RDA, BIBFRAME, and the FRBR Library Reference Model The
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Where Are We Headed? RDA, BIBFRAME, and the FRBR Library Reference Model The technical services world is in a state of chaotic transformation at this moment, and undoubtedly librarians are feeling the growing pains. Three major initiatives in the cataloging field are driving the revolution, and their adoption will mean big changes in the way that catalogers and metadata specialists approach their work. Given the many projects, models, and papers being disseminated and discussed within the library community, the question becomes, what will library cataloging and metadata creation look like in the next decade? Where are we headed? And what knowledge and skills will we need to function in this increasingly digital and mechanized world? The metadata and data management initiatives that are currently being developed, both in and outside the library realm, are numerous, but at the moment three large projects are currently underway that have the potential to be the most transformative for those providing metadata and cataloging services in libraries. The first is the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)’s Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) Library Reference Model (FRBR LRM) (Riva, Le Bœuf and Žumer, 2016) which seeks to harmonize the various FRBR models into one. The second is the ongoing development and reworking of Resource Description and Access (RDA), the set of rules used to standardize bibliographic description for world-wide access and sharing (RDA, 2010). The third is BIBFRAME, an encoding system which will eventually (probably?) replace the current MAchine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) record as the fundamental repository for bibliographic data (Library of Congress Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative, 2012a). These three initiatives are very closely entwined, and heavily depend upon each other for implementation. The opportunities that these new tools present are truly paradigm-shattering, while at the same time are creating no small sense of unease and discomfort in the library world. RDA and FRBR In 1997, IFLA released a study, Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records (FRBR), which identified four major user tasks (Find, Identify, Select, and Obtain) and developed an entity-relationship model to describe the bibliographic data needed for users to carry out those tasks. (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, 1997) In an entity-relationship model, things (entities) are linked together and described by the relationships between them (Figure 1): <insert fig. 1 here> The model was deliberately based on techniques used to describe relational databases (IFLA 1997, p. 9) because of their structured approach to data, but the model is also quite useful in designing database systems that can take advantage of semantic web applications and machine-readable data. The FRBR model for bibliographic data was completed in 1997 and amended through 2009. Because FRBR dealt mainly with bibliographic data and entities, two accompanying models were developed to describe creators and subjects (Functional Requirements for Authority Data, or FRAD (IFLA, 2008), and Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data, or FRSAD (IFLA, 2011)), which defined their own entities and the relationships between them. In the FRBR model, the highest level entity is the work. The work represents the intellectual product of a creator or creators, such as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Petit Prince, or Anton Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B Minor. Each of these works is expressed in different ways; Saint- Exupéry's book can be expressed in English, or French, or have different translators, for example. Dvorak’s concerto can be performed by YoYo Ma, or Miloslav Rostopovich, or can be in score form. These are different “expressions” of the work. Both work and expression are abstractions, and do not exist out in the real world. When the score is published or the piece is recorded, the work is manifested. This manifestation is what is cataloged for libraries, where a surrogate record for the manifestation of a work stands in for the actual work itself. An item is a single exemplar of a manifestation--this is the copy that is held in particular library, archive, museum, or repository. Each work also has a creator or creators related to it, as well as subjects. In figure 2, the WEMI entities and the relationships between them are illustrated. A work may have many expressions, but each expression may only realize one work. A manifestation may embody more than one expression (consider a bilingual edition of a novel, for example), and an expression may have many manifestations. A manifestation may be exemplified by many items, but an item can only have one manifestation. (IFLA, 1997, p. 13-14). <insert figure 2 here> In the early 2000s, the Joint Steering Committee, an international body of representatives from national libraries, recognized the need for cataloging standards that were more robust and responsive to the digital environment and the new digital materials that were being produced. They intended to update the current Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR2), which were seen as outdated and not responsive to the new online environments in which librarians and users were operating. AACR2 had been developed from still earlier guidelines based on traditional cataloging suited to card catalogs and analog environments, and bibliographic records reflected these practices. Although there were many theoretical underpinnings to cataloging instructions before RDA, such as those laid out by Charles Cutter (1904), S.R. Ranganathan (1931), and Seymour Lubetzky (1953, 1960, 1969), there was no logic model underlying cataloging practices. AACR2 and other cataloging codes provided the standardization needed for the sharing and dissemination of bibliographic data, but were based mostly on traditional practice, rather than an examination of what elements were actually required in a bibliographic record for a user to find, identify, select, and obtain the material he or she needed. In 2005, after a period of comments on an early draft of what was then called AACR3, it became clear to the Joint Steering Committee that a complete overhaul, rather than a simple reworking, of the standards was needed (Joint Steering Committee for the Development of RDA, 2005). AACR2, the cataloging rules that preceded RDA, treated different types of bibliographic resources separately, requiring the cataloger to identify the kind of resource to be cataloged (volume, sound recording, electronic resource, etc.), and then searching in separate chapters for the rules to describe it. When RDA was released in 2010, it presented cataloging rules in a way that was entirely new to catalogers and librarians who were used to AACR2, much to the consternation of some in the field. RDA was fully compatible with the FRBR model, and what part of FRAD and FRSAD was available at that time; its organization, however, was revolutionary. RDA uses the FRBR model to break down bibliographical description into the fundamental entities of work, expression, manifestation, and item. The type of resource being cataloged is no longer of primary interest, as RDA recognizes that there is no fundamental difference in the information needed to describe something, regardless of the form. All resources have, or may be supplied, a title. All resources have a date of production, publication, manufacture, or copyright, or may be described by the lack of such. All resources have a kind of extent, be it in dimensions in centimeters, number of online files, or minutes of film. By recognizing these “functional requirements” needed for description, the FRBR model compacts the extensive sets of individual rules that had to be given for each form of resource into a much more generalized process, as directed in the instructions RDA presents. RDA’s FRBR-inspired organization was a fundamental shift away from the traditional methods of cataloging that had been in use for at least a century. Although fully compatible with International Standard Book Description (ISBD) punctuation and description (e.g. the addition of a space-slash-space after a title and before an author’s name in the following: The Grapes of Wrath / John Steinbeck), RDA no longer requires it. RDA is potentially useful, therefore, to other cultural heritage institutions for their own resource description, since it does not require a particular punctuation scheme or method for presenting resource data. RDA is also, intentionally, not tied to MARC or any particular coding format, allowing for the development of new systems for encoding bibliographic data that are both more user friendly and are able to leverage new developments in web applications, machine-actionable data, and the Semantic Web. RDA was fully implemented by the Library of Congress in March, 2013, with Library and Archives Canada, the British Library, National Library of Australia, and Deutsche Nationalbibliothek following later that year. Testing of RDA previous to release, however, demonstrated that much of the benefit of RDA was going to be unrealized as long as MARC remained the encoding format for bibliographic data. The MARC Encoding Format MARC, the data format used to record bibliographic information in machine-readable form, was developed to transfer card catalog information into a digital format. In fact, MARC was originally developed to convert data on Library of Congress cards into a machine-readable form for printing and distribution to libraries who subscribed to the Library of Congress card service (Avram, 1975). Many fields in MARC reflect ISBD, and are presented in a way that mirrors how data was recorded on cards in card catalogs. As technology improved and the internet became ubiquitous in the 21st century, the billions of MARC records, representing the collective holdings of tens of thousands of libraries, became “siloed” in the invisible web, the part of the internet lost to web crawlers and search engines, as the MARC format is not compatible with internet protocols. MARC encoding heavily relies on matching strings of text data.