Content vs. Carrier (was: RE: [open-bibliography] MARC Codes for Forms of Musical Composition)

Part of the problem is that FRBR gave really weak names to higher-level functional abstractions like “Group 1 Entity”. This name is so weak that the FRBR Core ontology took the liberty of calling it “Endeavour” instead:

 

http://purl.org/vocab/frbr/core#Endeavour


 

That’s a better name, but it’s still far from being useful for the masses. Even less usefully, RDA appears to ignore the “Group N Entity” abstractions completely:

 

http://metadataregistry.org/schemaprop/list/schema_id/14.html


 

FRBR is a technical model and at the risk of repeating old arguments I believe classes and individuals should to be linked to/from other models rather than conflating their identities.  To illustrate, I don’t think that “CatalogingRecord” is a bad class to start creating Linked Data from. We don’t need to redesign cataloging databases and systems to produce Linked Data. Imagine a lightweight “library” ontology to help back up these examples involving 2 legitimate CatalogingRecords (eng, ger) that describe a “single” Work/Expression/Manifestation/Book:

 

<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#library:CatalogingRecord> 

a library:CatalogingRecord ;

library:languageOfCataloging “eng” ;

library:describes <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Work> ;

library:describes <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Expression> ;

library:describes <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Manifestation> ;

library:describes <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#bibo:Book> .

 

<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#library:CatalogingRecord>

a library:CatalogingRecord ;

library:languageOfCataloging “ger” ;

library:describes <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Work> ;

library:describes <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Expression> ;

library:describes <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Manifestation> ;

library:describes <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#bibo:Book> .

 

<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Work>

                a frbrCore:Work ;

                frbrCore:realization <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Expression> ;

                library:isDescribedBy <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#library:CatalogingRecord> ;

                owl:sameAs <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Work> .

 

<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Work>

                a frbrCore:Work ;

                frbrCore:realization <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Expression> ;

                library:isDescribedBy <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#library:CatalogingRecord> ;

                owl:sameAs <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Work> .

 

<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Expression>

                a frbrCore:Expression ;

                frbrCore:realizationOf <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Work> ;

                frbrCore:embodiment <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Manifestation> ;

                library:isDescribedBy <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#library:CatalogingRecord> ;

                owl:sameAs <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Expression> .

 

<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Expression>

                a frbrCore:Expression ;

                frbrCore:realizationOf <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Work> ;

                frbrCore:embodiment <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Manifestation> ;

                library:isDescribedBy <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#library:CatalogingRecord> ;

                owl:sameAs <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Expression> .

 

<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Manifestation>

                a frbrCore:Manifestation ;

                frbrCore:embodimentOf < http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Expression> ;

                library:isDescribedBy <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#library:CatalogingRecord> ;

                owl:sameAs <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Manifestation> .

 

<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Manifestation>

                a frbrCore:Manifestation ;

                frbrCore:embodimentOf < http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#frbrCore:Expression> ;

                library:isDescribedBy <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#library:CatalogingRecord> ;

                owl:sameAs <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#frbrCore:Manifestation> .

 

<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#bibo:Book>

                a bibo:Book ;

                dc:title “Managing the intellectual record : a Festschrift for Philip Bryant.” ;

                bibo:isbn “1856041581” ;

                bibo:isbn “9781856041584” ;

                library:isDescribedBy <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#library:CatalogingRecord> ;

                owl:sameAs <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#bibo:Book> .

 

<http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#bibo:Book>

                a bibo:Book ;

                dc:title “Managing the intellectual record : an international conference held at the University of Bath, 19 - 21 April 1995; a Festschrift for Philip Bryant” ;

                bibo:isbn “1856041581” ;

                bibo:isbn “9781856041584” ;

                library:isDescribedBy <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312395255#library:CatalogingRecord> .

                owl:sameAs <http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/535495214#bibo:Book> .

 

These examples are obviously incomplete and I realize the current behavior of the OCLC URIs is bizarre in a Linked Data context. Try to see past that.  Fears that “arbitrary URIs” complicate SPARQL queries are overblown. There should be (almost) no infrastructure changes needed in library systems to make this happen and browser users will won’t get frustrated clicking through needless high-resolution 303 URIs that are simultaneously dumbed-down for general use with multiple rdf:types.

 

Jeff

 

From: public-lld-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lld-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of gordon@gordondunsire.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 4:43 AM
To: public-lld
Subject: RE: [open-bibliography] MARC Codes for Forms of Musical Composition

 

All

 

Karen is spot on - this is the content v. carrier issue, difficult to avoid in Libraryland although things may get better when RDA starts to kick in. RDA clarifies the issue by applying the RDA/ONIX framework for resource categorization to create high-level concepts for content and carrier types. An immediate utility of this approach is that users can more accurately filter searches by specific aspects of the content and/or carrier of the items in a library collection, for example content that does not require the visual sense. The issue became acute in the 1980s as more and more content appeared on digital carriers. Query: is the ambiguity of the term "book" reflected in some way in digital libraries?

 

The FRBR WEMI classes are aspects of a whole; a "full" catalogue record will usually consist of a Work, an Expression, a Manifestation, and an Item. A significant utility of FRBR is that it gives cataloguers a better context for their activity, as the WEMI classes and individual properties are assigned to the four identified user tasks (find, identify, select, acquire/obtain). A corollary is that FRBR makes it easier to present the metadata in more useful ways to the user; typically, the user can drill-down from Work (essentially equivalent to the brief author/title display often seen in library interfaces) to Expression (content-related stuff like editions, translations) to Manifestation (carrier-related stuff) to Item (is it on the shelf?) There is also the potential for more effective metadata management through reduction of duplication (one Work record can be linked to multiple Expression records, etc.) and increased sharing of the cataloguing effort (only create a Manifestation if no-one else has done so, and then link it to an existing Expression)

 

But I see WEMI as an intermediate stage twixt the record and the statement. The WEMI classes essentially group bibliographic metadata properties at a lower granularity than the traditional full record, and perhaps the greatest utility of FRBR will be to break the hegemony of the catalogue record in the cult(ure) of cataloguing. See my presentation at http://gordondunsire.com/pubs/pres/EvolCatRec.ppt (also listed on the wiki).

 

Cheers

 

Gordon

 

On 09 July 2010 at 16:48 Karen Coyle <kcoyle@kcoyle.net> wrote:

> Quoting "Young,Jeff (OR)" <jyoung@oclc.org>:
>
>
> >
> > Barbara believes the concept of "book" is ambiguous. I believe her.   
> > As far as I know, FRBR does not resolve this conflation by   
> > encouraging us to believe a "book" is a "manifestation".
>
> It seems to me that we've run into the "content v. carrier" issue, 
> something that RDA has attempted to clarify (for the first time in 
> library data, AFAIK). When a person says: "That was a great book" are 
> they referring to the content (the story) or the fact that what they 
> read had pages and a cover? In a sense, they may mean both. But the 
> same person could have read "the book" on a Kindle. Now something 
> changes. The content is the same, the carrier has changed. The person 
> has still read a book.
>
> It is only library cataloging that separates out Work Expression 
> Manifestation. Those distinctions aren't meaningful in "real life", 
> although they may come into play:
>
> "I am reading Proust in English" (translation + expression)
> "Order 7 copies of that book" (Manifestations)
>
> A key point is that you truly cannot separate WEMI - they are aspects 
> of a whole. There is no manifestation without expression, no 
> expression without work.
> In fact, the only one that seems to be able to stand alone is work. 
> ("Professor X is an expert in Moby Dick"). IMO, WEMI will remain a 
> library cataloging concept, and everyone else will have "books" -- 
> which sometimes may have translators and publishers, and other times 
> will only have an author and a title. It will depend on the context.
>
> kc
>
> --
> Karen Coyle
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net

> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
>
>