Karen Coyle wrote:
Quoting Heidrun Wiesenmüller <wiesenmuel...@hdm-stuttgart.de>:
Firstly, the system should be able to distinguish between an
aggregate work and an "ordinary" work. The whole/part relationship
(from my approach) would not be enough as ordinary works can have
parts as well. So there should be some sort of flag for an aggregate
work, perhaps a new attribute (aggregate / non-aggregate).
This would require a new FRBR concept, I believe.
It would require a new attribute for the work entity. This would
certainly have to be approved by the FRBR Review Group. I don't think it
would upset the FRBR universe in any dramatic way, though.
The aggregate work, as it is a work, needs -among other things - a
preferred title of its own (core element in RDA). This might be
something like "Bend sinister (With additional materials)" (perhaps
also: "Nabokov, Vladimir, 1869-1922. Bend sinister (English. With
additional materials)", taking into account which expression of the
novel has been used of the aggreagte work. I'll have to think on that
some more).
I don't think it can have the language in it, since language is an
Expression-level concept. That makes this quite complex, though,
because now I don't see a clear relationship between the translation
and the original.
Yes, that got me thinking as well. It seems somehow wrong to have a
typical attribute on expression level like the language in the name of
the aggregate work. On the other hand, the alternative model
deliberately does _without_ an aggregate expression (there are only
expressions of parts of the aggregate work). The language could be
deduced from the expression which is embodied in the aggregate
manifestation, though. I grant that there is a complexity here which
needs to be explored some more.
In the case of augmentations, it might be useful to flag the
predominant work in the aggregate work somehow (Casey A. Mullin
suggested that in one of her posts in this thread). Then we'd also
have the possibility to present non-predominant works at the end of
such a list, or perhaps present them to the user only via a separate
link (e.g. saying: "There are also minor works of Ms Famous, such as:
Introduction, in: Nabokov, Vladimir, 1869-1922. Bend sinister (With
additional materials). Show minor works as well?"
Predominant and non-predominant would need to be relationships between
the expression and the manifestation. It's not a characteristic of the
work or the expression.
This may be true for different ways of modeling aggregates. In my model
I'd have an aggregate work with two parts; I don't see why it shouldn't
be possible to give these parts of works attributes like "main component
of aggregate work" or "secondary component of aggregate work" (I admit
this would be a new attribute to FRBR, something which could only be
applied to aggregate works). Note that this would not affect the work
"Introduction" as such, but only in its role as part of the aggregate
work. The supposedly clever thing in my model (it may turn out not be
that, of course) is that the "Introduction" is wearing, so to speak, two
hats at the same time: One for its role as an individual work and one
for its role as a part of the aggregate work. If the introduction were
to be published independently later on, this would give you an ordinary
FRBR tree of a work (the introduction), an expression, and a
non-aggregate manifestation. In my diagram, this would mean another
arrow from the node E (W2) to a new manifestation which would only
embody this single expression.
Of course my model might turn out not be feasible at all. It's certainly
still at an experimental stage, and new aspects are bound to come up.
But up to now I haven't seen an argument in this thread convincing me
that I'm on a completely wrong track.
Now if somebody looks for the work "Bend sinister" in an English
version, the system would look for the English expression (in my
diagram: E (W1)) and show all three manifestations linked to this.
The system would also note that one of the manifestations is an
aggregate one (there would not have to be an attribute "aggregate" on
this level, I believe, as the aggregation is obvious from the fact
that more than one expression is embodied). In this case, it would
display further information about its environment. The display might
look somewhat like this
English version of: Nabokov, Vladimir, 1869-1922. Bend sinister
- Published: New York : Vintage International, 1990
- Published: Alexandria, Va. : Time-Life Books, 1981, c1947. Together
with: Ms Famous: Introduction. In: Nabokov, Vladimir, 1869-1922. Bend
sinister (With additional materials)
- Published: New York : H. Holt, [1947]
Would that be an answer to your concerns or have I misunderstood the
problem?
I think your example works if there is a whole/part relationship
between Bend sinister and the introduction, but not if the
introduction is coded as "embodied in" the manifestation. In the
latter case you have:
W Nabokov.Bend sinister
E Bend sinister. English
M Bend sinister. NY, vintage, 1990
M Bend sinister. Alexandria, T-L. 1981
M Bend sinister. NY, Holt, 1947
W Ms Famous. Introduction
E English
M Bend sinister. Alexandria, T-L. 1981
Do a title search on "Bend sinister" and you retrieve the introduction
if it has been coded in this way.
I'm not sure what you mean with "title search" here. Do you perhaps mean
a title search on manifestation level? That's not what I have in mind. I
rather imagine a system like OCLC's FictionFinder (by the way: will that
ever go online again?), which at the first step presents not
manifestations, but only works.
If the title search is only applied to work entities, than the system
should only retrieve W1 (Bend sinister) in my diagram. After choosing
the English language expression of the desired work, all linked
manifestations would be shown. (Note: The introduction would be found as
well if the title of this work had been recorded as "Introduction [to
Nabokov, Vladimir: Bend sinister]" or something like that. In that case,
the user would indeed first have to choose between the novel itself and
the introduction. That might be an argument against such additions to
the title.)
Sorry I can't follow your argument any better than this (which has
probably not been satisfactory). We must have got our wires crossed
somehow.
In the end I think I am agreeing with you that we need a whole/part
relationship that connects the contents of manifestations to the
manifestation. The current whole/part relationships in FRBR may not be
sufficient, or it might be that we aren't clear about how they work in
RDA.
Yes, I think it's obvious that we can't do without a whole/part
relationship _somewhere_. The question of where is still open to debate,
I think. My proposal is to have it neither on manifestation nor on
expression level, but modeled as an aggregate work with separate parts.
Heidrun
--
---------------------
Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Faculty of Information and Communication
Wolframstrasse 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
