Re: Next Gen Catalog and FRBR

I agree with Allen, but I want to be clear that nobody is suggesting
_abandoning_ authority control for IBDb approach. You're not, right, Allen?

I mean, it should go without saying. But every time someone points out
some of the _good_ things that they like about a non-librarian IR tool,
people for some reason seem to assume they are advocating _everything_
about that tool, including the less desirable things.

There can be a way for us to get the advantages that we see in other
tools, _without_ giving up the advantages in our tools too. I firmly
believe this is possible.

Jonathan

MULLEN Allen wrote:
> Thanks for sharing what you think about IMDb and FRBR, Ted.  Here is
> some feedback on your example:
>
> OCLC #51857325 for Shaft
>
> 245: Title is simply The shaft
> Added title (246 field): Down
>
> This film is distinguished, for all but the least knowledgeable
> searcher, by director and technical staff, actors and actresses, year of
> release, etc., all of which are accessible via keyword from IMDb or the
> MARC record.  If a user lacking any of that knowledge searches IMDb, the
> title list is pretty informative:
>
> Down (2001)
>  aka "The Shaft" - USA (video title)
>
> There is no uniform title field in the MARC cataloging record (though it
> is, on the whole, a pretty good catalog record), so while a good FRBR
> implementation *could* relate all of the VHS, DVD and soundtrack
> manifestations, this is lacking in the cataloging universe at present.
> In addition, IMdB provides a far richer bed of information on *many*
> aspects of the film than a conventional cataloging record, both for
> discovery via keyword search retrieval as well as exploring various
> dimensions of the production, composition, and appraisal of the film.
>
> I dunno, Ted - I'd say IMDb is a pretty good search tool as well as a
> rich resource for casual film viewers and researchers.  If it linked to
> local library holdings and was placed side by side with an OPACs, it
> could give us a run for our money.  8-)
>
> Allen Mullen
> Eugene Public Library
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
>> [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Ted P Gemberling
>> Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 11:26 AM
>> To: NGC4LIB_at_listserv.nd.edu
>> Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Next Gen Catalog and FRBR
>>
>> Thomas, I think FRBR is somewhat overrated. It may be good
>> someday, but I think it needs quite a bit of work.
>> Particularly Group Three has some conceptual problems, and I
>> understand there are also problems fitting serials into the
>> FRBR framework. I'm not convinced that at present it's really
>> much of an advance over what we do now. We can show
>> relationships between different manifestations of a work via
>> uniform titles.
>>
>> I love IMDb and use it all the time. But as a catalog, it's
>> not perfect by a long shot. For example, if you look for the
>> 2001 film The shaft (a horror movie about elevators), it's
>> very difficult to find. There is of course the 1971 crime film
>> Shaft and a remake of it in 2000. They have distinguished
>> those two versions by putting dates after Shaft in
>> parentheses, but evidently, they couldn't figure out what to
>> do with the
>> 2001 film, other than give it its "alternative title," Down. I
>> don't remember ever seeing Down anywhere on the DVD case for
>> that film. So as sophisticated and helpful a tool as IMDb is,
>> its controlled vocabulary is rather rudimentary.
>>
>> I'll admit I'm not a media cataloger, so I'm not sure what a
>> librarian would do with the 2001 Shaft, either. But I assume
>> there is AACR2 rule or Rule Interpretation that would
>> distinguish it from those others without having to resort to
>> such a mysterious title.
>>        --Ted Gemberling
>>
>>
>>
>
>

--
Jonathan Rochkind
Sr. Programmer/Analyst
The Sheridan Libraries
Johns Hopkins University
410.516.8886
rochkind (at) jhu.edu