Bibliographic Universe

Why define a set of objects to describe?
Can’t we just embrace the miscellaneous and let anyone tag anything, no matter what it might be?
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 2

Free tags don’t specify a descriptor’s context (does the descriptor indicate the resource’s subject? the date of creation? the date of revision? the author? a comment?).
By restricting the scope of description through specifying a more specific set of objects, we enable the definition of more specific attributes and more precise description...and thus more relevant results.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 3

Relevance: a key concept in determining retrieval effectiveness. Are results relevant to a searcher’s need?
The basic retrieval measures are precision and recall.
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Precision: Of the results retrieved, how many are relevant?
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Recall: Of the relevant results in a collection, how many are in the results set?
A search with perfect precision and recall means that all the results are relevant, and no relevant resources were not retrieved in the search. In practice, there tends to be a point at which an inverse relationship between precision and recall obtains: a system that delivers more precise results tends to inhibit recall, and so on.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 4

The set of resources that we most commonly store, describe, and make accessible in libraries
(and other information systems).
We might say that a straightforward entity in the bibliographic universe is the book. But when we say book, what exactly do we mean?
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 5

Wilson’s idea of the bibliographic universe involves the following types of linked entities:
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Works.
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Texts.
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Exemplars.
Bibliographic control involves our ability to manipulate this universe to find the best material for our needs.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 6

According to Wilson, an exemplar is a particular
“copy” or “performance” in which a specific
“sequence of words and auxiliary symbols” is expressed. Exemplars might be:
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A particular physical copy of a book.
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A recitation of a poem.
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The filmed performance of a play.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 7

According to Wilson, a text is the “sequence of words and arbitrary symbols” that an exemplar puts into physical form. While a single text can be expressed in a variety of forms, the text itself is an “abstract entity” without physicality. Examples of texts include:
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The sequence of words and symbols that makes up
Wilson’s chapter “The Bibliographic Universe.”
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The sequence of words and symbols that constitutes the folio version of Macbeth.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 8

According to Wilson, the work is a “group or family of texts.” However, the extent of this family is not easy to determine. Examples of works:
• “The Bibliographic Universe” and its translation into
French (er, if it is a strict translation).
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The combined set of editions of the Chicago Manual of Style.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 9

• Marianne Moore’s poem “Poetry” (beginning
“I, too, dislike it”) was revised multiple times by the author over 40 years, in varying lengths of 30, 29, 13, and 3 lines.
• According to my friend Trent, Hans Gabler’s
1984 edition of Ulysses is an “abomination” and not to be dignified as part of the same work.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 10

In some sense the work is the “basic level” of a document, the one that comes most readily to mind.
When looking for a document, we may not even know that multiple texts (or versions) exist, but we know that we want Hamlet.
If the catalog shows us all the texts and exemplars that make up the work, we can decide which we want. Or we can just pick any exemplar if the distinctions don’t matter.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 11

For Wilson, images and music are not part of the bibliographic universe, although there “is no sharp boundary” between the pictorial and musical universes and the bibliographic one.
Wilson makes this distinction on a pragmatic basis, because images and music seem to require different types of attributes than writings. What does it mean for a picture or musical work to have a subject, for example?
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 12

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Musical performance (or any performance).
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Documentary film footage.
• Multiple player online games (Megan Winget’s project to archive and preserve such games).
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 13

Is the idea of a bibliographic universe outmoded? Should we instead be thinking about the information universe?
Wilson says that documents are often useful or interesting in ways that transcend the information they contain.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 14

FRBR is an entity-relationship model to describe the bibliographic universe, developed by the
International Federation of Library Associations
(IFLA).
FRBR is meant to model a user view of bibliographic entities and be independent of any particular metadata implementation.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 15

FRBR entities include works, expressions, manifestations, and items.
INF 384C, Spring 2009
Chart from Tillet, 2004
Slide 16

A work in the FRBR model is similar to the work described by Wilson: “a distinct intellectual or artistic creation.” FRBR examples of works:
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All editions of an anatomy textbook.
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A Bach organ fugue and an arrangement for chamber orchestra.
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A French movie with English subtitles.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 17

An expression in FRBR is similar to Wilson’s 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:
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The score and performances of a quintet.
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A German text and its English translation.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 18

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:
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The same performance of a musical work on CD and on LP (two manifestations, one expression).
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The same edition of a newspaper in print and in microform (two manifestations, one expression).
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 19

An item in FRBR refers to the actual physical copy of a manifestation. Examples of items:
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A particular autographed copy of a book.
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A particular copy of a musical score in which one page is missing.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 20

The FRBR report identifies four tasks that users should be able to accomplish with all the entities:
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Find.
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Identify.
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Select.
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Obtain.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 21

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.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 22

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Defining entities enables more specific description of objects and more focused searching and browsing.
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The bibliographic universe includes an unclear and contested number of related entities (works, texts, etc.) that can be difficult to concretely define but are still somehow useful.
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Especially for non-textual or new media materials, it may be necessary to put significant thought into what constitutes a work.
INF 384C, Spring 2009 Slide 23