Panel on Reading the Information Infrastructure
FRBR as an interdisciplinary high-middle-range theory
for information science — a theoretical perspective
Allen H. Renear
Dave Dubin
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Champaign, IL 61820
+1 (217) 265-5216
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Champaign, IL 61820
+1 (217) 244-3275
renear@uiuc.edu
ddubin@uiuc.edu
ABSTRACT
We suggest that IFLA’s Functional Requirements for
Bibliographic Records is an interesting, if unexpected, example of
Merton’s “theories of the middle range” and show how theoretical
analysis and refinement of such theories can illuminate the deep
interdisciplinarity of information science.
Topics
Cultural information systems, Information management,
Information organization, Nature and scope of iSchools and
iResearch
Keywords
FRBR, information science, R. K. Merton, theory, conceptual
modeling, ontology.
For our part in this panel we will discuss a surprising candidate
for a middle-range theory in information science, IFLA’s
Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR).[8]
Given its origins and objectives it may see odd to describe FRBR
as a theory in information science, but we have found doing so
illuminating and have come to feel that regardless of original
intention it is indeed a theory, and a good one.
Although guiding empirical research is the principal characteristic
feature of middle-range theories, our discussion at this panel will
take a theoretical rather than empirical perspective. This is an
aspect of middle-range theories that is generally neglected, and it
is one that we think nicely exhibits the deep interdisciplinarity of
information science.
2. MIDDLE RANGE THEORIES
According to Merton theories of the middle range1
…lie between the minor but necessary working
hypotheses that evolve in abundance during day-to-day
research and the all-inclusive systematic efforts to
develop a unified theory that will explain all the
observed uniformities of social behavior, social
organization, and social change. [11] (p. 39)
1. INTRODUCTION
Science proceeds through the criticism, empirical and theoretical,
of competing explanatory theories and hypotheses. This picture is
may be an oversimplification, but it is a common enough scenario
nonetheless.
Within contemporary information science however a sense of
evolving scientific explanation, with theories generating
hypotheses and undergoing both empirical and conceptual
revision is still still not as routine as one might like. Too often
“brute empiricism”[19] seems to oscillate with vague generalities.
It is characteristic of middle-range theories that they are not
directly inferred from experience but rather themselves generate
inferences about experience:
Each of these theories provides an image that gives rise
to inferences. To take but one case: if the atmosphere is
thought of as a sea of air, then, as Pascal inferred, there
should be less air pressure on a mountain top then at its
base. The initial idea thus suggests specific hypotheses
which are tested by seeing whether the inferences from
R. K. Merton has suggested that social science focus on “theories
of the middle range”, rather than, on the one hand, mere
hypotheses with little explanatory power, or, on the other hand,
high-level all-encompassing theories that can be neither clearly
defined nor empirically confirmed.[11] Although there are many
promising middle-range theories in information science, there are
not, we think, enough — the golden mean of Merton's middle
range is apparently a hard target to hit when the problem space is
interdisciplinary.
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1
Merton cites among his historical antecedents in commending
middle-range theories Bacon (axiomata media) and Mill
(“middle principles”), and indicates Durkeim’s Suicide and Max
Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,
examples of middle-range theories in social science.
them are empirically confirmed. The idea itself is test for
its fruitfulness by noting the range of theoretical
problems and hypotheses that allow one to identify new
characteristics of atmospheric pressure. [11] (p. 40)
These inferences “guide empirical inquiry”:
Middle-range theory is principally used in sociology to
guide empirical inquiry… it is intermediate to general
theories of social systems which are too remote from
particular classes of social behavior, organization, and
change to account for what is observed, and to those
detailed orderly description of particulars that are not
generalized at all. [11] (p. 39)
Finally, middle-range theories are limited in scope:
Middle-range theories involve abstractions, of course,
but they are close enough to observed data to be
incorporated in propositions that permit empirical
testing. Middle-range theories deal with delimited
aspects of social phenomena … One speaks of a theory
of reference groups, of social mobility, or role-conflict
and of the formation of social norms just as one speak of
a theory of prices, a germ theory of disease, or a kinetic
theory of gases. [11] (p. 39
Although middle-range theories are not, at least in the usual
circumstances, derived from more general theories, Merton does
note that they may have logical relationships to those broader
theories.
3. FRBR
The Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)
is a “conceptual model of the bibliographic universe” developed
by the International Federation of Library Associations and
Institutions to provide “a generalized view” of bibliographic
entities and relationships.[8]
FRBR has as its immediate objective guiding the design of
systems for creating and managing bibliographic records in order
to better support the fundamental user tasks of discovery and use.
It is not intended as a radical revision of existing practice or
theory, but as an articulation of current best practice and an
emerging consensus, with new terminology and refinements as
FRBR has been very influential. Over the last few years the FRBR
framework has been found natural and compelling and is
increasingly reflected in cataloging practices and technology
development in libraries and elsewhere: international
bibliographic databases and software systems are being
“FRBRized”, and the working group for the next revision of the
bible of library cataloging, the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules
(now Resource Description and Access) refers to FRBR as part of
the “conceptual foundation” for that revision.[9]
FRBR divides bibliographic entities into three groups: Group 1
(the “products of intellectual and artistic endeavor”), Group 2
(their creators), and Group 3 (their subjects). We describe Group
1 in more detail, partly to give a sense of how FRBR is structured,
but also because our example focuses on this group.
FRBR uses generic entity-relationship modeling techniques to
express the formal features of the framework. The FRBR Group 1
entity types are works, expressions, manifestations, and items. A
work is defined as “a distinct intellectual or artistic creation”, an
expression is “the intellectual or artistic realization of a work in
the form of alphanumeric, musical, or choreographic notation,
sound, image, object, movement…”, a manifestation is “the
physical embodiment of an expression of a work”, and an item is
“a single exemplar of a manifestation”.
Using printed books as an example (which we will do throughout)
these concepts would correspond roughly to the common notions
of work, text, edition, and physical copy, respectively.
Each entity type is associated with a characteristic attributes —
for instance, works have form (novel, play, poem, etc.),
expressions may be in a particular language, manifestations may
have a typeface, and items may have a condition. A particular
work may be realized in any number of expressions (such as
different translations or textual variants); an expression may be
embodied in any number of different manifestations (such as
different editions with different page design or carrier); and a
particular manifestation may have any number of individual
physical instances. Works, expressions, and manifestations are
abstract objects, and items are concrete physical objects.2
4. THEORETICAL ASPECTS OF
MIDDLE-RANGE THEORIES
At the very heart of the notion of a middle range theory is the
view that they guide empirical research by providing hypotheses
for exploration, and by explaining empirically observed
phenomena. A full account of FRBR as a middle range theory
would therefore naturally focus on these hypotheses, the resulting
research, and the effectiveness of the theory in explaining
empirical observations. However this topic, as important as it is,
and as timely as it is, will not be taken up in here. We focus on a
different, and somewhat neglected, aspect of middle-range
Figure 1. ER Diagram of FRBR Group 1 Entities
(diagram from IFLA, 1998)
needed.
2
For a short overview of FRBR see Tillett.[21]
theories: the role of theoretical analysis and refinement in their
conceptual evolution.
is asserted, and what is presumed as a semantic condition of an
assertion).
Merton has relatively little to say about the role of theoretical
refinement in the function and evolution of middle-range theories.
He does note that good middle range theories pose theoretical
problems as well as guide research, and he remarks that while
middle-range theories are not derived from upper range theories
they may be consistent (and so also, presumably, inconsistent)
with upper-range theories. He says little beyond that.
But these insights from linguistics, even in combination with
other insightful work on theoretical problems with FRBR[2][3]
still did not help us reconcile context-dependency with the FRBR
model.
But it would seem that in the case of at least some theories, let’s
call them upper middle-range theories, theoretical analysis and
refinement is in fact a major force in their evolution, playing a
distinctive role in how those theories provide scientific value, and,
in particular, how they are integrated with other theories at higher
levels, or at the same level, and, in particular, with theories in
other fields.
So as interesting and important as the ongoing empirical studies
of FRBR are, we will for now ignore them entirely and focus here
on theoretical and formal analysis. We hope to show, by an
example, how such formal analysis establishes critical
relationships with other upper and middle range theories both
within information science, and across disciplinary boundaries.
These sorts of integrating relationships among theories —
vertical, lateral, and interdisciplinary relationships — have often
been identified as a source of enhanced explanatory power and
warrant for scientific theories. And we think our example
confirms this.
5. TYPES, ROLES, AND CONTEXT:
AN EXAMPLE OF THEORETICAL
REFINEMENT
There has in fact already been much illuminating analysis of
theoretical issues in FRBR, analysis which, as described above,
surfaces rich connections with successful mature theories in other
fields. We hope to survey this work, which has been valuable to
us, at a later time. Here we discuss, from our own experience, just
one specific case of interdisciplinary theoretical refinement.
In 2002 we noticed an interesting entity assignment puzzle: is an
XML Document a FRBR manifestation or a FRBR
expression?[14] There were good arguments on both sides. We
concluded that the assignment depended on context of use, but it
was unclear how to either reconcile this context-dependency with
the FRBR ER model or revise that model to accommodate it.
We soon realized that this problem was similar to a previous
puzzle about the taxonomy of descriptive markup.[12] That
puzzle had been resolved by using the notion of illocutionary
force (similar to grammatical mood), from linguistics (pragmatics
in particular) to clarify an ambiguity: orthographically and
semantically identical XML markup could vary in illocutionary
force depending on context of use. The context-dependency of
manifestation/expression assignments described above seemed to
be a partial generalization of this observation about XML markup.
Later another related puzzle was noticed: some XML markup
seemed to simultaneously refer to both the textual string which it
had as content and also to the referent of that string.[15] We
found that this puzzle was also illuminated by a notion from
pragmatics, this time presupposition (the distinction between what
The critical clue came from computer scientists doing “applied
ontology”. Guarino and Welty have developed a method for
evaluating modeling decisions which requires that properties
designating entity types be rigid in a sense defined using
contemporary symbolic modal logic, but meaning, roughly, that
the property in question is had permanently and essentially, not
contingently.[5][6][7] Properties that fail this test should not be
considered types of entities, but other sorts of things, such as roles
which entities enter into in particular circumstances.
Originally we were interested in how these ontology evaluation
rules might help with the Bechamel XML semantics project.[13]
However it soon occurred to us to apply them to FRBR, and when
we did we noticed that manifestation and expression both seemed
to fail the rigidity test. This suggests that manifestation and
expression are not types of entities, strictly speaking. And on
further reflection they in fact do seem more like roles that some
types of entities may have in particular circumstances.[17]
Additional corroboration of this reinterpretation then came from
aesthetics and the philosophy of social science: Levinson’s
analysis of musical works as natural (though abstract) objects in
specific social context,[10] and Searle’s theory of social objects as
natural objects in some specific social context[18]. We found both
of these influential views compelling and felt they supported our
emerging sense that the entity types identified by FRBR were not
true types, but rather roles that other entities had in particular
social circumstances.[17]
In light of these converging accounts, from multiple disciplines,
we felt confident in conjecturing that a more conceptually precise
version of the FRBR model would have FRBR entities as roles,
not types.[17] This leads naturally to a number of new questions,
such as what are the (true) entity types that take on these different
roles, and what are the specific features of some social contexts in
virtue of which they initiate and sustain these roles. We suspect
that answering such questions will have us, again, drawing on
work by linguists, computer scientists, philosophers, and others,
as well as librarians and information scientists.
6. CONCLUSION
The preceding case illustrates by example how the theoretical
refinement of a middle-range theory, such a FRBR, not only
reveals and improves that theory’s explanatory power, but often
does so by integrating perspectives from several disciplines
7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As usual we acknowledge the contributions of members of three
GSLIS research groups: the Electronic Publishing Research
Group, the Research Writers Group, and the Metadata
Roundtable, as well as the GSLIS Center for Research in
Informatics and Science and Scholarship (CIRSS), directed by
Carole Palmer. Participating in our discussions of FRBR during
this period were Yunseon Choi, Thomas Dousa, Ingbert Floyd, Jin
Ha Lee, Pat Lawton, Karen Medina, Christopher Phillippe Sara
Schmidt, Richard Urban, Xin Xiang, Karen Wickett, Oksana
Zavalina, and other members of the FRBR community. We also
thank Michael Sperberg-McQueen (W3C/MIT) and Claus
Huitfeldt (Bergen) for important early criticisms. Finally we
thank members of the Balisage markup community, and,
especially, Ann Wrightson, for suggesting that the work of
Guarino and Welty could help us with our formalization XML
document semantics. The usual disclaimers apply.
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[4] Floyd, I., and Renear, A. H. (2007). What in the digital
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