On 12/13/2010 2:20 PM, Casey A Mullin wrote:
Thomas raises a salient point here. The notion of Form/genre is not
addressed well in FRBR, FRSAD or RDA. In RDA, "Form of work" currently
only maps to places in MARC where it would be used in an access point,
or in the corresponding 380 field; this, to my mind, reflects the idea
of using Form of work as an element for identification, rather than as
facet to be treated robustly in subject-like authority data
structures. To be sure, various levels of granularity/robustness are
required by different knowledge domains (e.g. literature, film,
cartographic resources, music, etc.) But the fact that the authors of
FRSAD decided to completely side-step the issue is worrisome. John's
observation of the various other RDA elements that address "isness" of
other FRBR entities is apt; however, these attributes are of fairly
low granularity and as such do not seem appropriate for
domain-specific form/genre access.
This kind of form/genre access has historically been commingled with
true "aboutness" subject access. Efforts to decouple these have
been/are being taken up by the various LC Form/genre projects, with a
view to deploying terms in a more faceted, post-coordinated way. In
the case of the music project, we have found that many of the "isness"
terms currently used do not apply at the Work level (e.g.
arrangements, vocal scores), and some are difficult to categorize by
FRBR entity at all. Such borderline cases will have to be addressed in
a Scenario 1 environment, where the form/genre term must be encoded in
the proper record. For the current Scenario 3 environment, moving
form/genre terms into post-coordinated 655 fields will effect a
significant improvement in access, if not a complete long-term solution.
Regardless of such efforts, it remains that this facet of access is
not accounted for sufficiently in RDA. In fact, given the conspicuous
absence of form/genre as an entity unto itself in any of the FR
models, there is not even a placeholder chapter for it. Thus, we are
compelled to continue providing this kind of access outside of the
aegis of RDA. Is this the desired outcome? Should form/genre be
included in a content standard that strives to be holistic enough to
encompass matters of subject access? If so, the current outline of RDA
simply does not support it.
There are many things that can act in more than one way in a FRBR
model. One of these is Place, which is a group 3 entity, but is also an
attribute of several other entities: Place of publication, Place
associated with a person or corporate body, etc. The FRBR working group
made a conscious decision NOT to model all of these as relationships to
the Place entity.
The case with Form/Genre is similar. There are a number of attributes
that relate to the form of the entity. However, a form/genre entity
currently lies outside the scope of the Functional Requirements model.
It was omitted from both FRBR and FRAD and was not included in the scope
of the proposed FRSAR model.
There is, however, an excellent analysis by Tom Delsey, which I
regularly commend to people's attention. In a presentation in 2005, Tom
considered "Modelling subject access : refining and extending the FRBR
and FRAR conceptual models". Slide 18 is a redrawing of the FRBR
entity-relationship diagram to show Tom's proposed new entities and
relationships. Prominent among them is "Form/Genre" which he defines in
a "is example of" relationship with the Work entity [although I would
argue that the relationship could be to any of the group 1 entities].
There are other new entities and relationships, including a "coverage"
relationships between Work and two entities that Tom calls "Time" and
"State". This is a fascinating exercise in data modelling and reminds
us that work on the Functional Requirements models is not a finished
exercise, but that significant extensions still need to be undertaken.
Again, I recommend this presentation to anyone who is thinking about
going beyond the current state of the models.
John
