At 08:14 PM 3/6/2010, Karen Coyle wrote:
I think the nature of the problem you identify in your examples is
not really with 'manifestation' as an entity, but with the lack of
fleshing out of how to model "aggregations" in FRBR, a somewhat
tricky problem.
I was informed off-list that what I described as a "Manifestation"
with additional bits, like indices or bibliographies, would be
considered an Expression in FRBR. Here's what FRBR says:
"The boundaries of the entity expression are defined, however, so as
to exclude aspects of physical form, such as typeface and page layout,
that are not integral to the intellectual or artistic realization of
the work as such. When an expression is accompanied by augmentations,
such as illustrations, notes, glosses, etc. that are not integral to
the intellectual or artistic realization of the work, such
augmentations are considered to be separate expressions of their own
separate work(s)."
The problem of augmentations was a thorny problem in the original
FRBR report, and the text that you quoted above was the result of
some additional work done by the FRBR Review Group.
These provisions are not without controversy. What is suggests is
that each such augmentation should be treated as a manifestation of
an expression of a different work; i.e., that we need to treat each
introduction, preface, bibliography, index, etc. as a distinct
work. While this might make sense in terms of modelling the data and
understanding the complex nature of expression-manifestation
relationships, it is not at all clear what benefit is to be derived
from such treatment. Most of the people that I have talked to about
this want to interpret the statement above as indicating that
augmentations *may* be treated as distinct works -- and there are
cases in which this might be useful, such as a famous author's
introduction to another author's work -- but that in most cases, it
is the work and expression embodied in the principal content of the
manifestation that needs to be described.
In other words, I wouldn't push this FRBR provision too far.
This then seems to me that there will be many expressions that each
have only one manifestation.
Indeed, the majority of works have a single manifestation of a single
expression. On the other hand, the ones that have multiple
expressions and manifestations are the works that are constantly
being reissued in different versions and for which the FRBR structure
offers a powerful means for organizing the results.
This doesn't address the aggregate question that Jonathan speaks to
here. I suspect that by some logic, aggregates are expressions... ?
True?
I would certainly argue that this is true. For example, take a
compilation of chapters by different authors. It is certainly true
that each chapter is a manifestation of an expression of a distinct
work. On the other hand, I would certainly want to argue that the
compilation itself is a manifestation of an expression of a work. I
would further argue that this aggregate work has its own creator(s)
-- the compiler(s) of the compilation -- but that is a different
argument for a different time -- and one that I lost when it came up
during the development of RDA.
John Attig
Penn State University\
[email protected]
