On 2/27/07, Tim Spalding <tim_at_librarything.com> wrote:
..
>
> What I want to argue for—and I'll stop after this, since you've heard
> it too often—is that FRBR partakes of the same all-or-nothing "binary"
> logic that much of the rest of library data does. I think this is out
> of step with reality and with how information is organized and
> searched today. "Show me the editions of Hamlet" is a question to
> which a FRBRized OPAC can provide no relevancy ranking. "Here's the
> Pop-up Hamlet and here's the Folio edition—take your pick!" This isn't
> how we think, and it's very much not how search engines work. It puts
> FRBR on the wrong side of an epochal shift in how data is processed
> and understood.
There's no reason a FRBRized OPAC shouldn't provide clustered and
relevance ranked results to the query "show me the editions of
Hamlet". Clustering based on mode of expression (script, performance,
popup-book) and language of expression and relevance rank based on
availability (to the searcher), popularity, "quality" of annotation,
... would probably be useful.
> I don't think I misunderstand the model. The Hamlet example shows that
> you must create a concept of "the work Hamlet" over and above all real
> and existing copies. It exists only as an ideal. It exists or doesn't.
> And it's children are all equal.
The FRBR model doesn't dictate how the children are ranked in a
display- it just defines "set membership" and relationships between
sets (such as "derived from"). A single "manifestation" may also
include several expressions of different works, for example a "the
complete works of shakespeare" would be a manifestation containing
many expressions, including one of the work of "hamlet", which of
course is very useful for someone seeking a copy of the hamlet - maybe
the best/most accessible copy for them is in their local "complete
works".
> This is certainly a clean and
> powerful model, but it doesn't do everything we'd want it to do. And
> we err when we forget that it's just a model.
I certainly agree with this! But that is our error, not the model's.
FRBR is just a simple idea, a step in the right direction. Don't treat
it as prescriptive but as a starting point.
> Certainly rigorous models can be helpful, but the idea that "The
> digital world demands a rigorous formal data model" and cannot "work
> on an implicit, sloppy, ambiguous, un-stated model like we de facto
> have now" is where I get off the bus.
>
> This is very much the crux of the matter. As I see it, the web works
> on just the chaos you dismiss.
>
> Search for Hamlet on Google, and Google does not consult a database of
> ideals for the Platonic "Hamlet" and then check all its children. It
> has no rigorous data model. The pages about Hamlet are assembled and
> sorted statistically drawing on the content and actions of millions of
> pages and people. It works on sloppy, ambiguous data.
And neither should an FRBR'ized OPAC restrict its search results to
the Platonic Hamlet, and FRBR "says" nothing to suggest it should.
All it does facilitate/suggest, is that rather than presenting a list
of 500 more-or-less-related editions of the Platonic Hamlet
(displaying nothing to reveal their relatedness) interspersed with
results from non-Platonic hits ("Village, hamlet and field : changing
medieval settlements in central England"), it would be helpful to
group the Platonic Hamlets together and allow the user to explore that
set if it's what they were after - show the different forms, formats,
languages, availabilities of the Platonic Hamlets, show their
relationships to each other, rank them by popularity, availability,
etc.
> Libraries have failed to play their due part in the great web
> conversation in part because their models do not work like the web
> works. Things like links, regular people and statistics are not
> traditional elements of library data. So, rather than putting
> themselves wholeheartedly on the web, they've tried to cut special
> deals with search engines. Rather than let linking sort out relevance,
> they have stuck with OPACS that nobody can link to and which have no
> social existence. They have stuck with models of "aboutness" and, with
> FRBR, "belonging" which are binary, not rich.
I agree wholeheartedly will all of this except the implication that
FRBR isn't a significant step towards enrichment. Library system
models are being increasingly exposed as impoverished, but FRBR is one
baby which shouldn't be thrown out with bath water (not that it's in
many library baths - it appears to have been been stillborn or
abandoned at birth).
Kent Fitch
Received on Mon Feb 26 2007 - 15:03:41 EST