Tim Spalding wrote:
>
> I think the great problem with FRBR is that it's binary. Pre-digital
> library systems were all binary, mostly because of physical
> limitations. So, something either is or isn't on the shelf, or part of
> the subject "Love Stories." Relationships between books aren't binary.
> Sometimes it simplifies things to make them binary—but I think most of
> the benefit is for the catalogers mind, not the users. Users can
> understand that books relate to each other in complicated, shaded
> ways.
>
>
To me, it's not so much that it's binary, but it does seem to be based
on the assumption that everyone will make the same decisions about which
box to put things in. The envisioned 'new record', which the RDA folks
call 'relational/object oriented' (as if that means anything at all!),
depends on each data element being definitively assigned to one and only
one FRBR level. The problem is that the envisioned system isn't going to
be able to handle a case where you call something a work and I call it
an expression, or I want to put the music arranger at a different FRBR
level than you do -- instead, everything breaks. Which means that, like
the library systems we have today, it will be very fragile since it will
strictly depend on everything being the same everywhere. THAT's what
doesn't work -- that fragility is a weakness of our current way of doing
things. It's not that we should embrace chaos, but we need the
flexibility that comes with deciding to work with a degree of ambiguity.
Library catalogs have a rigidity that I think greatly frustrates our
users -- which gets back to the 'did you mean...?' issue. There's no
forgiveness in our systems, especially when 'different' is always
treated as 'wrong.'
It's just basic dysfunctional family dynamics. damn.
kc
--
-----------------------------------
Karen Coyle / Digital Library Consultant
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://www.kcoyle.net
ph.: 510-540-7596 skype: kcoylenet
fx.: 510-848-3913
mo.: 510-435-8234
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Received on Tue Feb 17 2009 - 15:47:37 EST