[open-bibliography] FRBR examples

Thu May 27 13:02:15 UTC 2010

On the subject of the FRBR model, I think discussions have reached—and
may have started at—a point of diminishing returns. What's needed is
*doing*, and doing in a community.

LibraryThing introduced a FRBR-like model more than three years ago,
and the community has spent the last three years working together
through all the edge cases and difficult problems, establishing
precedents and secondary rules. We've changed the model and the
features that it triggers. We haven't finished, but we're farther
along, and much farther than any one person or even group of people
could have come before we did it.

This sort of rules-plus-conversant-tradition is what undergirds many
rule-bound but human institutions (law and religion come to mind). One
shouldn't expect library science to operate differently.

Tim