Re: [RDA-L] FRBR user tasks

[Bernhard Eversberg]

Kevin M. Randall wrote:




> The FRBR user tasks are nothing new at all, and I maintain as always
> that they are essentially timeless and universal.

They are, but only for the known-item search and its corollaries.

I understood Jim Weinheimer as implying that the known-item search
is - and probably always was - rather a very narrow concept and not
one that would match a large number of user queries. For "they" are
mostly not after specific documents but after facts, figures, formulas
and advice - in a word: answers. What they then conduct can be called
a subject search, but we must not at once assume that all they need
is the right LC subject heading. And this type of search is not
adequately addressed by FRBR. There, and in RDA, subject search
appears only as an afterthought.

Sometimes - but by no means always - they know that what they need may
be found in one particular book someone mentioned to them or was cited
somewhere. Then and only then can FRBR machinations flex their muscle
and help the patron along.

But even known-item searches nowadays are not what they used to be.
We now have many more criteria that can be used for such searches,
not just those of the old card days: just names and titles. The most-
used criteria, keywords, are not really covered by AACR nor RDA
nor FRBR. Let alone new criteria like ToC data, abstracts, user-supplied
tags. They come along as new additions to OPACs and their treatment is
left to the vendors or implementers. Far too much and ever more is left
to them, and ever narrower is thus the realm of what cataloging rules
cover. They keep constricting themselves to the timeless criteria of
scholarship, but even scholarship these days benefits a great deal from
new ways of searching and new features of search devices. The catalog
must be viewed in new ways, since its potential goes far beyond what
card catalogs could achieve. Their timeless and universal fucntions
are now only a fraction of a much larger spectrum.

Ironically, what Google is best at is the known-item search. For what it
essentially does is the matching of character strings in clever ways,
and the better you know some peculiar character string and the surer you
are that it must appear prominently in what you are looking for, the
sooner will you find it via Google. Subject searches, the quest for
answers, are an altogether different matter, as we all know. Whether
Google knows it well enough, I'm in doubt.

B. Eversberg

[RDA-L] FRBR user tasks (was: Alternatives to AACR2/MARC21?)

[Kevin M. Randall]

I thought that Robin Mize had written an excellent response to Jim
Weinheimer, but once again Weinheimer insists that the FRBR user tasks are
not relevant.  I'm wondering now if maybe the problem is that Weinheimer is
not characterizing the user tasks accurately.  He says:  "I don't believe
that the user tasks are to 'find, identify, select, and obtain' 'works,
expressions, manifestations and items.' I really don't think that is what
people do today, I don't think they particularly want to, and perhaps they
never did."



As I have written previously, the FRBR user tasks as stated in FRBR (page
82) are:



. to find entities that correspond to the user's stated search
criteria (i.e., to locate either a single entity or a set of entities in a
file or database as the result of a search using an attribute or
relationship of the entity);

. to identify an entity (i.e., to confirm that the entity described
corresponds to the entity sought, or to distinguish between two or more
entities with similar characteristics);

. to select an entity that is appropriate to the user's needs (i.e.,
to choose an entity that meets the user's requirements with respect to
content, physical format, etc., or to reject an entity as being
inappropriate to the user's needs);

. to acquire or obtain access to the entity described (i.e., to
acquire an entity through purchase, loan, etc., or to access an entity
electronically through an online connection to a remote computer).



Users aren't expected to go looking for "works, expressions, manifestations,
and items" per se.  Such are merely the concepts proposed for use in
organizing the information to facilitate the user tasks.  They're
behind-the-scenes stuff that the user doesn't need to be conscious of.



So the FRBR user tasks never come into play when someone searches Google?  I
*strongly* beg to differ.  Let's say I'm searching via Google for Lesley
Gore's CD "Ever Since".  I want to:



. find an entity that corresponds to my stated search criteria (I
enter the search terms "lesley gore" and "ever since", hoping to get results
matching my search terms)

. identify an entity (I want to make sure I find Lesley Gore's
entire CD called "Ever Since", not just the song "Ever Since" written by
Blake Morgan with recordings by both Blake Morgan and Lesley Gore, not
Sayaka's single "Ever Since", not an album by the group "Ever Since")

. select an entity that is appropriate to my needs (I want to find
the CD, not MP3 files)

. acquire or obtain access to the entity described (I want to check
it out of a library; or I want to buy a copy)



I'm not at all denying that a case can be made (perhaps even convincingly)
that the way FRBR proposes to address the user tasks is not the best way.
Maybe the work/expression/manifestation/item hierarchy is too cumbersome, or
perhaps even all wrong.  But please let's not throw out the baby with the
bath water.  The FRBR user tasks are nothing new at all, and I maintain as
always that they are essentially timeless and universal.



Kevin M. Randall

Principal Serials Cataloger

Bibliographic Services Dept.

Northwestern University Library

1970 Campus Drive

Evanston, IL  60208-2300

email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

phone: (847) 491-2939

fax:   (847) 491-4345