[open-bibliography] Is FRBR too complicated?

Mon May 24 09:24:19 UTC 2010

> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:open-bibliography-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf 
> Of Rufus Pollock
> Sent: 24 mai 2010 11:42

> 
> I've been trying to understand / implement FRBR and have 
> constantly felt the domain model here is poorly thought out 
> especially in now it relates to non-book media (e.g. 

I feel that poor FRBR model needs a defendant :-)

> recordings). As a concrete example:
> still can't work out where you distinguish a "work" from an 
> "expression" -- e.g. is this new translation of Shakespeare's 
> Hamlet into French a new expression or a new work and how to 
> I associate it to Shakespeare's Hamlet work/expression ...)

Come on ! It's a "cultural convention" proposed by FRBR. Mutatis mutandis, as we "agreed" to
consider the main creator of a movie the director and not the screenwriter.

To make the distinction between work and expression, my rule of thumb is: who claims rights. If only
the creator of the derived entity claims copyright, then it is a new work. If the creator of the
"source" entity claims also some rights to the derived entity, it is a new expression. Sometimes
works :-)

>   * "work (/expression)": the artefact in abstract semi-platonic form)
>   * "manifestation (/item)": something concrete e.g. book 
> with an isbn / a (set) of recordings on a CD etc (of course 
> it is useful to distinguish, as FRBR does, between the 
> individual item and the set of all such items e.g. the 
> print-run as represented by the ISBN).

I do the same with tangible entities. I do not see much use for "expression" in the "Mona Lisa"
case. But for texts, music ...

Cheers,

Dan

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Dan Matei, director
Institutul de Memorie Culturala [Institute for Cultural Memory] (CIMEC)
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