Thomas,
No, the scope of the report emphasized the primary relationships, but the
nature of the entities cover what is already covered by other relationships,
such as existing whole-part relationships. There are already many conventions
for situations when individual entities interact with collective entities, and
they are still valid even when primary relationships are explored and
enumerated.
This quote from the report shows that all the common situations for collections
within a single resource apply to the analysis of aggregating expressions:
"A distinctive characteristic of collections is that the individual works are
usually similar in type and/or genre such as a collection of novels by a particular
author, songs by a particular artist, or an anthology of a genre of poetry."
http://www.ifla.org/files/cataloguing/frbrrg/AggregatesFinalReport.pdf
I'm sorry, but I just don't see that. As Karen said earlier in this
thread (with respect to a different matter, though): "I would love to be
proven wrong about this." But I'm afraid that I'm not.
Your quote comes directly after the bit where they define an aggregate:
"an aggregate is defined as a manifestation embodying multiple distinct
expressions." (p. 3). This means that the only aggregate entity they
accept is a _manifestation_. There is no room for an aggregate _work_ in
this model. The heading for the paragraph in question is "Aggregate
collection of expression" which also makes it clear that they talk on
manifestation level here, not on work level. It's put a bit more precise
in the proposed FRBR amendment on p. 6: "Collections are aggregates of
independently created expressions published together in a single
manifestation such as journals (aggregates of articles), multiple novels
published in a single volume, books with independently written chapters,
musical CDs (aggregates of individual songs), anthologies, etc.)." So,
again, I believe this means that there is no "collection as a work" but
only a "collection as a manifestation".
This also fits in with the explanation given about the aggregating work
(not: aggregate work) involved in the "Understanding FRBR" example (p.
13): "The aggregating work encompasses all of the intellectual effort
required to identify the topics to be covered, solicit the authors, edit
the manuscripts, write the introduction, compile the index and other
related activities." It's clear from this that the aggregating work is -
as I tried to explain yesterday - rather the drawing of a line around
individual works, but not the sum of the individual works themselves.
Therefore, in this model there simply cannot be a whole/part
relationship between an aggregating work in this "glue" sense and an
ordinary work contained in a collection.
Note also that in Appendix B, a part of the members of the Working Group
seem to present a minority vote. Whereas in the section about modeling
aggregates in the main body of the report, there is no mentioning of
whole/part relationships, the "dissenting" group members _do_ talk about
whole/part relationships and they also give a completely different
definition of an aggregate (which they call an "operational
definition"), which is not limited to the manifestation (indeed it goes
even further than the Group 1 entities, but this is yet another matter):
"an aggregate entity is the "whole" in a "whole/part" relationship with
two or more components (parts)." (p. 19). So with this definition, you
can easily have an "aggregate work", and this is in accordance with the
traditional view of aggregates and the way we all seem to think about it.
You are, of course, absolutely right in emphasizing that with respect to
things like e.g. collections, whole/part relationships have been around
in actual cataloging for a long time. All the more amazing that the
report (in the main body of the text) completely ignores this!
I do wonder, though, whether the Working Group thinks that it might be
possible to have an aggregating work in the "glue" sense and an
aggregate work in the traditional sense together at the same time. Maybe
this possibility is hinted at in 3.4 of the proposed amendment ("The
structure of the model also permits Group1 entities to have components
or parts."), Still, I doubt that this is what they really had in mind,
and personally, I'd find this a very unsatisfactory modelling.
By the way, I find it rather absurd to have to speculate about the "true
meaning" of the report in this way. It's not a theological tract from
the Middle Ages, is it? Moreover, I'm fairly sure that all the members
of the Working Group are subscribed to this list and probably following
this thread closely. So I really would appreciate it if someone would
clarify the matter. If my interpretation is wrong after all, I'll leap
for joy.
One last point: There is no such thing as a "FRBR police". So, of
course, we can all just go on using whole/part relationships as a means
of modeling aggregates, simply ignoring the model of the Working Group.
I expect this is exactly what will happen if the Final Report is
approved as is (which I sincerely hope it won't).
Heidrun
--
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Prof. Heidrun Wiesenmueller M.A.
Stuttgart Media University
Faculty of Information and Communication
Wolframstrasse 32, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany
www.hdm-stuttgart.de/bi
